Engine Inspection presents Going Ultra. This is MJ, I'm an author, I'm an artist,
I'm an analyzer. You can find all my work at MJMunoz.com. Join me as I talk about
Ultraman Blazar, episode 25, the ones who embrace the earth.
Ah, so this is the final episode of Blazar, it's the finale. What did you think of how they won?
Are you satisfied with the ending? I'm gonna talk about that and more in my notes.
So here we go. Objectively there are a lot of issues that need to, or that didn't
need to be here, that are here due to pacing, or I should say poor pacing. And I
really do, this is basically following up from last episode, that all this stuff
was crammed into episode 24. And there's things crammed into episode 25 as well.
And there's even things that are super unclear that don't quite make sense.
One of them being, let me see if I made this in my notes earlier. One of them being, is it a fact
that Earth Geron is made from the scrap of the V-99 ship that was shot down in
1999, so 23 or 22 years ago, in Blazar's timeline? Is that the truth? Is that what
actually happened? I'm pretty confused by that. And it was funny, I read something
on the wiki, because I was trying to figure this out and it's like, yeah this
full episode, the episode was so long that it was like a movie length and they
had to cut it down. I don't know what a movie length is in Japan, is that
35 minutes? Is it 60 minutes? Is it 88 minutes? I don't know. You know, it's very
common for movies to have been around 80 minutes for like a full length runtime.
I think that's the feature length runtime. Whatever Snow White is, I'm
pretty sure is like the minimum required runtime for a film or a movie, whatever.
So anyway, these pasting issues really made it a mess and it's very
confusing how it was put together and I don't know if they had so much content that
they had to cut content and therefore things that would have helped it make
more sense weren't there and maybe there was just a quick mention of, oh yeah,
Earth Geron is made either entirely from or maybe just its like supplemental
weapons, the mod 3, mod 4, mod 2 stuff I guess, are developed from the scrap of
the alien thing they shot down. It'd be like if Area 51 held alien tech
that the United States shot down in whatever that was, the 40s and we had a
super robot that we had created or whatever and then we're pulling stuff.
It's like, is the super robot made entirely from the alien tech and you're
just using more and more alien tech to improve it as time goes on or
only the weapons that you're adding on to it are made from the
alien tech and the rest of it's stuff that you've developed on your own? I don't know,
it doesn't really make sense and it kind of seems like even Earthy, you know, this
advanced AI might be partially made from the alien tech as well but again it's
very unclear. It's all very confusing and I don't know why they couldn't have
told us about this like two or three episodes ago. Yeah, I don't know why. I
don't know why it had to happen like this. Dovashis fears caused all of this
to happen basically. He shot down the alien craft, he was in command and he
made the decision to shoot it down and because of that the V-99 thought that
humans were an enemy and they were like, their planet's dead and they're looking
for a new home or something like that and they were just exploring and when he
saw them over Japanese airspace I guess he decided to shoot them down and I mean
it's kind of interesting an idea that fear is something that separates people
and it makes conflict and it creates problems and like fear is a path to
destruction but I think we already covered that in Ultraman Z. It was
definitely done in a different kind of more aggressive more pronounced way. It's
more subtle here and I think it's done well here but just we've already seen
that so I'm not quite sure why we're revisiting that especially with Taguchi
being the head of the show I don't know why cover that ground again other than
it's familiar territory it feels good it feels right. Also the message there kind
of seemed to be something about how violence and fear and aggression or
aggression based in fear... Aggression and violence based in fear is bad which
again seems like kind of what Zett was saying but then we had this dramatic
swing between Earthgeron and Blazar not fighting at all against Varalam and
then and then we had as soon as the fleet had left the V-99 fleet
disappeared through their wormhole I guess or their wormhole drives or warp
drives or whatever it was then they went ahead and they just went crazy they went
him on him and yeah they totally killed him and and it feels a little bit odd
because the violence initiated against the V-99 people caused them to send
these specific space kaiju including Varalam to attack the earth and to
destroy it or take it over I'm not sure if they wanted to live on earth after
they killed humans or what we don't even know what they look like it's also
making me think that the kaiju that they sent are like bio weapons or maybe
they're no they're basically bio weapons because they're launching them at Earth
to cause havoc which is a concept I really love but that is like kind of that
I love that concept on its own kind of divorced from the context here so like
I don't really know that's kind of funny um it's kind of funny because then they
just like really go hard to kill Valoran or Varalam and it's like a good thing
and a cool thing and everybody's happy about it of course he was gonna destroy
the earth but it's almost it's kind of funny like why wouldn't the V-99 like
kill Varalam himself they just left the earth to potentially be destroyed by
Varalam and you would think if like they're sad because their home
planet got destroyed they wouldn't leave and like they wanted to they left
because of this concept of future they wanted to leave a future for themselves
and for the earthlings and instead of helping them secure that future they
just nope out of there and then they're left to fight the kaiju which is you
know more exciting to see but I don't know it's kind of strange kind of
strange so yeah like I said there's a lot here that kind of doesn't make sense
and and that's unfortunate definitely bringing it down although I kind of like
it anyway seeing all the like blazar exclusive kaiju plus the demaga mom and
baby who aren't they're from Ultraman X save the day it was kind of cool like
there's all these bio bombs that Varalam is somehow able to produce and they
slide off its tail very nastily but then the kaiju like dug them they dug
trenches or they dug under the locations of these bombs and then they
ate the bio bombs and then eating the bio bombs somehow stopped them from
being able to explode anymore which is cool I mean like it capitalizes on the
to gangular thing from before and you've got Delta Delta and all is helping as
well let me see the list of kaiju from this episode you so to gangular was
helping as part of the earth defense force or the kaiju defense force of
earth but then there was demaga who again who's not exclusive to the show or
didn't start in the show there's Zugu gone Delta doll and I guess that's it
yeah a little bugs playing guy demagus from X and to gangular from last episode
I feel like there's one more blazar origin kaiju that was helping out but
whatever so anyway that's that's like a fun thing I like that a lot so we see
mama and baby demaga again but like we still have no explanation of how that
golden cocoon thing saved them and where it put them if it dug them under ground
or what and like still none of that really makes any sense but this reminds
me again of Ultraman Zet where they the kaiju were like attacking and going
crazy kind of because they sense the threat that the d4 weapon was on board
ultra zero and they wanted to stop that threat so in a similar way the kaiju
here are doing actions to stop this threat from outside and I kind of gets
done better here even though it's harder to trace and detect because it had more
buildup and it was more of a slow burn and it was seeded earlier and then we
got to see you know we get to see how it manifested here so I do like that
although you know where the demagus go and how does that work is that a power
he has to tunnel people underground I don't know I guess and then like why is
going to suddenly not in pain or injured anymore or at least it doesn't seem that
way is transforming into blazar a threat for him now or not and if it's not then
how was that resolved and why was that even a thing if you're just gonna wrap
it up with pretty much no explanation I mean again like I said it kind of adds
an interesting twist to it that his life is threatened by being Ultraman blazar
but also his life is threatened by being Ultraman blazar like I said before
because he's in you know death matches with Kaiju and death matches well because
well people die when they get hurt or people die when they get killed
so he's got that to watch out for and that could definitely happen being an
ultra fight in Kaiju so anyway interesting strange kind of odd so yeah
I don't know I don't get how that was resolved all that said though I like the
emotion of it all I like the emotion of all I like the emotional wrap-up all of
scarred being together looking at the you know being in silhouette against the
Sun referencing the blazar that they're hoping to be 99 will find a home beyond
and like this there's like this I know hopeful feeling in this chance for peace
and like being is very cozy and warm and very open-ended I loved it's funny
Gento's last line is I'm home and he says that to his wife while holding his son
and he smiles we get a free stream of him which is a lovely image and just like
that feeling of him being home and like that's the resolution to everything is
really nice and I like it but I don't know that it feels earned and like I
was hoping he would tell his wife that he was blazar that he was fighting all
this stuff even though I kind of feel like maybe she already knows but it's
just it's kind of a strange way to wrap things up again it feels cozy I like
it it's nice but like him lying to her this whole time and to his son and
everything it's just like I don't know I don't know how I like that they don't
know how I like that at all and like is this ending open-ended so they can have
the blazar movie and have it tying directly to the cannon and whatnot I'm
not really sure haven't seen the blazar movie I think it's gotta be out by now
but just oh it's gonna have an American release ahead of us hitting you comic
on back in July 4th or 5th whatever that was or 20 something anyway it doesn't
matter we're in August now and it's out there but I'm gonna have to watch that
hopefully they release the dub of it maybe if they do like a blue rail by
that and watch that and talk about it but yeah I'm just like I'm kind of
confused and and not satisfied with how things went down in this finale but I
still like it and I still enjoyed it and it felt cozy I by the way I loved and
I'm a sucker for callback or throwback stuff like this I love that the ring
and the bracelet once again they empowered him and he was able to do the
classic Ultraman beam array attack and that's how he killed Vero on at the end
and that really was satisfying to me I love that I loved all his red and blue
streaks lighting up and giving more energy to the thing and super cool I
definitely like that so like I know that like bit of nostalgia baiting got me but
like more than that and it did help for sure but more than that it was like the
satisfying emotional conclusions for everybody that I like to see and I
don't know Doba she's out Haruno is in probably he's back in no problem
general Haruno and he's gonna be fine Emmy I imagine like I can see kind of a
trajectory going forward for all these characters to some extent and I like
that and I like to live a future but I just I don't like how like slapdash this
ending was and how sloppily things came together I still like the emotional
impacts of stuff has on it so I don't know I'm not entirely satisfied what
about you what do you think blazar overall this thing what do you think about
the blazar family what you think about blazar overall I would love to hear
people's thoughts on this and anyway I'm definitely doing better I really hope
the Ultraman Academy books the old trick yeah the ultimate Academy books are a
lot better than this those are gonna be geared more towards kids why am I
bringing that up because I'm writing stuff I'm writing stuff for kids I'm
writing tokusatsu inspired stuff I'm writing stuff that's like very
tangentially tokusatsu related with magical bugs battling monsters but I
have a plan for either one longish book or three shorter books that all tie
together with a giant hero a camaraderie like lone hero and then a team of heroes
who transform with this mysterious power and fight something from outer space as
well but I plan to do a lot better with mine and have it make a lot more sense
and have things be more clear while still having mystery and having things
to discover and things like that because I think those are important and those
are compelling parts of storytelling but it's just just not quite there yet so
anyway there's a lot to do with Ultraman yet because there are so many things out
already and there's so many more things coming out I do plan going sticking with
Ultraman I've got Ultraman Arc that I'm gonna be doing weekly coverage of so for now you can
find me there doing that I strongly insist that you like and share this to
help me make more of it but it's more the more popular is the more time and
energy I'm gonna sink into doing things or invest into doing things I should say
as far as covering Ultraman is concerned I want to do other stuff but I need to
build up my subscribership and then I will work from there also please
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making this stuff and eventually when I'm done with my books I can tell you
all about them and you can check them out and hopefully enjoy them as much or
more than you're enjoying these shows that we're talking about because I'm
trying to make them in the spirit of those shows make them really cool make
them a lot of fun make them very you know focused on character but also on
cool action and spectacle and anyway I asked that you help me with that and I
asked that you leave comments and interact with me on this because I've got a lot
more Ultraman stuff to talk about a lot more to talk about a lot more general
stories to talk about which I'm talking about over on my other channel fortress
fiction which is linked here but again you can always find everything at the
website mgmo news.com until next time folks take care be well the Ultra I hope
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this has been a story over everything production