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 is episode 8 of my coverage of Ultraman Zet. And this episode
I have dubbed Ultra Flashy. So, I'm going to be talking about this episode of Zet, episode
8 like I said earlier, which features training, tests, and teases. This episode was a little
off for me. Find out why as I address a few topics that caught my attention. So first
off, Celebro. Celebro? What do you want to Celebro? The pronunciation of that name is
kind of funny given the context of the English language, but it's actually not that comical
or comedic. It did strike me a little funny, but that's definitely not one of the things
I had an issue with at all because, well, there's no reason to have an interest with
it. It makes sense. It sounds like cerebro. I don't know how you say this, but a Japanese
ification of the word cerebro, which makes sense. You know, the whole L and R thing from
Japanese, or maybe it's the L and R thing in English that we are too lowly to understand
from Japanese. But the basic thing is it looked like cerebro or celebro went into Shinya Kaburagi's
brain, or at least it attacked his face, and then it was inside of him and now it's controlling
him and talking through him and things like that. So he feels like a brain parasite now
that goes into other creatures and controls their minds and causes them to do different
things. And that's pretty interesting. What's kind of more interesting is I guess that means,
or the implication is that Juggler has had interactions with celebro before and that
raises a whole bunch of other questions. And I hadn't thought about that till now, but
that's cool that he knows him and that there's a potential backstory between the two of them.
And I don't know where celebro would have been doing something that Juggler would have
run into him, but that's cool that they have potential shared backstory together. And I
like that. So that was definitely a good thing. Shinya mentioned when he got his first new
medal or two in the beginning, or towards the beginning of the episode, that it was
time to do some tests and then he turned into a, you know, medal madness monster. And it's
a good thing I'm not doing the dub for this. That would be what it is. Behold, my medal
madness monster. Ha ha ha. Anyway, he goes and tests them, but who is he testing them
for and what is he testing? And I guess who is he testing? Is he testing himself? Is he
testing the potency of the medals from the Zetriser? Is he testing the Alliance forces
on earth? Is he testing Zet himself? I don't really know who he's testing. Maybe he's testing
to see if other Ultras will come to the planet with him causing the damage he's causing.
And it's unclear to me now that I think about it. Whether the Devil Splinters spreading
has anything to do with Celebro or if it was the, not Street Shark, Space Shark, Daringan,
is that his name? If he was doing it or if it was Celebro, or Celebro rather, working
through the Street Shark. Street Shark. No Vin Diesel here. Through the Space Shark.
And yeah, I'm just not sure about that. But that's another interesting connection. So
I know it's kind of funny. You know, I could have asked these questions before, but having
a name to the character kind of heightens my awareness of him and makes me or helps
me to think about it in a little more concrete terms, I suppose you could say.
Next thing is something I didn't like so much was the cat fights that were going on, sort
of. So you've got this pair of alien ladies. You know, the alien, well I'll talk more about
them later. But what's more important is that we had these ladies fighting and like seeing
Yoko fighting with Haruki makes total sense. Seeing her fight with Yuka makes a little
less sense because I'm just not sure Yuka is a real combatant. Although she is shown
running in the storage coveralls with Yoko and Haruki. So in the beginning, in the OP.
So I don't know what that's supposed to imply necessarily. If she has compatibility as a
pilot, perhaps because she helped design them. If she can also pilot them or has piloted
them before and that's, I don't know, maybe an aspect of her job or her character or her
as a person that we just haven't seen yet because they haven't explored it. But it's
implied. So I find that interesting. I mean you could conceivably have Yoko and Yuka both
in a mech, one of the two mechs there and then have Haruki acting as Zet at some point
and that would be kind of neat. And I feel like that's almost implied by the OP, but
not really. Alright, moving on. You know, it was weird that she was so interested in
that alien and she wanted to fight her and like she was dodging a lot of hits from this
competent alien combatant and then she was landing some weird hits on her. Like I think
she slammed her head against a, I don't know, the couch or like something in that room,
the house that they were fighting in at one point. And it was weird. She very much reminded
me of Happy Le Pew, which I think I mentioned in my original analysis review of this when
I watched it a year or so ago. But yeah, still she's got like a strong energy and it's scary.
I think she was even scaring that alien, which is a funny thing to think about. So yeah,
but I didn't like the idea of, like I feel like Koichi Sakamoto directed this, especially
with the lady with the fish dance, how she was kicking and stuff. It just felt off. And
like I said, I'll touch more on that in a little bit. Let's see. So Hippocurve's play,
I'm not sure what Hippocurve is about or what Juggler is doing. You know, he helped out
Zett by giving him, Haruki and Zett, by giving him the medals to make Gamma Future, which
is a great form. And I don't quite understand why he's helping him to survive, why he doesn't,
you know, want to kill him or what he's fighting him for, what he's fought him for in the past,
but then he says he needs a new toy to play with. But if the toy isn't up to snuff, then
I'm surprised that he would continue to want to play with it. But there's clearly something
else going on because he's trying to figure out, he's piecing things together. He wants
to know what Shin is up to. And he is aware of Celebro and it seems like there's some
larger thing going on that he's trying to suss or ferret out. And I'm not sure where
he's going with that or what he's going to do, but I do definitely enjoy seeing him do
it. So I'm not complaining. Okay. So the pits, we had two alien pits. These were the alien
ladies who I guess, Kaburagi, Shinya, was buying alien body samples from so that he could,
you know, mine them for metals. Oh my gosh. Monster coin. Sorry. I like Bitcoin. If you
think I'm dumb because of that, ask me about it. Maybe we'll have a reasonable conversation
instead of you just being mean and accusing me of being a bad person, potentially. But
anyway, I don't need to fight for that. It's just, you know, just something to mention
in passing. Anyway, yeah. So, you know, these pits, they're aliens. You would think they'd
want to blend in and be as inconspicuous as possible. And yet, you've got this lady rolling
around in fish nets with like a, I don't know, Yakuza kind of thuggish look. I mean, I guess
it depends on where you are. If you're around a bunch of people who are dressed like that,
then you would blend in. But none of the storage, all the storage people dressed in uniforms
and you know, Kaburagi's in uniforms and this nice house. I mean, it could be like a Yakuza
house, which means, or which is, you know, makes it reasonable for them to dress like
that. But another lady, she was dressed a little more sensibly or conservatively. So, you know,
she definitely blends in. But then you have, you know, the lady in the fish nets and she's,
yeah, she, she kind of sticks out, I would think. And that was kind of odd to me and
felt weird. And again, made me think like, is Koichi Sakamoto directing this thing? Which
he might be. I didn't check the episode credits on who directed it. So whatever.
Now, last thing is, so this was like, I don't know if you could tell, but this was just an OK episode
for me. I'd give it, I don't know, six out of 10. Yeah, probably six out of 10, maybe
seven if I'm being generous. But Gamma Future is a really cool form. And is that what it's
called? Yeah, Gamma, because it's the Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and then Delta later, right?
It's Greek letters. Anyway, it's a cool form. I feel badly because I dropped the trigger,
which is a re-imagining or modernization or whatever of Taiga. I dropped it because I
didn't like it that much. So, you know, I didn't force myself to keep watching it. And
I don't feel bad about that. But you know, the suit is OK. The base form looks fine.
And you know, he shows up here and I don't understand like them being like alternate
dimension Ultramen who have mystical energy like that, like the, forgive me, but like
the mumbo jumbo behind, you know, what they are and who they are and why they make this
form like didn't make any sense to me. And I don't really care because the form looked
cool and it fought cool. I think this is the most like I almost wish that Zet just looked
like this all the time, like the gold or like the gold and metallic, I don't know, like
shoulder and neck pieces that he has going on and maybe something about the shape of
his head. It's just it's a really good looking form. And I like it a lot. And I don't understand
why you wouldn't just have this, you know, be the guy all the time. But, you know, here
we are not doing that. And his powers seem interesting, you know, mystical, like Ultraman
shoots a, you know, spacey M ray and you know, that's a shoot to, you know, a Zestium beam.
So it's like, I don't know how they grow giant and shrink and stuff. I don't know how much
from more mystical you can get. They come from the land of light. So that's kind of
a funny thing to call them. But the form still looks good. And I enjoyed its fighting style.
I like how flashy it was and like how there's a lot of finesse and poise to the movements
of the form and the suit acting. I'm presuming it's the same suit actor for all three forms
or four forms, I guess, if you count Vanilla Zet or Blue Zet, I should say. And yeah, I
think the guy did a really good job and he just looks, you know, smooth as silk. And
I like how snazzy he is and some of the fun stuff he says. And yeah, I thought it was
cool. So I definitely dug that. And that was, I don't know what to say, it was like the
highlight of the episode. Well, I guess, yeah, that was the highlight of the episode, the
new form, even if it didn't really make sense how it got there and why and some other stuff.
But anyway, they can't win them all. They can't all be perfect. And I would say while
this had a high point of the game of future debut, the rest of it was just okay. So anyway,
that's all I have to say for Zet episode eight. I encourage you to go to the show notes and
check out all the stuff there. You can find my children's picture book manuscript inspired
by Ultraman. It's over there in the show notes. And you can check out everything else that
I do over on my author website, where I document all of my work as an author, artist, and analyzer
and all the other things that I analyze and review and talk about. Like I said, you can
find them all there. Anyway, for now, 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.
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