1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,480 This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer. Find all my work at MJMunoz.com. 2 00:00:05,600 --> 00:00:11,960 This is the review of Ultraman Zet Episode 4, which I'm calling Ultra Charged, and 3 00:00:12,480 --> 00:00:17,660 I have a lot of topics this episode, and I'm gonna try to speak about them all very quickly 4 00:00:17,800 --> 00:00:21,920 so that the runtime of this episode is closer to 10 minutes than it is closer to 5 00:00:22,080 --> 00:00:25,920 15 or 20 minutes, because I'd like to keep the episodes a little bit shorter. Before I go on, 6 00:00:25,920 --> 00:00:33,120 I'd like to do a little ad for myself, which is to say that I have all sorts of podcasts going on now on MJMoneyos.com, and 7 00:00:33,600 --> 00:00:35,200 you can 8 00:00:35,200 --> 00:00:40,520 subscribe to the podcast feed for audio only, or you can watch the videos, and the show notes are always gonna be on 9 00:00:40,520 --> 00:00:45,320 MJMoneyos.com, and then in the show notes will be linked everything you need for the RSS feed for... 10 00:00:46,040 --> 00:00:49,800 Right now I have it for just a couple places, but I'm gonna add more as time goes on. 11 00:00:49,800 --> 00:00:55,160 I have to manually add a few of them, but there's a couple that are automatically there. If you're a Google or Android user, 12 00:00:55,160 --> 00:01:00,360 that's great, because you could just get the RSS feed and put it in any podcatcher that you have on your phone, 13 00:01:00,360 --> 00:01:02,840 or you could do it through Spotify or Amazon. That's who I have 14 00:01:03,560 --> 00:01:06,760 the podcast published through right now, and 15 00:01:07,440 --> 00:01:11,480 yeah, that's what I have, and also I'm including in the show notes my 16 00:01:12,640 --> 00:01:18,200 Ultraman inspired children's picture book story or manuscript that I've written, and it's a rough draft 17 00:01:19,560 --> 00:01:22,880 for a couple reasons. One, it needed to be worked on at the time, 18 00:01:22,880 --> 00:01:29,880 but two, I've changed it since then and upgraded it to be part of a whole universe of Tokusatsu inspired children's picture books, as 19 00:01:30,240 --> 00:01:32,960 well as a like short novel, 20 00:01:33,760 --> 00:01:35,760 or short, like a long short story 21 00:01:36,320 --> 00:01:41,160 that contains all these different characters and stuff in it, and I think you'll like it, so please check that out, and 22 00:01:41,680 --> 00:01:45,120 yeah, without further ado, I will go into talking about 23 00:01:47,280 --> 00:01:51,480 Ultraman Z Episode 4, which features collectible kaiju parts, spinning straw, 24 00:01:51,480 --> 00:01:54,600 into gold, and monster metals, so here we go. 25 00:01:55,440 --> 00:01:59,000 I find it interesting that coming from a hard sci-fi or science fiction 26 00:01:59,880 --> 00:02:03,400 perspective, you had budget cuts from the last episode and talking about 27 00:02:03,680 --> 00:02:08,480 securing budget to make things better, and then here in this episode you have Yuka lamenting 28 00:02:08,800 --> 00:02:12,960 Tobacco that the higher-ups, whoever the brass are, over 29 00:02:13,480 --> 00:02:19,880 storage, refused to follow her designs specifically, and therefore they used a bunch of different manufacturers 30 00:02:19,880 --> 00:02:26,480 to make Windham, and it makes Windham run less efficiently and take five? 31 00:02:26,600 --> 00:02:34,240 No, I think it's four days total to charge its batteries for five minutes of active duty, which is crazy. 32 00:02:34,880 --> 00:02:42,160 However, it is reasonable that this sort of thing would happen because I come from the United States of America, and here, good old Uncle Sam 33 00:02:43,240 --> 00:02:45,240 loves his war machines and 34 00:02:45,240 --> 00:02:51,240 Congress people who, I think, yeah, Congress is the whole thing, it's both House and Senate, anyway, yeah, 35 00:02:51,360 --> 00:02:58,240 Congress people will make sure and fight for them to have bits of a weapon, its platform, or 36 00:02:58,760 --> 00:03:04,840 you know, a plane or a tank or whatever built in their city or their state, so their constituents will be happy that they got them, 37 00:03:04,840 --> 00:03:08,880 you know, a job building weapons in their area, and 38 00:03:10,280 --> 00:03:12,280 basically because it's so 39 00:03:12,280 --> 00:03:18,160 messy and you have people who work for weapons factories going into the government, you have people who work for the government going to 40 00:03:18,160 --> 00:03:21,480 weapons factories, which you could call that a conflict of interest, I think, very fairly. 41 00:03:21,760 --> 00:03:27,240 They spread it all around and they have, I would think, different companies in different states that all contribute 42 00:03:27,800 --> 00:03:30,520 parts to our war machines here 43 00:03:31,480 --> 00:03:38,680 that are used by the US military, and I wonder if there's maybe a little something, I think that's a realistic depiction basically in 44 00:03:38,680 --> 00:03:46,160 in a set of what goes on with the military industrial complex or weapons that are created, and I just found that to be kind of curious. 45 00:03:46,160 --> 00:03:52,960 All right, moving on. Not-so-nocturnal Telsadon or Teleston, I found it interesting that Teleston was 46 00:03:53,960 --> 00:03:56,960 active during the day. I thought it was gonna have a larger plot relevance, 47 00:03:56,960 --> 00:04:03,360 but really it just seems like its fire sack or its, you know, its engine, its Kaiju engine is the thing that is keeping it active 48 00:04:03,720 --> 00:04:06,520 during the day, even though it's a nocturnal creature and 49 00:04:06,520 --> 00:04:08,520 they had to overcome it, and that's about it. 50 00:04:08,520 --> 00:04:12,520 So I thought I was gonna turn into something really cool, and it was just kind of a small thing. It wasn't bad. 51 00:04:12,520 --> 00:04:15,520 It just, it didn't go the way I wanted it to. Moving on. 52 00:04:16,520 --> 00:04:22,520 Blinking Kaiju. I love the fact that it is Teleston, right? It's not Tesladon. That's a different one. 53 00:04:22,520 --> 00:04:26,520 Tel-Tesladon is, oh never mind, that's Musk. Anyway, 54 00:04:26,520 --> 00:04:33,520 Teleston blinks, and I love it when the Kaiju blink. Not all of them blink in the show so far, but the ones that do, it's great. 55 00:04:33,520 --> 00:04:38,520 In the original Ultraman from 62, in the first episode you had Bemular, or Bemler. 56 00:04:38,520 --> 00:04:46,520 He did not blink, but a couple episodes later, Nieronga blinked, and Nieronga's horn is a thing that's active in this episode and plays a big part in it. 57 00:04:46,520 --> 00:04:49,520 So I'm gonna come back to that in a minute or so. 58 00:04:50,520 --> 00:04:54,520 Let's see, next topic. Oh, Yuka's Kaiju collectibles. Ah! 59 00:04:54,520 --> 00:05:01,520 It is weird and gross and strange and interesting that Yuka collects Kaiju parts, and she was all excited about it. 60 00:05:01,520 --> 00:05:09,520 Yuka collects Kaiju parts, and she was all excited to get Teleston skin samples from, what was it, from Windom's fingers? 61 00:05:09,520 --> 00:05:12,520 That was gross. And again, fun. 62 00:05:12,520 --> 00:05:18,520 And it really fits this vibe that she has of being like a mad scientist but not an evil one. 63 00:05:18,520 --> 00:05:25,520 And yeah, it's very interesting. It's very interesting how they define or portray her character, 64 00:05:25,520 --> 00:05:30,520 and what she does with that and what that means for her character, and it's just kind of cool. 65 00:05:30,520 --> 00:05:33,520 Kind of cool, kind of weird, but you know, it's memorable for sure. 66 00:05:33,520 --> 00:05:39,520 This lady loves Kaiju to the point that she's collecting their corpse parts. That's nasty. Nasty business. 67 00:05:39,520 --> 00:05:47,520 Anyway, I love when she goes to Bako and he gives her, like, he shows her that he's reusing a grate from a duct cover or vent cover or something from, 68 00:05:47,520 --> 00:05:56,520 from your boy Sevenger, and how he's repurposing this thing into something, you know, bigger, which that ties into my theme of spinning straw into gold, 69 00:05:56,520 --> 00:06:01,520 which is a reference to Rumpelstiltskin. But what I'm saying is he's taking something that could have been trash 70 00:06:01,520 --> 00:06:06,520 and he's giving it a purpose and using it for something it wasn't originally designed for, and that is something that is, 71 00:06:06,520 --> 00:06:12,520 I don't know if it's a theme in the episode, but it's definitely a subject, an idea covered in this episode 72 00:06:12,520 --> 00:06:19,520 and kind of broadly by the fact that we've got your boy, so I love Bako giving that wisdom over, 73 00:06:19,520 --> 00:06:25,520 and it's just, it's so cool, and it was such a cool scene, and it was such a, it's like, there were no Kaiju in it, you know? 74 00:06:25,520 --> 00:06:29,520 But it was still a really cool scene and, like, it shows the strength of the storytelling here, 75 00:06:29,520 --> 00:06:33,520 that they can just tell stories about these people and their struggles, and it's awesome. 76 00:06:33,520 --> 00:06:43,520 But anyway, speaking of, you know, spinning straw to gold, Kaburagi takes corpse parts kind of like Yuka, 77 00:06:43,520 --> 00:06:47,520 which I never realized before that there's such a, you know, a parallel between the two of them, 78 00:06:47,520 --> 00:06:53,520 and he uses them and I guess turns them into Ultra Metals and, like, whatever that green goo is that he uses in his machinery, 79 00:06:53,520 --> 00:06:59,520 and yeah, that's kind of interesting, but he has his own Zetriser, which I don't think I had noticed that before. 80 00:06:59,520 --> 00:07:05,520 I know he had, like, a weird gadget or two, but I don't remember seeing him with a Zetriser specifically, 81 00:07:05,520 --> 00:07:08,520 or maybe just the angle on it looked weird, so I didn't quite recognize it, 82 00:07:08,520 --> 00:07:13,520 and he's got his own little door into Z-Space or Ultra Space or whatever it's called that he gets to go through, 83 00:07:13,520 --> 00:07:20,520 and he does his experiments in his, you know, forging of the Kaiju parts into, you know, the metals, 84 00:07:20,520 --> 00:07:25,520 which, you know, like I said, very interesting, and I think it's kind of odd, 85 00:07:25,520 --> 00:07:28,520 like, is it because he has a Zetriser that he's able to enter that space, 86 00:07:28,520 --> 00:07:33,520 and is it Ultra Space or is it, you know, Dark Space or Monster Space or something, 87 00:07:33,520 --> 00:07:40,520 because I'm pretty sure they have something like that, you know, an antithesis, an antithetical, you know, force in space, 88 00:07:40,520 --> 00:07:48,520 as, you know, because there's the Ultra One, there's the non-Ultra One, or whatever, which is, I think, just darkness. 89 00:07:48,520 --> 00:07:53,520 Sorry, I'm not super familiar with Ultraman, so I'm inelegantly sharing that idea. 90 00:07:53,520 --> 00:08:02,520 So, Naronga's Horn is the thing that's used to accelerate the power or the charging of Windom, which is cool. 91 00:08:02,520 --> 00:08:12,520 It also cooks the rice pudding or whatever it is that Haruki has in Yooka's fridge, and that's just funny. 92 00:08:12,520 --> 00:08:17,520 Like, it's funny there. It's cool that it's a callback to a couple episodes, or, you know, the previous episode, I guess, 93 00:08:17,520 --> 00:08:22,520 where she put the horn in there, and it's just very interesting storytelling because it's layered, 94 00:08:22,520 --> 00:08:25,520 and I wonder if what they did for different characters is say, 95 00:08:25,520 --> 00:08:28,520 all right, we're going to have all these things at play with all these different characters, 96 00:08:28,520 --> 00:08:31,520 and just kind of said, like, we're going to have these five things happen with this character, 97 00:08:31,520 --> 00:08:35,520 and we're going to sprinkle them throughout and then have them develop over the course of episodes 98 00:08:35,520 --> 00:08:41,520 so that there's something, like, variety in each episode, but it also is like this layered sort of storytelling 99 00:08:41,520 --> 00:08:44,520 where there's this thread you can follow for each character that has these things going on, 100 00:08:44,520 --> 00:08:48,520 because I think that's really cool. So it's cool, like, mechanically in the show, 101 00:08:48,520 --> 00:08:53,520 but it's also cool for the actual storytelling of the show, and I really appreciate that. 102 00:08:53,520 --> 00:09:00,520 Kaburagi coming into the fight and adding the frills from the... what is it? Whatever. 103 00:09:00,520 --> 00:09:07,520 I don't know what it's called, but the Godzilla knockoff Kaiju that they have was really cool. 104 00:09:07,520 --> 00:09:13,520 And I'm just, you know, I'm very curious about what the plot is and what the plan is going through again. 105 00:09:13,520 --> 00:09:18,520 I'm having a hard time remembering exactly how Kaburagi functions. 106 00:09:18,520 --> 00:09:23,520 You know, obviously he's an antagonistic force, but, you know, how and to what purpose and to what end, 107 00:09:23,520 --> 00:09:26,520 and how does all his little things that he's doing achieve that? 108 00:09:26,520 --> 00:09:33,520 It's interesting because, you know, I said play, he's kind of messing with things and seeing how they work, 109 00:09:33,520 --> 00:09:38,520 which is kind of what people or kids do when they play, right? 110 00:09:38,520 --> 00:09:45,520 So a couple things. Calling out the Ultra Fusion mechanic. Oh, is it Demarit? Ah, yes. 111 00:09:45,520 --> 00:09:49,520 I will get back to that in a few moments. 112 00:09:49,520 --> 00:10:00,520 So when Zet tells Haruki that they need more speed, he does it in the most unnatural toy advertisement way he possibly could. 113 00:10:00,520 --> 00:10:06,520 I think the dialogue is... the dialogue does not need to be slaved to the toy ad, 114 00:10:06,520 --> 00:10:12,520 because all he had to say that would sound much better is, Haruki, we need more speed. 115 00:10:12,520 --> 00:10:20,520 He could even say, let's switch to Alpha Edge and then show Haruki using the new metal to switch to, 116 00:10:20,520 --> 00:10:25,520 or, you know, that was last episode, using the metals and the riser to switch forms. 117 00:10:25,520 --> 00:10:33,520 That sells the toy right there. The visuals sell the toy and Haruki, you know, yelling whatever he yells for that. 118 00:10:33,520 --> 00:10:38,520 And Burning Scarlet's for Beta Smash. I don't remember the other guys and their call-outs. 119 00:10:38,520 --> 00:10:44,520 But, I mean, just doing the transformation sequence, I think, is enough visually to make it look cool and look appealing 120 00:10:44,520 --> 00:10:49,520 and to have somebody want that. I mean, not to mention things that they're going to do later in the show. 121 00:10:49,520 --> 00:10:57,520 They've got three or four Zet risers total that appear in the show, and I think that's enough. I think that's definitely enough. 122 00:10:57,520 --> 00:11:05,520 Just saying Ultra Fusion doesn't make sense because they're already fused. And honestly, it takes me out of it for a moment, 123 00:11:05,520 --> 00:11:08,520 because I think, well, what does he mean, Ultra Fusion? Are they doing something new? 124 00:11:08,520 --> 00:11:15,520 No, they're not doing something new. They're just doing what they've always done. So it just detracts from me. 125 00:11:15,520 --> 00:11:25,520 Yoko is flat on her back in Windom, and she is wanting to... she's desperate to help Zet and Haruki. 126 00:11:25,520 --> 00:11:31,520 She doesn't know it's Haruki yet. So she does this cool thing with the air jets that Windom has all over his body. 127 00:11:31,520 --> 00:11:38,520 And from laying flat on her back in the mech, basically the air pushes out of all the different ports, 128 00:11:38,520 --> 00:11:45,520 most at the shoulder, neck, and head, and then diminishing from there on down to the heels. 129 00:11:45,520 --> 00:11:51,520 And basically Windom rises by hinging on his heels or its heels until she's at a standing position, 130 00:11:51,520 --> 00:11:56,520 then she runs off and joins in the fight. That was cool. It was a really cool visual flourish, 131 00:11:56,520 --> 00:12:01,520 and it was a lot of fun. And yeah, that's what I'm talking about. 132 00:12:01,520 --> 00:12:08,520 And then the last thing is the monster medals, which in another episode or two, 133 00:12:08,520 --> 00:12:11,520 I have something I want to say about the Zetriser itself and the whole medals thing, 134 00:12:11,520 --> 00:12:15,520 but I'm going to hold it off for now and just say it's interesting to me. Like I was talking earlier, 135 00:12:15,520 --> 00:12:21,520 there's the Ultra medals, there's the Land of Light, and then opposing that is the Land of... 136 00:12:21,520 --> 00:12:26,520 I don't know if there's an actual Land of Darkness somewhere, if there's M78 is the Land of Light and M87, 137 00:12:26,520 --> 00:12:33,520 or 8-7M is the Land of Darkness or something like that. But that could be the case. 138 00:12:33,520 --> 00:12:39,520 And there is this dark force using the Zetriser in... what's this guy's name? Kaburagi. 139 00:12:39,520 --> 00:12:45,520 And obviously he's the one forging the monster medals. And I guess if there are Ultra medals, 140 00:12:45,520 --> 00:12:53,520 it stands to reason that there would be monster medals to counter them as a universal balance type idea. 141 00:12:53,520 --> 00:13:00,520 And it makes me wonder just from, again, this show isn't hard sci-fi, but it has hard sci-fi elements in it. 142 00:13:00,520 --> 00:13:05,520 What is the function of an Ultra medal that's not being utilized? 143 00:13:05,520 --> 00:13:09,520 And how do you get the essence of an Ultra into an Ultra medal? 144 00:13:09,520 --> 00:13:16,520 And then I guess the same question for a monster medal. What is that? What is the function of that? 145 00:13:16,520 --> 00:13:21,520 I don't know. It doesn't really matter because it's a cool thing for the toys and for the show. 146 00:13:21,520 --> 00:13:26,520 And it makes better Kaiju or different Kaiju. I guess it's really the same Kaiju. 147 00:13:26,520 --> 00:13:30,520 They're just recycling them for previous things, you know? Anyway. 148 00:13:30,520 --> 00:13:36,520 So, yeah, that's all my thoughts for this episode of Zet. I'm looking forward to the next couple. 149 00:13:36,520 --> 00:13:39,520 I'm a little frustrated that they're releasing them in such rapid succession, 150 00:13:39,520 --> 00:13:44,520 but they're making way for Ultraman Blazer, which I suggest that you watch 151 00:13:44,520 --> 00:13:48,520 and you look at my first thoughts on the preview of it, 152 00:13:48,520 --> 00:13:53,520 because I also talked about the context of the Zet dub as well, 153 00:13:53,520 --> 00:13:59,520 because the two things exist in the context of each other and it makes sense. Just go listen to it. 154 00:13:59,520 --> 00:14:07,520 I hope you enjoyed that. Go to MJMunoz.com to leave any questions, comments, or other feedback you might have. 155 00:14:07,520 --> 00:14:11,520 There you can find all of my analysis, art, and fiction. 156 00:14:11,520 --> 00:14:16,520 I cover books, tokusatsu, comic books, anime, and more. 157 00:14:16,520 --> 00:14:20,520 Look around. You're sure to find something else that you'll enjoy as well. 158 00:14:20,520 --> 00:14:30,520 This has been a Story Over Everything production.