This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer. Find all my work at MJMunoz.com.
Welcome back to Going Ultra. This is Going Ultra episode 14, sort of.
Ultra Looper, where I'm covering Ultraman Zet episode 14, which is not a clip show,
but it is a little bit of a weird show with reused footage. So, it's an original show, original episode,
however it has clip show elements, and it's part of this weird three-part, I don't know, deconstruction
of Ultraman as a superhero who uses lethal force on Kaiju who are, you know, living sentient beings.
And yeah, so anyway, join me for a discussion of this episode of Ultraman Zet, which features
Tuna, Time Loops, and Toughness. This episode got me a little misty, and I'll tell you why as I talk
about that deconstruction that I mentioned earlier. So, starting off with a light topic first.
Boss Bako happens again. I don't know why this man is so charismatic, but he is, and I love, like,
one, I think the actor's performance is very charismatic. I thought it in the original, I think, you know,
the voice actor does a good job matching him, I like it anyway, and it totally works for me.
And it's weird that this guy is displaying all these talents and all this ability and all this coolness.
You know, he's just like a regular old mechanic guy who's, you know, in his 60s or whatever,
and he's just working around all these, you know, kits. And I don't know if it's because he's older than them,
and Japan has a more of a culture of respect for elders than the United States has at least on the surface it does.
And so I don't know if it's that or if it's something else. Maybe it's just they wanted to do something like this
in the show with this Bako character, and everybody did a good job at it because all the young people
seemed super excited by this old guy doing his stuff, and he, it's almost like he's doing it tongue in cheek,
like he knows he's being like kind of a silly old man, but at the same time it's kind of a badicle,
to borrow a term from Keith Hayward from Henge and Justice Unlimited. So that's really interesting,
and I like it. I love the, I ask that you taste my tuna, which sounds inappropriate or weird a little bit
until you know the context of it, that this guy's making sushi, and when everybody asks him how he knows how to do that,
he says, it's just something I picked up along the way. And he does that with his magic tricks,
and you know, I don't know if you remember this, but when, oh who was it, oh man, when that pirate,
that space pirate, Barossa, alien Barossa had infiltrated storage, he ended up basically saving the day
with a little bit of help from Haruki, but the old man did it mostly on his own, which is awesome.
So anyway, I love this guy. He's so cool, so charismatic, so fun, and it's not just that he's fun,
he's also like a mentor character, he's mentored Yuka and Haruki a bit. Yoko likes him, but she's old,
and she's into old dudes. Which you know, if you look at what an old man, an older guy can offer you
versus a younger guy, you might say, and of course depending on the age range, you might say,
you know what, I'm going to go with the guy who has more status, more wisdom, more capability, more money,
more maturity, and these young punks who don't know how to treat a woman, why would I go with them?
Anyway, that's not the focus of the show. There were some good gags and funny moments, like
Hibikura has said on at least two occasions that he had to go to the bathroom for something,
and in this I didn't check the subs, or the subversion of it, but in this he says, like,
oh I gotta go take a pee break, to Yuka, and she tells him, TMI! Which was a really funny moment,
and then he ends up in the bathroom, because of this fourth dimensional shenanigans going on,
that, well anyway, I don't really care how Celebro got that Kaiju to do whatever it does,
but he ends up in the bathroom, and he's about to leave, and he's transformed, he untransforms,
or turns back, he re-transforms into a human form, and he's about to leave, and he says,
well I'm here, and he goes to the urinal and pees, and that is such a weird, quirky, sort of edgy moment,
or whatever, for a kid's show, it really caught me, and it was funny, it was funny,
but of course understanding the differences between our culture and Japanese culture,
like in Kamen Rider Kiva, the main character ends up bathing with a couple men, and they show it,
and it's like, they're sitting in the bathtub in his home together, and it's like no big deal,
which is, again, sounds a little ludicrous, but you know, what's the difference between that and sitting in the hot tub?
I think it's kind of the equivalent of that, now that seeing somebody pee is the equivalent of being in a hot tub,
but you know, I didn't like going to baseball stadiums as a kid for a certain reason, and it, you know,
I'm okay now, but it's common, it's common, you would see that.
Anyway, moving on from that, so the psychological time loop thing is super interesting,
again, I don't really understand the nature of that Kaiju, I didn't even catch its name,
but it's the, you know, fourth dimension thing, with the weird like,
it looks like it's probably based off of an original Ultraman Kaiju, I don't know that for sure,
if not the original, then probably one of the earlier, second or third series,
because it has giant like industrial from a kitchen spinners,
that you would stick into a thing for mixing cake batter or whatever, like,
I can imagine those, which are, I don't know, 40 inches long, being attached to something,
and it's a, you know, 30 or 50 gallon bowl, that holds all this batter,
and it mixes that stuff up, that's exactly what it looks like this crazy thing has,
but anyway, it inflicts this time pocket dimension reality bubble thing,
on the storage facility, and messes them up, and, you know, it was interesting,
Celebro said something like he's not satisfied with their development, or something like that,
I don't know if he's, it seems very strange, because he could have been using that opportunity to kill them,
but he didn't seem to want to kill them, he seemed to want to disperse some sort of development with them,
and I don't know how, or if, I mean maybe just witnessing things, he realizes that something's going on with Ultraman,
but then that would also imply that he knows that Ultraman is somebody at storage,
I hadn't thought that through yet, but anyway, he seems like he wants to disperse something on,
but maybe it's not Zet or Haruki's development, and I don't know, resolution resolve,
that he's trying to fix or repair, maybe it's something with the actual storage group,
and their robots, or you know, King Joe, that's an interesting concept,
oh, also, super interesting, super sad, that Sevenger is being, sort of putting them all to be a display unit,
while Windom and King Joe will be the standard roster,
I don't know why they wouldn't opt for having 3 mech, but they're going with just the two,
SAA, which is what, Special Armored Airborne Vehicles, or whatever, anyway,
so that's kind of interesting, it was a sad moment in the beginning of the episode,
but getting more into the psychological loop, I'm trying to get out of my own psychological time loop,
it was interesting to me that the thing that determined the characters getting looped through these situations,
was their mindset, and I have no idea if any of that stuff that Yuka was talking about is actual theoretical stuff,
but from a narrative structure alone, having your mindset be what limits you,
and what keeps you locked into a certain place, is brilliant and beautiful, and it reminds me of this awesome scene,
from, it's Evangelion on music, it's an anime, it's called, oh dear dear me grandma, what is it called?
Rosiphon, Rosiphon, Rosiphon, Rosiphon, oh, what a show, one interesting, weird, quirky, crazy show,
I probably watched it about three times, the last time I watched it, I dearly remember the line,
and it struck me so hard, the main character whose name I can't remember right now, says,
which is, he was stuck on the other side of the barrier, and I've talked about this on other reviews or podcasting that I've done for other stuff,
because this concept, I love it so much, and it's baked into this, it's connected to this, you'll see,
he's stuck on the side of this barrier, he's stuck on one side of this barrier, and he wants to get to the other side of the barrier,
and eventually he's able to, and then he realizes, or he learns the truth, that the barrier was never really a barrier at all,
and instead the barrier was in his mind or his heart, because he presupposed that he couldn't get through the barrier,
therefore he was unable to, and once that knowledge and that mindset has shifted in himself, he's able to get through,
and he laughs to himself, and he says, the barrier was inside of me the whole time, or something along those lines.
I can't find, I want to find that episode, rip the clip, you know, get the video, get the audio, because it's just, it's so great,
and maybe you had to be there in the context of the show to really get it, but it is fabulous,
and it's something I want to archive and document, because I think it's really beautiful and meaningful in a, you know, crazy show
about Mayan Mecca and aliens and weird stuff, anyway, but it reminds me of that, because Yoko had to get herself through,
she was feeling doubtful, and Haruki was feeling even more doubtful about their place in the world, and you know,
using the Mecca and fighting and killing and what not, but they had to get past that, and they did, they each did,
she found her resolve, she's already ahead of Haruki like I've mentioned before, she's ahead of Haruki in her development,
and he's farther behind, but he's getting there by gum, and he's, you know, working on developing it,
and this episode propels him to do that, and it's just such an awesome idea that it's set up for that,
that this episode is set up for that purpose, and that it comes at this time, like obviously, the people making the show
made it in an order, so that they could have this sort of, like I said, deconstruction of Ultraman as a, you know,
a filler superhero kind of guy, and I really find it fascinating that, what is it, 11, 12, 13, 14,
like these four episodes over the course of them, we get to see this slowly developed, and you know,
I mistakenly thought, oh, I love that one thing in Zet with the Red King and all that stuff,
but really, it's this whole suite of episodes that works together as I guess an arc of like,
questioning what it is to be a hero, and like, it's amazing, it's amazing, I love it,
but anyway, just that conceit is a really cool one. I'm gonna move on real quick, you know,
Hebi Kura as Juggler is running around, he goes outside, he kind of stops, oh man,
he kind of stops, well, Celebro, but he kind of doesn't, and he tells him he doesn't want to interfere,
he just wants to push him off today so they can have the celebration, so it's like he's attached to the storage people,
but he's not, he's somewhat distant, it's a very strange thing, and who knows if that's just him being tricky,
so that he can get an upper hand on Celebro and like figure out what to do to stop everything,
it's strange, and then at the end of the battle, which he's outside to witness,
somehow he's outside again to witness the battle, he like turns away from it and like, oh, that was fun to watch,
like, I don't know, like, is that mocking people who are into the stuff, is it, like, I didn't even know what that means,
I didn't even know what that means, but it's an interesting moment, and it's just adding a little bit more
to this interesting character in Juggler who I enjoy very much in the show.
So, I already talked about the Eldritch Enemy, which was this weird, I don't know, like sea cucumber,
like, I don't know, what's that Pokemon that looks like, you know, Sheldon, I don't know, something like that,
I'm not going to talk about it anymore, I talked about him enough, weird, crazy, cool, interesting.
Also, this reminds me of the episode of Evangelion where, because I've drawn a lot of comparisons to Evangelion
and Zet specifically, where there's that flat shadow, it's like the zebra, there's like, there's like a shadow on the ground
and a thing above it, but the shadow is the real thing, is the real substance, and the thing up in the air
that looks like it has form is actually the shadow of it, so it's like an inverse of reality.
And that thing has all sorts of crazy, like, mind, I can't say that on a show, like, mind-bending
type of stuff going on with it too, I believe, I believe.
Anyway, but that's the kind of show Evangelion was, so anyway.
I love it, the, oh man, Righteous Fury or Heroic Resolve, what did I talk about first?
Okay, so, Haruki got to go back and meet his dad.
That moment in the show where we saw Kid Haruki playing with his dad, and his dad is down that hill
for so long getting the ball, scared me so much, I mentioned this before.
I mean, not literally scared me, but just like, narratively like, oh no, what's gonna happen?
What are they gonna do to Haruki? What's gonna happen to his dad?
And it turns out that his dad meets his son in the future somehow through this crazy time loop thing
that's going on, where Haruki somehow, through the cursed blessing, or blessing, blessed curse
of this kaiju that he's fighting, gets to go back in time and see his father one more time.
The man who died protecting him, the man who he thought he killed in the visage of the Red King.
I talked about this before, I'm not gonna expand on it.
I'll go back to that episode to see exactly what I'm talking about.
The man who inspired him to be a hero, and who inspired him to save people,
because he was willing to effectively abandon his wife and son in order to save other people.
And I don't know if there's some sort of unresolved, like, anger or frustration that Haruki has with his dad.
Sorry lady.
And like, that's something that's being played on here, or if it's just that he's inspired by his father
or what his dad was willing to do, and like, the good of it.
I don't even know if that's an element of it or not. That like, conflict maybe.
But he definitely knows that he's not the man his dad is, and he aspires to that.
And coming face to face with him, with his ghost, with his alive self after he thought he'd killed him,
and having that chance to touch him, to shake hands, and to look into his eyes, and to...
I don't know. Like, have that moment to...
I don't know, meet that hero, meet that person who inspired him.
It added like a redemptive value to it, because like, I don't know, instead of hurting...
I don't know, it's crazy. It's crazy to me, because it's really impactful, really emotional,
and I don't quite understand the mechanics of it. Is it like, he killed...
When he killed the Red King, it was like he was the Kaiju who killed his father.
And now that he gets to meet him in the past, and shake hands with him and talk to him about how he deals with the inability to be a perfect hero,
and the inevitable failure that you will let some people down, you will have to hurt and kill some to save many more.
You know, some guilty parties, not innocent parties, it's not what we're talking about.
This isn't the trolley dilemma. This is actual, there's somebody aggressing and trying to murder people,
and you're stopping them by killing them with lethal force.
How do you live with yourself when you do that?
And the answer that his father gives him, like, frees him from his guilt and from the trauma of what happened.
And it enables him to form the resolve to go back and to do his best, to give his most to save whoever he can.
And I'm just repeating from the show now, paraphrasing, and to etch into his heart and his soul the memories of those who he failed
and those he had to destroy in order to do that.
And wow, it's just beautiful. It's absolutely gorgeous.
And then it's almost ironic, after that he is able to escape, he's able to transform, he's able to...
He becomes, not Red King, not Red Man either, he becomes Beta Smash.
And he uses all of his might and all of his muscle and all of his fury to rip those batter spoon mixer thingies,
the batter beaters, rip those out of the Kaiju, and eventually destroy him with the same slash
with that powerful cyclone weapon or whatever that he used to kill the Red King.
I don't even know how to articulate how much I love that and how good it is and how cathartic and healing that is
and how beautiful and good and useful it is and how entertaining it is to see him go through this arc to have the question raised,
dealt with, examined, and finally answered, that you have to do the best you can.
And it doesn't make you evil, it doesn't make you wicked, it doesn't make you not a hero if you have to go to these certain measures
if you're doing it with the right heart and if you're doing it with the right intention.
Not that it all comes down to, don't matter as long as intentions are good, that's not what I'm saying
and you're being uncharitable if you want to accuse me of saying that.
But it's having compassion and understanding for people on both sides of the matter.
And it's super interesting. I absolutely loved it.
This might be my favorite episode, I don't know. It's weird, but I like it a lot.
I'm going to wrap it up there. I went for a lot longer than I thought I would.
So I'm going to go ahead and stop myself here and I thank you for your time and attention.
I encourage you to go check out the Ava and the Grow Bug children's picture book manuscript
that I'm going to post on the website on mjmunoz.com.
I will also put an audio version over there if you don't want to read it with your own eyes,
if you want to listen to it with your ears, you can do that too.
I'm going to have it in the notes there and it will probably be in my story over everything book, author, podcast feed thing too,
which I will link in the show notes for that episode special.
Not on the audio only, but on the actual website. But the audio only will link to that.
Maybe I'll throw it in there too, just for fun this one time.
Anyway, that's it. 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.
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