When the world turns upside down and goes absolutely
crazy, what do you do and how do you survive?
You have to play the hand you're dealt. You have
to use everything you have at your disposal right
now. That's what Ultraman Omega Episode 2 talks
about. This is MJ with Going Ultra, and I'm talking
about the Ultraman Omega dub. I'm going through
the second episode now, after having gone through
the first. Thankfully, all 12 of the first episodes
are released on Amazon Prime and other platforms.
I'm watching them on Amazon Prime or Prime Video,
whatever you call it. And it's been a great experience
so far. The dub cast is really good. Ayuma sounds
really good. I like the mix of Kosei and Soroto,
who just got his name this episode as well. And
it's interesting because, just again, I've tried
all this before, so I won't belabor the point,
but it's really nice hearing the dub, hearing
the Ultraman show in your own language. That's
how all these Japanese fans get to experience
it. And other fans in other countries where it's
getting translated as well, or dubbed as well,
are getting to enjoy it in their own language.
And it's nice as an American, as an English speaker,
to get that same experience. So anyway, it's
really cool, and I'm really digging it. I'm really
happy that they've done this. It's really great
that it's out there on Amazon. It's cool. It
has a new series badge and everything like that.
But anyway, I'm here to talk about the episode.
And this kind of theme of how you deal with a
crisis is interesting to me. Ayumu is a biologist.
She tells Kosei that. And she's saying that basically,
I guess the government or somebody is scrapping
together this team to investigate what's going
on. And the episode starts off in a really cool
way, which is it's her. with her iPad, you know,
taking images of the giant kaiju. Grime, I believe,
is the first kaiju that Omega killed. And she's
just taking pictures, you know, looking at its
corpse. And it's interesting. The mix is, it's
like a very low music mix. Like, I'm not sure
there's any background music really going on.
There's kind of... I almost thought my music
was not, or my volume was all the way down, which
it was a little low, but it wasn't all the way
down. It's like a very naturalistic mix of just
showing you this woman looking at this monster
in this place where it had died, where Ultraman
killed it and its corpse lay. And it offers,
it's funny because it's like, you know, there's
certain shows and certain genres that have, you
know. deconstruction in them like for example
digimon tamers is you know what if digimon digital
monsters were real and they came into the real
world and how cool would that be but also how
scary would that be how rough would that be what
would that mean and i'm not saying that tamers
is specifically a deconstructionist show but
it kind of has that edge to it and there are
other things like what if superheroes were real
or what if you know monsters were real or whatever
and those shows, movies, comic books, whatever,
address those issues in the way that their author
thinks they should be addressed. And I feel like
this is doing that to some extent. It's a little
bit like a junior version of it because Ultraman
is made for a younger audience, but it's showing
this ultra falling from the sky and these kaiju
coming to Earth and existing in a way that...
it's a planet where they've never had to deal
with this before. And now people are having to
learn how to deal with it. And again, like Ayuma
says, she has to play the hand she's dealt. You
know, the government is just scrambling to make
this work and to make some sort of Kaiju response,
which I originally thought, well, this is going
to be interesting because will there be a Kaiju
response team formed? Will there be an equivalent
to the SSSP or Guts or whoever? SCARD, one of
my favorites. Or will they just have everybody...
stand by and watch and observe and say i guess
we're gonna have to rely on this ultra man and
this ultra man alone um that was early on the
show has gone on further i haven't watched the
subtitled version of it so i think that there
are things going on that would contradict that
or that i could i could speak to but i don't
know what they are and i didn't look into it
so i kind of want to go into this as fresh as
possible and just enjoy the dub as its own thing
and take it as its own experience and that's
what i'm doing but i'm thinking now like it just
feels like There could be a human response to
this. Kosei asked Ayumu what will happen if the
giant were captured. And she said, I would think
he'd never see the light of day again. Meaning,
kind of like how in Tamers, Takato was scared.
He was scared. He was afraid that if Gilmon were
captured, he'd be taken to a lab and experimented
on. So he wanted to hide him and things like
that. Which is a very reasonable response to
very good fear for a kid to have. I think it's
interesting that that point is being raised to
the child viewers of the show, the kid audience,
that, yeah, if Ultraman were caught because they
don't know who he is or what he is, they would
want to investigate what he is and experiment
on him or whatever. And I just think it's kind
of like an interesting, like, real thing to throw
at a kid. And I'm wondering, like, why that's
being thrown at the audience. And I wonder if
it has more to do with, like, an insight for
later in the series. You know, what are they
going to do with the corpse of Grime? Are they
going to study it and oil down its DNA and try
to figure out how to make their own, you know,
kaiju to fight other kaiju that might appear?
I think that's an interesting possibility. I
think that could be some foreshadowing that's
being done, but maybe not. It could just be them
showing what does it look like to have a world
that has no monsters, no kaiju, and no Ultraman,
and then all of a sudden, boom, here they are,
causing issues and, you know, the world has to
react to it. and that could be interesting in
and of itself and i'm fine with that and uh i
guess i'm talking about a thematic level uh to
get back into the spectacle real quick because
this is a you know entertaining pension hero
show and we want to watch these transforming
heroes do cool stuff i enjoyed the fight um i
spoke about this a lot before my previous review
which i might like here as well um so you can
check out what i thought then versus what i'm
saying now And yeah, I really like this like
lazy, languid almost style that Omega has. And
it's really interesting how he fights and what
he does. I actually really have a lot of appreciation
for this now. It feels like he's grasping the
enemy. He's grasping inside about the enemy.
And just having that being done so simply, like
there's no on -screen effects. There's no targeting
reticule. Although this was really cool when
he did that and the POV was behind his hands
for his beam attack. That was super cool, which
I've talked about previously. But just seeing
it again, I thought, oh, it looks so good. And
I'm pretty sure they've done that in other Ultraman
shows. But it's fun here. And we didn't get that
at all in Ark, I don't think, or in Blazar. So
Blazar didn't do his until the very end of the
show, I think. So yeah, that was a lot of fun
to see. But yeah, I mean, it's good spectacle.
I enjoyed the fight. I like this big, you know,
chonky amphibian guy, this big newt guy. Although
I feel like there's a little bit of a contradiction
or there is a little bit of a failure on this
idea that kaiju are new to the planet, which
is that Ayumu speaks about this amphibious, you
know, newt -like kaiju as if it's been there
for a while. Like, oh, it was hibernating in
the river, but the river level went too low.
because of the dams or levees from like a hundred
years ago. And now it needs to be somewhere where
there's more water. So it's going to look for
a place that has more deeply established or it
has higher water that it can use. And they showed
its nest where it was. And it almost implies
that the nest was there in the path of the old
river. And then the levees, when they rerouted
the river and then built up this river in this
other place and also the dam behind it to hold
the water back eventually, you know, 20, 30 years
ago, whatever that was, that that stuff, had
an effect on this kaiju but if the kaiju are
all coming to this world because of omega ostensibly
like that's that's i think it's pretty clear
to kids like oh omega came to this planet then
there's kaiju so and this planet doesn't know
what kaiju are so it must be that omega somehow
brought the kaiju with him right uh then why
would there be a kaiju who had been hibernating
in that area in the mountains and why would the
diversion of the river from one area to another
cause him any trouble and cause him to come out
of his nest and also I mean, I can understand
that if a kaiju is an animal, which some people
argue that you should not look at kaiju as an
animal, but I disagree. That's at least how the
show, that's the worldview of this show so far.
But if he's this animal, then why is he nesting
if he doesn't have a mate? Or maybe he's just
working. If he came from the stars with Omega,
if he fell at the same time and got dropped in
there and then, you know, whatever, started nesting,
maybe he... is building a nest because that's
what his animal instincts are telling him to
do and i don't know i just i find it very interesting
i i definitely like this naturalistic approach
to kaiju and like looking at them as animals
but as animals that can't uh exist in our world
potentially because just they conflict they contradict
the world because they're uh invasive species
let's say from another planet um i think that's
very interesting i also like to touch that that
the public was not aware of the poisoning that
this thing was doing that this uh dugrid or dugrid
was doing and that um soruto had that uh notion
he knew about it he could he remembered it from
before um and then also i really like the detail
of um like ayuma telling him to get it away from
the water to weaken it because it's a new it's
an amphibious thing and then also the idea that
he had to just destroy it outright in order to
stop it from poisoning a lot more stuff was really
cool. And I thought like, this is interesting
because kaiju are supposed to be like these friendly,
cute kind of things, even though they're monsters.
And there's like a, there's like a weird relationship
that kaiju have with, that the audience has with
kaiju. They like them, but also they root for
the Ultraman to destroy them every week. And
this one, we really got to see why it needed
to be destroyed like that and just taken out
instantly. And you don't always get to see like
a really good justification for that. uh and
i felt like that felt very naturalistic like
look if you really had this invasive species
that was doing this you would eradicate it so
that it wouldn't cause harm to people and i just
think it's interesting i really like ultra because
it feels very thoughtful and it feels very like
not low sakes um sci -fi but it feels like a
low grade sci -fi meant for kids um in order
to like kind of i don't know teach a way to look
at the world and to think about the world and
to think about things in kind of a more nuanced
way while still having this great action and
this fun excitement, which is really enjoyable.
So that's pretty much all I have to say about
this. I want to keep these reviews short so it
doesn't take up a bunch of your time or my time.
And anyway, I'll have some shorts talking about
this episode. I'm going to think about this a
little further. I'm going to have some reactions
to it, some reflections on it as the day goes
on. I'm sure it'll stick in my head a little
bit and I'll add to it. And you can check out
those insights as well on my channel. Keep coming
back to Henshin Inspection for Going Ultra and
all my other... writer coverage or all my other
tokusatsu or henshin hero coverage i'm also covering
zets currently so you can check that out there
should be a playlist linked somewhere here that
you can follow through for that and uh what else
oh i'm also talking about tokusatsu or henshin
hero stuff as a series in general um how it works
with toy sales and things like that there was
a really interesting article that came out that
i have part of the shirakawa the uh Big Wig and
Toe, or A Big Wig and Toe, a producer, big executive
producer guy, participated in and he was talking
about how Zyuranger almost failed and how they
were thinking Zyuranger was going to be the last
Super Sentai and how that got delayed for 30
years or so. And, you know, why that happened
and what that means and what the future of, you
know. the project red is for them and how metal
heroes has to come back and he doesn't want super
center to come back for like a decade so that
it has this chance to refresh so i'm going to
dig into that eventually i'll i might do that
um for this uh Henshin Reflection series, Heart
and Soul. I might throw that in there real quick
because I think it's something important. It's
going on right now that we need to discuss if
we want to really understand and have a good
insight into how these shows work, how the toy
sales work for them, and how that affects the
storytelling and different things like that.
Because I'm really interested in like the long,
I'm interested, I'm so fascinated by the fact
that Super Sentai went for 50 years almost continuously.
That's insane. And it's laudable. I talk more
about that in my Heart and Soul series, but I
just, I also want to analyze this. industry insight
um coming from one of the producers and fold
that into my my ongoing coverage and discussion
of of that whole topic so anyway until next time
folks this is mj with henshin inspection signing
out until next time take care and be well