1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,000 This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer. Find all my work at MJMunoz.com. 2 00:00:06,000 --> 00:00:14,000 Join me for a discussion of Ultraman Zet Episode 11 featuring nostalgia, bloodlust, and collateral damage. 3 00:00:14,000 --> 00:00:20,000 This episode is called Ultra Killer. At least my review is called. The actual episode is called something else. 4 00:00:20,000 --> 00:00:27,000 And I don't know what it is. I think it's like protecting what's most important or something along those lines. 5 00:00:27,000 --> 00:00:34,000 Anyway, this might be the saddest episode yet. Which, I guess there haven't really been sad episodes before this. 6 00:00:34,000 --> 00:00:41,000 But this is definitely a sad episode. And you can find out why as I address a few topics that caught my attention. 7 00:00:41,000 --> 00:00:48,000 So, first of all I'm going to start off with something a little light and fluffy, which is King Joe Storage Custom. 8 00:00:48,000 --> 00:00:58,000 This fighting robot is pretty, pretty, pretty good. I was impressed, or I am impressed by how it looks. 9 00:00:58,000 --> 00:01:03,000 It's funny that we get this awesome preview of King Joe in this episode. 10 00:01:03,000 --> 00:01:11,000 But not until next episode do we actually see him in full action. And it's impressive. 11 00:01:11,000 --> 00:01:19,000 So, it's a cool mech. Haruki is very excited. He opens up the episode yelling about how awesome King Joe is. 12 00:01:19,000 --> 00:01:25,000 And that's kind of fun. And then we get, you know, then things kind of go downhill from there. 13 00:01:25,000 --> 00:01:32,000 But it's a cool mech and I like it. It doesn't stink and I do like it. 14 00:01:32,000 --> 00:01:39,000 So anyway, moving on from that. I noticed that Zero, I was rewatching episode 7 or 8, whatever that was, 15 00:01:39,000 --> 00:01:47,000 where Zero shows up and fights alongside Geed and Zet. 16 00:01:47,000 --> 00:01:51,000 And I noticed that he has a one inch punch sort of thing that he does. 17 00:01:51,000 --> 00:01:58,000 And then Gamma Future also has a one inch punch type thing where he summons a little ball of energy magic. 18 00:01:58,000 --> 00:02:02,000 And then he is very close to the Kaiju and he put it to Red King actually. 19 00:02:02,000 --> 00:02:08,000 And he just pushes the thing at it and it hits it pretty hard. And I thought, huh, that's interesting. 20 00:02:08,000 --> 00:02:14,000 First of all, I like that Zero has a one inch punch. But then I realized that has a one inch punch with Gamma Future. 21 00:02:14,000 --> 00:02:18,000 And then I thought, oh, it's because he's his master and he admires him, looks up to him. 22 00:02:18,000 --> 00:02:24,000 Unless one of the guys that he's, was it Taiga, Daina and, uh, Kaina? No, Taina. Taina? 23 00:02:24,000 --> 00:02:29,000 Taiga, Daina and Gaia? Those are the three that make up Gamma Future. Is that right? 24 00:02:29,000 --> 00:02:33,000 That may or may not be correct. Regardless. 25 00:02:33,000 --> 00:02:39,000 I believe that's what's, I believe that's what the inspiration is. 26 00:02:39,000 --> 00:02:44,000 Anyway, so that's kind of cool. 27 00:02:44,000 --> 00:02:49,000 I was super surprised to see Haruki's dad. 28 00:02:49,000 --> 00:03:00,000 A couple things. One, like I was wondering what the reasons were for these people to be in this anti-Kaiju task force. 29 00:03:00,000 --> 00:03:06,000 That is storage. Hold on. It's a Kaiju emergency going on right now. 30 00:03:06,000 --> 00:03:14,000 And I was kind of waiting for us to see reasons for them to be involved in storage. 31 00:03:14,000 --> 00:03:21,000 And it was cool to see that, I mean, it's bad for the character, but sad for him. 32 00:03:21,000 --> 00:03:25,000 It's sad for him, but cool for the character. It's cool for the audience, rather. 33 00:03:25,000 --> 00:03:31,000 That Haruki's dad died protecting him and his mom and a bunch of other people from Kaiju, including, I think, a kid. 34 00:03:31,000 --> 00:03:34,000 He grabbed some random kid and saved him. 35 00:03:34,000 --> 00:03:44,000 And then that was in his hometown. And then we have on the anniversary of his dad's death in his hometown, these Red King awaken. 36 00:03:44,000 --> 00:03:47,000 And, or Red Kings, I guess. Or Red King and Red Queen? I don't know. 37 00:03:47,000 --> 00:03:50,000 But they awaken and he has to deal with them. 38 00:03:50,000 --> 00:03:56,000 And man, that was rough. I got to tell you that C.P. Atone and just... 39 00:03:56,000 --> 00:04:04,000 I don't know, man. It's just seeing kid Haruki when his dad disappeared and was gone for a long beat getting that ball. 40 00:04:04,000 --> 00:04:09,000 It scared me and I thought, oh no, his dad just died. What happened to him? 41 00:04:09,000 --> 00:04:14,000 I thought either that or his dad turned out to have run off and... 42 00:04:14,000 --> 00:04:16,000 Oh, I guess I knew he was dead already, though. Did I? 43 00:04:16,000 --> 00:04:20,000 Anyway, it was interesting. I like Haruki's dad. He's like a real man's man. 44 00:04:20,000 --> 00:04:25,000 And it's super ironic that his mom's like, oh, you're so manly. My manly little baby. You've all grown up. 45 00:04:25,000 --> 00:04:30,000 And he's like, mom, no one thinks I'm a super tough guy. 46 00:04:30,000 --> 00:04:38,000 Which is, you know, it's funny and cute and kind of ironic because, you know, he may not be looked at and universally accepted as a super tough guy. 47 00:04:38,000 --> 00:04:44,000 But, you know, he's got his martial arts prowess and he does, like, professional fighting of Kaiju as a career. 48 00:04:44,000 --> 00:04:48,000 So that's just kind of interesting. 49 00:04:48,000 --> 00:05:03,000 The moment, though, where Haruki kills the Red King and then he has the realization that he killed a father, Kaiju, protecting its baby, 50 00:05:03,000 --> 00:05:11,000 he understandably has this crisis because in effect, based on the visual language and everything that we saw in this episode, 51 00:05:11,000 --> 00:05:18,000 he basically killed his dad. He was the Kaiju that killed his father. 52 00:05:18,000 --> 00:05:22,000 Because that's just how the visual language works. 53 00:05:22,000 --> 00:05:32,000 I think you see the parallels of this man risking himself to protect his son and wife and other children, 54 00:05:32,000 --> 00:05:35,000 you know, other children who don't belong to him. 55 00:05:35,000 --> 00:05:49,000 And the way he runs off to fight the Kaiju, it's just, I feel like it's very much mirrored by the father, Red King, going out to fight, 56 00:05:49,000 --> 00:05:54,000 going out to fight against Haruki, or Zet, rather. 57 00:05:54,000 --> 00:06:00,000 And that's really interesting and really tragic and sad. 58 00:06:00,000 --> 00:06:05,000 And it's something intense. 59 00:06:05,000 --> 00:06:15,000 And I think that the humanity of the Kaiju, if you can call Kaiju, if you can say Kaiju have humanity, 60 00:06:15,000 --> 00:06:26,000 was something that struck Haruki and I think that's what really wrecked him and stopped him from being able to continue to fight like he had previously. 61 00:06:26,000 --> 00:06:32,000 And I think that's a really interesting move and I really like that they went there. 62 00:06:32,000 --> 00:06:38,000 And I think it's an interesting and bold choice. 63 00:06:38,000 --> 00:06:49,000 Anyway, I don't want to belabor that too much, so I will move on and talk about the fact that he ends up, Haruki ends up defending the Kaiju. 64 00:06:49,000 --> 00:06:53,000 And I think Zet exclaims because he's surprised at what happened. 65 00:06:53,000 --> 00:07:07,000 It's kind of interesting the way it works out. The two or so times that Zet has taken over for Haruki and transformed and become, you know, little Zet for 55 seconds at a time, 66 00:07:07,000 --> 00:07:17,000 he like forcibly takes over Haruki's body and it looks weird and it seems strange that he would be like, you know, forcibly taking over his body. 67 00:07:17,000 --> 00:07:30,000 But then again, the arrangement between the two of them, I guess, is that Haruki has control over Zet's, you know, Kaiju or, you know, giant size body. 68 00:07:30,000 --> 00:07:40,000 And he has the autonomy to do whatever he wants in that body. And that's just kind of, I don't know, that's kind of interesting. 69 00:07:40,000 --> 00:07:59,000 And the shock that Zet exclaimed with was really interesting because you can see, I guess, that he would have been okay with killing the Kaiju and abandoning that baby, abandoning that Red King egg. 70 00:07:59,000 --> 00:08:09,000 And this is kind of interesting. And it may sound ridiculous to be having sympathy for the Kaiju, but, you know, this is this whole question of, you know, 71 00:08:09,000 --> 00:08:13,000 what are Kaiju and how do they work and why are they existing on Earth? 72 00:08:13,000 --> 00:08:20,000 And it's something I brought up with the Pegula episode, I believe, when we got the, when Haruki got the spear. 73 00:08:20,000 --> 00:08:31,000 And it's basically being focused on here again, the concept is being brought up and it's being kind of, you know, introduced and played with. 74 00:08:31,000 --> 00:08:40,000 And I don't, there's no definitive answer here. And I kind of wonder why that is, except for the fact that it's going to be explored more in the next episode. 75 00:08:40,000 --> 00:08:57,000 But I don't know, I find that dissatisfying. And as much as I like this episode, and as good as I think it is, it's still deficient in a major way that surprises me, especially for how good the rest of it is. 76 00:08:57,000 --> 00:09:08,000 And yeah, I don't really have much more to say about that. Just there's this question about what Kaiju are and what their purpose is and what they're doing here on Earth and how they're supposed to interact with humans. 77 00:09:08,000 --> 00:09:14,000 And it's not being answered so far, but it's been raised, which I think is a good thing. 78 00:09:14,000 --> 00:09:24,000 I just don't know if this show is the right place to ask that question or address that issue. But it seems to be what they want to do. 79 00:09:24,000 --> 00:09:35,000 That's it for me this time. I have asked a bunch of questions, I've raised some issues, and I am curious to see what other people's thoughts are on this. 80 00:09:35,000 --> 00:09:45,000 So go ahead and leave a comment for me, either in the show notes on MJMunoz.com or where you find this on the video platform. 81 00:09:45,000 --> 00:10:04,000 I haven't checked if the podcast platform can be commented on easily or how that works exactly. I don't know if you can respond or reply to the individual episodes or not, or if it's just the show as a whole. 82 00:10:04,000 --> 00:10:11,000 Anyway, definitely MJMunoz.com is the place you can go to leave comments and you can check out all the other good stuff that I have there. 83 00:10:11,000 --> 00:10:20,000 One thing you can check out, which is actually in the show notes of whatever podcast video you're getting us on, it should be there, is my Ultraman inspired children's story. 84 00:10:20,000 --> 00:10:31,000 I have it written down and I want to get it illustrated, but for now I have a nice draft version of it written down and accessible for you online. 85 00:10:31,000 --> 00:10:41,000 I'll be uploading the polished new version of it, the no longer draft, the final draft of it pretty soon. 86 00:10:41,000 --> 00:10:48,000 Not quite this week or next week, but pretty soon I have it and four others. I have a total of five of them and I'm working together to get written. 87 00:10:48,000 --> 00:10:58,000 They're all based on and inspired by different tokusatsu stuff, so you can check all that out you know where. 88 00:10:58,000 --> 00:11:02,000 So with that, this is MJ signing out.