attention inspection presents going ultra this is MJ I'm an author I'm an
artist I'm an analyzer find all my work at MJMUNOZ.COM prepare yourself for
hard-hitting Ultraman discussion and analysis I say Ultraman blazar here but
of course I mean Ultraman Ark episode 17 sorry it's very clear throughout the
body with the episode that I'm talking about Ark but yeah blazar Ark I
promise I wasn't crying he just had a bloated nose anyway Ultraman blazar episode
17 it was a lot of fun we got to see the death and the farewell of this
wandering Zongildis ghost guy and it's really interesting we get a he's a kind
of combinator backstory he was originally created by or revivified by
by this great samurai no Daimyo Infernal Dark Shogun there we go so that
guy he was originally revivified by him and set with a task of doing whatever
evil stuff this guy wanted done but his samurai spirit was so strong that it
overcame the mind control of the corruption of this guy and he was able
to turn against him and hunt down his fellow brother resurrected ghost kaiju or
whatever and that's super interesting super fun kind of makes me wonder where
he got his human form I kind of think the idea of him not showing up in his
human form this episode makes sense because probably the idea would be that
as he's losing his power because he's not getting fed the dark energy that the
rest of the ghost kaiju by getting fed from the Infernal Dark Shogun he is
losing some of his power and he's fighting these battles you know going to
die and it's he's got like some awesome samurai lines like a samurai's path is
to find his end or something like that and it's it's fantastic you know going
you're going into battle knowing that you're going to die that is this is the
way of the samurai which automatically made me think of samurai shambles and
that would be great it'd be I might have to cut something also him talking about
the shadow world made me think of another good gag that would be a lot of
fun to do if I had more time anyway but yeah I'm actually gonna look into the
writer and director of this episode because I hadn't checked and I should
double check for last episode basically my spoiler review is that I really
liked this episode I thought it was really good okay so on episode one we
read it is so the light of fear was written and directed by Tomonobu Koshi
and a real director and it was written by Toshizo Nemoto and the director is
the same Tomonobu Koshi and the writer on this episode is Takao Nakano so let
me pull up their credits and look at them at the end I'll go over all that
stuff because I don't want to belabor it too much and I have a bad habit of
doing that so let me talk about the actual episode first and then we'll go
into the credits and talk about these people what they've done so anyway I'm
I mean my point is and I think I've said it pretty clearly I like this episode a
lot it was really cool I do have some issues though which I will bring up but
the person story the human story in it was really great I really enjoyed it I
really like this idea of Zanguil wanting to find somebody to replace him
someone to pass on his demon slicing technique to and that somehow Ark was
able to be that guy I guess he kind of passed it on to Blazar as well maybe but
he explicitly says Ark is inheriting it from him and I think the Zanguil episode
in that was only one episode whereas it's two and it's kind of creeping into
a third which I find interesting and I like the totally different approach
they're taking with this like it almost feels like they had a big plan to do
something with this character and that's a lot of fun it's very unexpected but I
know this one it feels like there's a plan with this guy and it feels like I'm
not sure I'm not sure what it feels like but definitely feels like there's a plan
and it feels like this is kind of like a samurai passion project that somebody is
working in here because even the other one within feelings so old-school and I
think we found out that Gento was in the period dramas and stuff like it all
I don't know it just kind of blends and it creates like it's a little pocket
universe within Ultraman that you've got Zanguil and he's saying like just as
imagination is infinite there are infinite Ultraman everywhere doing
whatever like that's a really fun idea and it's a cool idea I like how it plays
into the show and I guess you must know about Ark's imagination theme and Yuma's
imagination power I don't know how he knows if he heard him say something if
it was you know shown explicitly in some way I don't remember now but
regardless it's a pretty neat that he's picking up on that theme and kind of
talking about it the writers the creators behind this are playing with
that idea and using it as like a bridge to the audience you know that to connect
the character from this other show to this show and I think that's a lot of
fun I think it's a really cool way to go about it and it's nice that there's this
thematic resonance is this thematic blending there's this thematic you know
attachment or bridge between the two of them and I like that a lot so I thought
that was very cool and I hope the action was really good for the most part the
suit performances like Zanguil got to be a more committed character in this
episode which was kind of funny kind of unexpected and I enjoyed that it kind of
humanized him or helped me get to know him as a character better I know in the
other episode he was having coffee with Gento and spending time with him like
that and that was really neat but like it felt more melancholy it felt more
dramatic there whereas here it feels funnier but then at the end we get this
really great you know farewell as on Gil scene which is super cool and it feels
really good and it feels really like meaningful and pointed and kind of
painful and like wistful and and almost nostalgic like the color palette is
nostalgic and it feels like Shu and Yuma are like really connected deeply with
this guy and it really hurts them that he's going away because he's not just
disappearing or vanishing he's dying at least that's what they see that's what
we see and I love just the way the shot was composed and everything that's how
the scene was composed it's really beautiful very emotionally resonant and
I really like that so basically I like the episode it's hard to recommend the show
continues to be good and I'm really glad I'm still watching it and I'll go and
talk to you about the people involved with making the episode but before I do
that I do want to criticize a little bit the craziness and the ups like the
scaling up of the threat they defeated like four Kaiju and then there were like
hundreds of Togano-R and somehow Ark was able to use his Galaxer, Armored
Galaxer or whatever to split himself into multiple forms and create a giant bow
and all this stuff it was a little over the top like you couldn't have like a dozen and he
kills them all quickly I would have appreciated that a lot more but yeah it
went a little ridiculous like they went hard on on telling the Galaxer and the
galaxy armor and stuff it just
to be clear it doesn't really work for me so I'm saying anyway so that's too
bad that's too bad but I'll talk about the creators now of this episode the
main credit dude guys Tomonobu Koshi was the director of both episode 16 and 17
and I'll just read you from the wiki the Ultraman wiki since 2005 Koshi has
served as an assistant director for Ultraman Max and has continued to
participate in the production and shooting of the Ultraman series since
then starting in 2019 Koshi started as a series director with his participation
in Ultraman Taiga and began to become one of the main directors participating
in series after the 2020s so he's assistant director on Max Mibius Saga
fight Ginga S the movie Showdown the 10 Ultra Warriors
Ultraman X assistant special effects director he did that same job for
Ultraman X the movie okay makes sense and then Ultraman Orb he was assistant
director as well as Cheed Rube or Red and Blue or RB or Taiga and Ultraman Z he
was director and assistant director and he was director on two episodes
specifically the lion's cry and belly of rock he was assistant director for
Ultraman Taiga and he directed two episodes Smeary destruction and raging feast
Ultraman Z he was assistant director Ultraman Decker
oh you already said that okay fine Ultraman Z he was assistant director oh I'm sorry
that's Ultraman Trigger episode Z which was a movie I believe he was assistant
director assistant director and directed three episodes of Ultraman Decker
episodes 7 11 12 for Blazar he was the director assistant director for four
episodes Planet of Music parent and child the towering terror and light and
flame interesting and then for arc 7 8 which is a full moons answer internet
Kennegan and then 16 17 light of fear and demons lights and meter sword so
full moons answer is the one with mama big mama Barma hunger and in a can be on
is the one with the carrying on where they go on the internet and do all this
crazy crazy stuff with the direction and then light of fear in demon slice the
meteor sword which we just saw are like very interesting and kind of more
traditional although they do have some of the wilder elements in them too so
that's an interesting spread of episodes that he's done so I just want to give
credit where credit is to oh he's also appeared in Z decker and blazar which
is fun which is very fun he appeared in insurance hero in the commercial as one
of the guys running away from the gremlins kaiju I guess now for the
writer of episode 16 this is sorry Toshizo and a motto and according to
what he again is Japanese who matter who has a long career in the anime industry
has served as a writer and series compositor for the ultimate series
during the new generation era career nemoto studied in the film and imaging
department at Osaka University of Arts and to become a scriptwriter during his
time there later through an introduction by Shinji Ishihara of studio aux he
entered the industry and began working as a writer for local animated projects
or productions since 2017 nemoto has served as a writer for the ultimate
series taking on the role of series compositor for ultimate decker in 2022
he's frequently collaborated with director Masayoshi Takesue on several
episodes so he has worked on Ultraman Zero the revenge of Belial Ultraman
Z, writer of two episodes Ultraman Z the movie Ultraman Rube wrote two episodes
specifically Ultraman Z wrote two episodes as well he wrote the last hero
that was a great one that was one that features um ace is coming back and he
for Taiga he wrote four episodes this five here but it says he wrote four
episodes so maybe he co-wrote one I don't know he okay the Ultraman Trigger
episode Z he was a writer on that and then he wrote one two three four five six
seven eight nine like nine oh it's his seven episodes of decker he wrote the
decker finale journey to beyond okay great two episodes of blazar night of
tripping in six insects in battle in the sky which he was paired with
cocheon which is interesting and then he wrote episodes five and six of Ultraman
arc so doing pretty good he was a serious composer on water horizon which
is pretty cool and also a macross Delta in 2016 I didn't see that don't know
about that then we move on to the writer for episode 17 Takao Mikano and again
I'm reading from the wiki he's a Japanese film director and screenwriter
he has served as writer and series compositor a writer and series compositor
for the Ultraman series for me to generate having many written many
episodes and some filled in novels okay so Mikano again his career mainly
writing and directing tokusatsu adult videos such as metomic action and
Spyro's on later picking into non-adult TV series and film he's written for the
Ultraman series since 2014 as and was a serious compositor alongside other
others for some series so operation mystery second file operation mystery
mystery file Ultraman Ginga s he wrote three episodes Ultraman Ginga s the movie
he was the writer Ultraman X he wrote four episodes Ultraman X the movie he
wrote Ultraman Orb he wrote four episodes as well as the orb movie I
wrote three episodes of Rube the Rube movie Ultraman Taiga he wrote five
episodes Ultraman Z he wrote three episodes including first juggling here
comes the spacebar and belly of rock good stuff he wrote the Ultraman Taiga
the movie new generation climax Ultraman Deku he wrote three episodes Ultraman
Blazar he wrote one episode betwixt morn and dusk which was a good one and then
he wrote Ultra blazer oh the movie Tokyo kaiju showdown interesting scarred
break room he wrote that ultra red arc he's just credited as a writer here and
it's where his books are considered literature alternate orb Chronicle he
wrote Ultraman Rube novel the blue eyed girl whose name is gray Ultraman Taiga
novel two years story or blue shadow or and blue shadow and then jugless jugla
Chronicle I really like juggler from a certain show and the fact that he comes
from another show before them and then others a book about him that sounds
pretty cool that's that's a lot of fun anyway and then last but not least
J. Michael Tatum is an American voice actor who voices Zangiel in the English
dub of Ultraman Blazar and now in Ultraman arc as well and I love his vocal
performance it's fantastic I don't know what else he's done voice
director ADR director and scriptwriters so he's probably done a lot of stuff and
I'm impressed by his voice performance so you know good for him pretty
fantastic pretty fantastic work he's doing so anyway yeah you might want to
check out what other stuff he's been in and that's about all I have to say I
really enjoyed his vocal performance he really brought a lot of life to it and
it was a lot of fun so again this was a really enjoyable episode for me and I
enjoyed talking about it and the people who worked on and maybe come to life and
made it shine for me so I'd like to hear your thoughts on this episode and arc as
a whole if you're interested in throwing that at me right now
I hope you enjoyed that please remember to like share and subscribe I invite you
to comment ask questions and share your thoughts with me it's always more fun
when you're part of the conversation until next time be well and be ultra
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