This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer. Find all my work at MJMunoz.com.
Welcome to Going Ultra! This episode is called Ultra Grit, and I am talking
about analyzing, discussing, reviewing Ultraman Zet Episode 5. So I'm watching
this dub, and I'm having a lot of fun with it. So I'm gonna be talking about
ancient secrets, current secrets, amazing action, as well as other topics which you
will hear shortly. So I'm gonna jump right into it without further delay
because this show was so great. I'm gonna talk about marvelous miniatures and that
poor car. So the episode opens up with a shot of Alaska. You can't see my square
scare quotes on that, but Alaska. And in Alaska there's a, you know, giant sheet
of ice like Alaska has all the time. Of course it actually feels more like the
Arctic than Alaska, but I've also never been to Alaska and seen its wondrous
sights. So you know, it's probably mostly accurate. Anyway, there's a giant fissure
in the ice and it cracks open and something crazy happens when displacing
and destroying, sadly, a little ice trundle. I don't know what it's actually
called, but it's a vehicle, like a large heavy vehicle, that's meant to use its
treads to go over snow over long distances. I believe I've only ever seen
one in, well not in real life, but one, I have an actual one displayed on film
before and that was in the X-Files movie, which had the subtitle of Fight the
Future, which was fabulous. Anyway, this one looked a little faker and like a
little less well detailed. Like I don't think there were transparent windows. We
couldn't see anybody piloting it, which is fine. They could have even just iced
over the windows and had them appear as if they were translucent, you know, like
a window is, but they didn't. But still, I think the effect looked really good. It
was a short-lived effect. It was on screen for five seconds tops. I think it
was closer to two though, and it looked really good. And that was just one of
many amazing things that was done with miniatures. We had the bikes crashing and
tumbling over and one bell ringing on a bike when Zet plowed into there, you know,
got knocked back to the earth while fighting Pegula, and that was really
exciting to see. And we have more. The car that gets flipped over and you see
inside of it a perspective shot from the backseat, the mid-seat, the center console,
I don't know. And there's all these things that are flying in the car, around
in the car, as it's getting flipped over from Pegula's ice blast, which I guess has
air in it that displaces the stuff, you know, whatever is in its way, whatever
matter is in its way. And then finally the car gets crushed by Pegula's foot.
And yeah, it was all very impressive. There was more than that. There was a
nice shot. Well, I'm gonna talk about the director at the end, so I'll come back to
it later. So anyway, starting off with the miniatures, it was a bang or a
banger, I guess as the kids might call it today, and then just they kept doing
great things with miniatures, and it was a marvel to behold, and I really enjoyed
it. Next, I want to talk about Hippie Cur's game. Of course, I'm talking about
full spoilers. I'm not gonna talk about the rest of the series, but I'm gonna
allude to it and hint to it. So if you haven't seen Z already and you're along
for the ride for Z because it's a dub, and that's easier than watching subs, hey, I
sympathize with you. I'm there, but you're gonna want to maybe... well anyway, I'm
gonna keep it safe for you unless you're hypersensitive to spoilers, then you got
to get out of here for a minute. But anyway, so Hippie Cur's game. We've seen
Hippie Cur playing with a Rubik's Cube. We saw him talk about in the last episode
at the very end how he needs to find a new toy to play with. He said that while
looking at Beta Smash, so Z, right? And here we have him effectively playing with
Z in multiple ways. I just want to say this real quick. Yeah, this is my
spoiler-resection, it's fine. They've been dropping clues since episode 1. I know
this is only episode 5, but in I believe every single episode there has been a
clue that something's going on with Hippie Cur. The first episode, it's that
he leaves, I think, to go to the bathroom, and he ends up traveling very quickly to
the site of the battle where Sevenger is knocked over, and Yoko is checking on
your boy Haruki, and we see somebody in a gray uniform, like storage uniforms, and
I think we see a little bit of his long hair on the side of the screen, and I
believe we see him pick up medals, but maybe he doesn't actually pick up medals.
I can't remember, but regardless, he was there. He traveled there suspiciously
quickly, and it was odd in the second episode while he's training with Haruki
to help him improve his fighting technique so he can defeat whatever the
kind of... no, Niranga in Sevenger, because that's the only mech they have available
at the time. He seemingly vanishes on him, and like entirely disappears from the
scene inexplicably, and then reappears from behind him and hits him, and you
continue sparring with him and fighting with him, and then he gives him his sage
advice, hinting at the fact that he is a salty veteran? No, a senior veteran? No,
that's not it. He's experienced! That's what I'm trying to say. You know it, I know it,
everybody knows it. Anyway, so he's trying to explain to him, or it's, you know, a
demonstration of how he is experienced, and I think that's good and interesting.
Moving on from there, in the third episode, he mentions... what does he mention?
Oh boy. Oh! No, never mind, that's this episode. I can't remember what the clue
is in the third episode, but it's there. I hinted at it, I dropped a hint of it in
my last review, I believe, or in my episode three review, and oh! One more
thing about an episode, or in this episode, when he steals the Zetriser,
which I'll come back to the Zetriser later, he vanishes similarly, and the way
the camera pans around, I believe it directly mirrors or parallels how the
camera panned around when Haruki got knocked over in the dojo. In fact, when I
watched this originally, in 2020 I think, when I was watching Z back in the day, I
made that observation, then I went back and I compared, and I looked at it. I'll
see if I can find the video of it, because I think I made a video comparison
of the shots, because it struck me how similar they were, and how interesting
they were. One more thing, well no, I'll talk to that about the... I'll bring that
back up when I'm talking about the... sorry, of this ringing in the vehicle with me.
When I talk about the director, but yeah, I'll leave it at that for now. So, I
haven't really said anything about Hebi-Kur's game, other than I'm identifying
the parts that he's played in the game, I'm identifying the parts in the
narrative, or the story, or the show, that the creative team, the cast, the crew, the
director, whatever the writing has put for us. It's given us breadcrumbs as
to who Hebi... or that something is wrong with Hebi-Kur, something's different
about him, and there's actually... looking at the comments on YouTube for
this, there's actually... the butt-grabbing thing is apparently a clue as well, and
if you were a watcher of another Ultraman show, which I won't name yet, you
would know it. But if you want to go look in those comments, I commented and
interacted with somebody, and we talked about this specifically. It's very
interesting. But anyway, moving on from there, we don't know what Hebi-Kur's game
is. Obviously, he wants to be entertained, he wants to enjoy what's going on. What
ties to greater powers of darkness does he have is unclear at this point,
although he can command them to some extent because he, you know, used them to
clone the Zetriser, which is similar actually to what the space shark guy or
the parasite thing within it did, including the Zetriser and, I don't know,
maybe some monster medals or something like that. So, because we've seen that
Haburagi, I believe is his name, he also has a Zetriser, or a type of a Zetriser,
that he uses to make his monster, or to do stuff with his monster combinations.
So that's interesting that there's a parallel between the two of them, and
obviously the one guy is evil, and Hebi-Kur has been acting for humans. He's
been acting to save people's lives for now, but was that just a game? And now
that he's mastered being a good civilian like that and helping defend human
lives, and he's mastered a Rubik's Cube, what else is he gonna master? Is he gonna
become a master of evil? I don't know, we'll have to watch and find out as the show
continues. Moving on from there, concerning pilots. So, while this is an
Ultraman show, and while Zet ultimately saves the day and does a darn good job
of it and looks really cool doing it, this is a show with a Science Patrol-like
team in storage, and they have pilots who weren't counting on an Ultraman to
come save the day. The Galactic Allied... no, no, that's, that's, whatever, the Earth
forces that have all worked together, there's an international team that
storage is part of. The Global Alliance? Someone like that? They are not counting
on an Ultraman being there to save the day. They need to be independent
operators who can handle the mess of the Kaiju on their own, and that's what Yoko
wants to do, that's what Haruki wants to do, and they want to do it in their
capacity as pilots of these mecha, and this is a little strange, it rings a
little strange, but ultimately it's good, you know, Haruki yells out, this is my job,
or that's my job, to defend people, protect people, and Yoko's, you know,
better than me, and she was doing it and willing to give her all, and I have to do
the same thing. Great, fabulous, I love how fiercely dedicated they are to their
job, which, yeah, they get paid for it, but I think it's more than a job, it's, you
know, things are both, things are nuanced and complicated, so while it is a job, it
is also a duty and a privilege and a, I don't know, calling, I guess, to put their
lives on the line to protect people, and I think that's great, we get that shown to
us through the interactions of Yoko and Haruki here, yeah, Yoko and Haruki
here, and it's just interesting to see it all played out, because we haven't
really talked much about why they join storage, or the tragic backstories that
may or may not exist for them, you know, and it's just their job, but it's not
just their job, because it's saving lives in a very open and plain and
extreme way, and it's kind of interesting that with their lives being on the line
that there aren't more storage pilots available, maybe because there was just
the one mech at first, they only needed the two, I have no idea if Yuka could
pilot them, I would kind of assume not, since it seems like Yoko and Haruki
possess a martial arts prowess which enables them to to do that, obviously
Captain Hibikura could do it, but he is not for some reason, so anyway, that's all
curious interesting stuff that I could talk on and on about, but really it's the
determination, the dedication, and the grit and the willingness to do this
difficult job with this, you know, deadly or lethal calling to it that these two
pilots have that really impresses me, and while I was a little surprised at the use
salty language where Haruki said, you know, what the hell kind of pilot am I
anyway if I can't do this or that or whatever, you know, it's surprising for
ultimate geared towards kids, but you know, that again, maybe it's not so surprising, and
I don't know if that's like a liberty that they took in the translation because
I don't remember what the sub said, but I find that curious, but still it shows, it
demonstrates the dedication, the determination, the level, the
seriousness of the situation, because Haruki doesn't seem frivolous to me in
that way with how he speaks, so yeah, this shows that it's serious and that things
are grim and dark and he's gonna step up to handle the situation with
everything he's got just like Yoko did, and I mean, you know, you can joke about,
or I don't know, you could joke or complain if you wanted to about, you know,
wokeness or, you know, strong female character or whatever, but like that's, I
think that's silly in this situation because Yoko is a strong female
character, she's doing things, she's, you know, the better pilot, maybe it's a
little silly, the arm wrestling thing, but I'm okay to indulge it, but for the
sake of the show, and I don't know her workout routine, I don't know those
techs workout routine either, so you never know, but anyway, and Haruki doesn't
have like a huge build compared to her, so I think he'd only be naturally a
little bit stronger than her if that, but depending on training that kind of
changes things, but regardless, she pilots the mech well, which is its own thing,
I've heard of very impressive, or women who are very impressive marksmen, you
know, with regular guns, and you know, the gun is the great equalizer, and I think
the mecha is the even, you know, the great equalizer to another degree, so that
makes sense to me, and she's just utterly competent at her job, and but not only
is she competent, she's, you know, courageous and willing to sacrifice
herself, and she has that determination, and I don't think that Haruki
lacked that determination, but seeing her express it so strongly and clearly and
resolutely, I think really inspired and impacted him, and caused him to do the
same thing, and I find that impressive, and really I love the heroism of both of
them, it was very cool to see him rescue her in the way that he did specifically,
both in that he used the environment cleverly, used a jetpacks on Sevenger to
melt the ice, to thaw it out, and then he used that crazy jetpack contraption
thing that they have, and you know, like the men or something, to go pull her out
of the cockpit, and it was awesome, it was really awesome, yeah, and I love that,
I love that their, I love their work relationship, their friendship, their
like co, I don't know, like their, their fraternity of being fellow soldiers
against kaiju and stuff, it's, it's very cool, and like I said, the grit and the
determination was very, I don't know, shocking, and I don't know, it felt like
it weighed a lot thematically in the episode, which is why I think even the
spear was brought to them, to Zet basically, because of the determination
of both of them, and specifically there was one instance where Haruki said
something like, about how they weren't gonna give up, and then the spear, I don't
think it came to them, I think it was during the fight with whatever Lord
Zapadon, or whatever it's called, Zapatos, sorry, and this, they were able to
activate it, and you know, do better at that time, and unlock a new level of
power with the spear, by you know, making the spear arrow thing, and I think that
was only due to his determination, which again, was reinforced by Yoko, and that's
just great, it's just great, you know, interactive character drama, and
storytelling, I think, so anyway, moving on from there, enough concerning pilots,
let's talk about the Zet Riser versus the Metal Riser, and this is a little bit of
a complaint, I called out last episode that I didn't like them, talking about
the, you know, Ultra, it's time for an Ultra Fusion, because it just plays odd,
plays silly, I think, and again, the Zet Riser, it doesn't make sense that it
would be called the Zet Riser, because it wasn't designed for Zet, specifically, he
I mean, it could have been the Z Riser, I'm, is Z for Zet for Zero, is that what it
is, that why it's a Zet Riser, because Zero is the one who had it, but we'll see, I
think in the next episode, or pretty soon, that somebody else has one too, and I
think for the sake of simplicity, and for the sake of the toyness of it, and just
the real-world application of it, it would make more sense for it to be called
a Metal Riser, because it uses Ultra Metals, and the Dark Zet Riser, or whatever
it's called, uses Monster Metals, so the fact that metals are the key factor in
the Riser, suggests to me, that that's what it should be called after, Metal
Riser, then it would make sense, it has Ultra Metals, it has Monster Metals, it
has whatever else kind of metals you want to put it in it too, and I think
that would be better, you know, you'd remove the Z branding from it, or maybe
because that one went to Z, it, you know, magically by Land of Light Technology,
customized itself to him, it gets a Z on there, and if Zero had one, it might get a
Z too, but it'll look different, or whatever, and I don't know, it just kind of seems
like from a, you know, toy making perspective, and you know, trying to sell
this thing, and market this thing, it makes sense to not have the toy aspects of it
interrupt, like it would be an equally good toy, if it was called the Metal Riser,
as it was called the Zet Riser, the only thing is, when you're looking for the Zet
toy in the store, I guess it being called Zet would work better, but if it has a
picture of him on it anyway, then who cares, and then from a, you know, writing
perspective, it detracts, it doesn't detract from things to have it be called
the Metal Riser at all, in fact, like I said, they're argued for, it leaves it
open to interpretation, and I don't know, extrapolation, or iteration in other ways,
as we are going to see, but you know, risers other than the Dark Riser and the
Zet Riser, so anyway, that's, this is kind of a silly thing, but I had to say it, and
then the last thing is a director assault, this director was assaulting my
senses with awesomeness, the flying scenes of combat between Pegula and Zet
were incredible, going through the clouds, the frost hitting the lens, the going
through the eye of the storm, that was all awesome, the laser, like the CGI was
made, I couldn't even tell what was CGI, and what wasn't, and where it was
integrated or not, or whatever, or what do they call it, composited, right, anyway, I
couldn't even tell most of those shots if they were CG or live-action suits
with like a CG environment around them, or what, the jet stream coming off them
as they're flying through the clouds too, absolutely fabulous, yeah, I didn't even
know really how they landed the effect of Zet tumbling through the clouds and
then landing on the ground and crashing into the practical elements and having
practical elements, you know, of debris flying up around him, I don't know how
they did that, but that, the miniature in the beginning, the car flipping over, the
shot of when he knocked over Pegula in front of that, like preschool or kids
room, maybe kids classroom in the high-rise building, and all the toys and
stuff jump and squeak and make noise and crash around the room as they're dealing
with the seismic impact of Pegula falling, and that was fabulous, gosh, what else,
just the fighting, Yooka fighting in a sevenger was awesome, like it just looked
so fierce and so cool, and I like the little flourish of, she wanted to like
scoot herself over, so she almost struck the, you know, classic Ultraman, what is it,
the space-ium ray or space-ium beam pose, and the jets fired off and shot her in
that direction, and like it just looked cool, and it was a cool reference, but it
also made me think like, oh, so the jets on this thing are kind of motion
controlled by, the body has to take on certain poses or shapes or whatever, and
then they'll activate jets in a certain way that'll allow it to do stuff, like
that's such a cool idea, like a high level, I think it's a high level concept,
and like seeing the intricacy of that play out in a scene, like in this scene
in particular, it was a fairly simple straightforward way to do it, but it's
still, it opens up the mind to all these possibilities of what this can do and
how it can be shown. Another thing, when you know, Zet fell from the sky after
Pegula knocked him down, and he was in a bad way, he was laying down a certain
way with his head to the right of the screen, and then after Hebeker was
defeated, he's laying down with his head to the left of the screen, and I think
that's a parallel, it's talking about them kind of being equal opposites maybe,
and you know, rivals for this show, and that was really cool, and what else? What
else? There were, I just, there were lots of great visual flourishes, um, I thought
when he fired off the, like when he, when the light, when the, what, I don't know
what's called the spear, when the spear came down from the sky, you know, was in
the little rock, and it broke out of the calcification, or whatever you want to
call it, the fossilization, and it turned into the giant spear of light, and it was
glowing, and Zet grabbed it, and then like the light kind of transferred through his
hand, and went over his body, like down to the ground, like kind of grounding out or
whatever, like that was a super cool visual, and then him slice, doing two
slices in the air to form the arrow, or I guess the bow, and then it like
superimposing itself over the spear, and then the way he cocked it back, and it was
like there's just so many cool visual flourishes, and I'm struggling to think of
more, yeah I can't think of anything else right now, but that was all super cool, oh and I
love like the, the spell, or the thing that Hebekerah says, which it's, it's
juggler, right, anyway, that he says when he's copying the, copying the Zetriser,
it's like a really cool thing, and it's talking about light, and darkness, and
darkness, light, and like a weird transference between them, and it feels,
it felt like ominous, and like he's dabbling in darkness, but maybe more like
a Kingdom Hearts Riku type of thing, where he can use the power of darkness,
or wield the power of darkness for good or evil, and that was super interesting,
because I guess, you know, Ultraman's the giant of light, and M78 is the land of
light, and I guess if light is a force with a power, I guess then darkness should
be a force of power, which I kind of touched on talking about in the last
episode, but just in more of a sharply defined way, and I guess if darkness can
be used for good, then can light be used for evil, and are we ever gonna see that
in Ultraman, or has it been done already, because maybe it has been done, I don't
know, but I think that's interesting, I think it opens up a lot of a interesting
story telling potential questions, and again, the reason I'm talking about story,
I'm talking about this, you know, Hebi Kura again, and the darkness and light
contrast, is because the directing and the visual storytelling was so strong, that
just the visuals alone bring all these questions to mind, and yeah, the visuals
tell the story, the dialogue tells the story, the visuals tell the story, and
I'm hearing both, or I'm seeing both, anyway, I'm seeing both, and it's
interesting, so anyway, that's all I want to say, this was really interesting, and I
don't have anything else to say about the episode, other than I thought it was
really good, and very, I thought it was a very good episode, it was very well
directed, the storytelling was very compelling, and I'm super interested by
the turn with Hebi Kura, and where that's going, again, even though I already know,
I'm looking forward to watching it again, and seeing it from a slightly different
perspective watching the dub, so that's all I have to say, I encourage you to
check out my children's picture book manuscript linked in the show notes, it's
inspired by Ultraman, and it's part of a larger series of children's picture
books, that are all inspired by Tokusatsu, and I have one more book, a sixth book,
so there's five of those books, and then there's a sixth book, that kind of tells
a different side of those stories, and tells its own story as well, with these
magical bug creatures, that I have in this world that I'm developing, so I
encourage you to check that out, and the draft that's up right now, it's a draft
1.9 of Ava and the Grow Bug, it's a, it's just one draft, and it's a previous draft,
and it's a good impression of what the story is going to be, but I'm going to go
beyond that, and make the story even better, that I've already made that
story even better, and then everything else is going to build on top of that, so
I encourage you to check that out along with everything else over on MJMunoz.com,
and you can link to all that through the show notes, and I also advise that you
please check out the audio-only podcast, and that you subscribe to that, links are
in the show notes again, and if you want to increase my subscribers on YouTube,
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so check that out when you can, thank you very much, take care! 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,
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