This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer. Find all my work at MJMunoz.com.
Engine Inspection presents Gelming Ultra. This is a little teaser I have for Ultraman
Blazer. Ultraman Blazer is coming out in July 2023. I was curious as to why the Ultraman
Z dub, which I have dubbed Ultraman Zet, was being released and was coming out at all.
I mean starting in April 2022. And then I was wondering why it's being released in such
rapid succession. Two episodes a week, I believe it's Saturday and Sunday, every week starting
the first or second week of April. That's all of the month of April. So it's a 25 or
26 episode show, right, if I'm remembering correctly. And that would mean 13 weeks. 13
weeks is roughly three months, right? So if we go from April, which is the fourth month,
we go one, two, three months forward. That's the seventh month, which is July. So Ultraman
Z, as far as I know, is one of the most popular recent shows. It's the most recent show though.
Yes and no. But it's definitely one of the most popular recent shows. Honestly, I dropped
off of Trigger and I think Decker is done and over. And I didn't watch that one either
because Trigger didn't really catch my fancy and I got busy and was focused on other things
in the meantime. However, the dub of Z, or Zet rather, has brought me back in and I'm
watching it and I'm very excited. And all of a sudden I see this news about Ultraman
Blazer coming out and I'd seen little rumblings of it here and there just because I'm tangentially
involved. I don't keep up on the community as much as I could because, you know, I've
got, well, anyway, because of good reasons, I'm busy with other things and that's more
my focus. So anyway, but I love these stories and, you know, I'm kind of sharing them with
my kids a little bit and we're watching them and having a good time. So anyway, you know,
I'm very excited to watch Z again and I was actually thinking about how am I going to
get my kids to watch this? I guess I'll read the subtitles to them or I'll wait till they're
older or whatever. And then here we have the Zet dub. We've watched the first five episodes
of it and it's been great so far. But moving on to Blazer, Blazer is coming out in July.
It's having a worldwide release day and date. Japan is getting it in their native language
and I'm going to get it in my native language, which is English over here in America. So
I'm really excited about that. We're going to have, well, like I said, day and date.
And I think if the dub of Blazer is as good as the dub of Zet is, I think it'll have a
lot of success. I think it will go over very well. I'm enjoying, well, as you say, there
was a new character in the most recent episode of Zet that I watched and I was wondering
how they would handle that character. And I think they handled that character very well.
It was very nice. They did a good job. And again, since Tsuburaya is such a classy tokusatsu
production, I predict that the Blazer dub will be handled very well. And I'm just, I
continue to be impressed by how good of a job they're doing at making the international
appeal of Ultraman even stronger. And why do I argue that having a dub makes the appeal
even stronger? Well, because you don't have to be able to read. So not only do you have
to read, you don't have to read, or not only do you not need to be able to read, you don't
need to actively be reading in order to fully comprehend the show. And while these shows
are monster bash-a-mups, there's also some depth and some interesting things going on
with storytelling. Otherwise, frankly, I think I'd be bored and I would move on and not spend
any more time on them than I have to to watch them. Or I wouldn't even be watching in the
first place. Like I said, I've chosen to skip Ultraman shows before and it's something I
could do again. But you know, Zed is so good and Blazer looks so interesting that I'm honestly
interested in it because it seems like it's taking a unique approach. Part of what threw
me off of Trigger was that it's kind of like these Disney live action remakes that they
do of their animated movies. There's something going on where I know Z had a lot of Tributey
type stuff going back to the original Ultraman. It was kind of like a new launch show, kind
of like, you know, from the Commenrader world, kind of like Black or Kuga or Double or Zero
One, that kind of thing. So this is a new start to this franchise. You can watch this
if you don't know anything else about it. It's going to be cool. It's going to have
some of the classic stuff in it, but it's going to do its own new thing and have its
own identity, which I think is good. But, you know, I believe Decker was a Dino remake
and Trigger was a, I don't know what remake, but I just, I don't have that attachment to
the older series. And like I said, just something about Trigger, just I didn't enjoy. So I stopped
and when I knew Decker was going to be a, it is Dino, right? My Dino remake, whatever,
when I knew it was going to remake, I thought, oh, okay. So it's kind of a similar thing
where this is another remake. I may not be interested, so I'm just going to pass by.
But Blazer, as far as I know, isn't a remake of anything. And I find it very compelling
just on the aesthetic of the Ultraman himself. A lot of the problems that I have, or one
of the key problems I have with Ultraman, and this is partly out of ignorance and I
guess newness overall to Ultraman and partly just my own personal feelings about it, is
I do think there's a lot of sameness to the designs of the Ultraman and I'd like there
either to be more variety of color or maybe more distinct head shapes or something to
differentiate Ultraman from each other. The color time of being consistent on all of them,
I think is great. That's fine. The red, the silver, that's fine. The sleekness overall,
I'm also okay with that. However, I just want a little more variety. I don't know if
Zett having all that blue on him is part of what attracted me to him or made him more
palatable or not, but regardless, that's an issue I have. It's a stumbling block typically
for me, is these designs being looking too similar to each other and I can't really
tell the difference between them. By the way, I do think that Gamma Future from Zett looks
just like Trigger or at least one of Trigger's forms and that kind of blows my mind that
these forms have such a weird design sense to them where they just kind of, again, run
into feeling identical to each other and I hope Blazer avoids that. I'd personally like
Blazer to have no forms and just have maybe cool weapons and accessories that he can use.
That would be pretty neat. But anyway, moving on to Blazer's aesthetic, he's gotten a symmetrical
head. The blue eyeliner type look on one side, or it's really on both eyes, it's very cool.
It reminds me of the old Japanese art, the wood print with the feudal type or samurai
characters or whatever with the heavy kabuki eye makeup type thing. If you've looked at
anything personified with Goemon in it, like that kind of look it has to it and then over
his left eye, that blazing out into this, I don't know what you'd call it, that flip
of, it's not hair, but you know what I'm saying, that blazing from his left eye looks really
cool. I like how the color timer has this swirl covering it in part and I like that
the red and blue lines on him, they're small and they're almost like, they're not pinstripes
but they're these much smaller stripes and there's a lot more of them and they're all
over the place. That red and blue, you know, thin lines scattered all over his body gives
him a bit of a chaotic feel. The swirling gives an aggressive edge and I think that
asymmetry just kind of, it takes away some of the smoothness of the design and gives
it an edge honestly and I don't like things that are dark. In fact, like again going back
to Kamen Rider, people love Goemon in part because it's so dark. I hate it. The darker
it got, the more I hated the show and the less it felt like Kamen Rider to me but I
won't detract from that. So I don't really like dark things. I like these things that
are made for kids to be for kids. I like the edge in them. I was surprised in the dub
actually to say, to hear Haruki say something to the effect of like, what the hell kind
of pilot am I if I can't do this or that or whatever in the episode where his, well
in episode five I'll just say that. I don't want to give away spoilers. Anyway, but that
surprised me and I'm not 100% opposed to that. I would prefer it to be a little more toned
down especially because it's a children's show but you know, then again, you know, how
are most children hearing people talk but then again, you know, this is a fictional
controlled environment so you can control the way people talk. Anyway, the aggressiveness
in the edge of Blazer does excite me and entice me and I think it looks really good. It looks
really pleasing. That monster looked very exciting. I don't know what that thing was
but it looked really cool. It almost made me think of a Mecha maybe that somebody had
made which that'd be interesting if there were people making either outright, you know,
kaiju mimicking Mecha or maybe like a Mecha machine hybrid or something. I don't know
if that's something that's been done in Ultraman again because I'm not an ultra encyclopedia.
I'm not ultra aware and ultra well versed in all of Ultraman. Anyway, so what else is
there to say about Blazer? Oh, I really like the simplicity of the brace. It's cool that
you just throw the, you know, there's the Blazer brace and there's the Blazer stone
and you just set the stone in there and it has its own thing where I can imagine what
the mechanism is but it basically, you know, clicks into place and opens and closes over
it which looks cool. It feels a little aggressive again and then you hit it from the side and
then it activates. And yeah, that thing looks really simple and cool. I like the idea of
him just having the brace and the stone that he sets in there and then he can, you know,
transform into Blazer. And oh, getting back into, so I talked about the aesthetic of him.
The guy, the guy who was out of the suit, out of the armor, out of the helmet and like
picked up a phone or something like that and they said his name was like, I don't know,
Kimura something or I didn't catch the whole name. Is there a go? Doesn't matter. We'll
see it later. Is that the guy who becomes Blazer? Cause he looks different from, he
looks a little, well, he looks different than, he looks a little younger there than the guy
in all the tactical gear with the helmet on who we see with the brace or who transforms.
I like that that guy looks older and I'm surprised frankly that he's older or that he, you know,
seems to be older. And I think it's a little bit exciting to have a bit of an older protagonist.
Again, the guy in Trigger seemed really young and like, I don't know, naive maybe his character
wasn't so great. Haruki is very, he's young, but he's very earnest and like he understands
his limitations and who he is. But he also, he's, you know, martial arts expert and he
has competent core competencies that he, you know, utilizes in his work. And it's just,
they're a very different personality, the two of them, which is good. That's good that
they're different. And this guy almost feels a little bit, forgive the, forgive me putting
it this way, but maybe he feels a little bit more like Hebi Kura. And I think that's interesting.
A little more seasoned, a little more experienced and not necessarily like he'll have his full
complete attitude, but at least the sense that you get from Hebi Kura in the early episodes
of Z I can see, like I get similar vibes from this guy. I'll just put it that way, which
is simple, a simple way to put it. So that's kind of exciting. I want to see something
a little different each time. I'm fine with there being the science patrol or the defense
force or whatever. And it being, you know, similar in that way, every universe that we're
in with these different Ultraman have a similar setup. And then, you know, it's too much for
the people to handle alone. So then the Ultraman comes in and makes everything better, saves
the day, whatnot. And that's fine. I just want each group of people to feel distinct
from each other. And we didn't get to see any of the rest of his support team so far,
I think, especially if the guy without the helmet on is the same guy as the one who jumped
from the plane with the helmet. And that was cool. Him jumping from the plane, there being
night fight, just the, they picked the best shots. They picked the best shots to make
this thing look, I don't know, epic, very serious, very cool. Like it's going to be
super dynamic. And I'll just wrap up real quick. I thought Blazer's fighting style looked
really, he looked really dynamic. He looks really fierce. You know, very martial artsy,
very composed in the daytime shots. But in one of those nighttime shots where he's leaping
and he's cocking back his right fist for a punch, he looks like, I don't know, like absolutely
unhinged, like overflowing with power and like ready to demolish whatever this Kaiju
is he's fighting. And that's, you know, that's really exciting. It's just visually, it looks
very compelling. And I was impressed by that. So yeah, I'm excited for Blazer. I'm going
to be watching Zett all along and working on releasing, you know, my reviews of Zett.
And then as soon as, as soon as Blazer comes along, I will happily talk about that, you
know, time permitting. So anyway, yeah, I would love to hear your commentary or your
thoughts on Blazer. If you think it looks good, even if you look fierce, if you think
he looks edgy or angry or anything like that, that I described, or if you see something
different, I'd love to hear your perspective and for us to have a little bit of a conversation
about this because that's what it's all about, right? Anyway, so that's it for me. I'm going
to go. I'm going to go. I'm going to go ahead and get out of here. Thank you for your time
and attention. This is MJ signing out. I hope you enjoyed that. Go to MJMunoz.com to leave
any questions, comments, or other feedback you might have. There you can find all of
my analysis, art and fiction. I cover books, tokusatsu, comic books, anime, and more. Look
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