This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer. Find all my work at MJMunoz.com.
Join me for a discussion of Ultraman Z, Episode 15 featuring Mean Eyes facing Darkness and a Void Blade.
This episode had a great kaiju and team-up, but one thing felt off to me, and after I talk about it,
and the rest of it, I'd like to know what your thoughts are on all of it.
This is my review of Z15. Again, it's called Ultra Void.
And yeah, I'm about to jump right into the topics that caught my attention and share my thoughts with you.
So, we had Geed coming back, or Jeed. Is it Jeed? I think they call it Jeed.
Anyway, so, Jeed is back, Rico's back, sort of. He's back in a weird way because we don't get to see the actor actually talk at all.
He's shown on screen. I'm pretty sure he's actually recorded. It's not like a still image, but then he's doing voiceover over it.
I believe this hit in a weird place with COVID when it first started, so I think they were banished to cautious.
There was the Kanagon episode where they made the, you know, social distancing joke, and...
Yeah, so, I mean, definitely there's evidence that COVID was involved with altering things a little bit on how Z went originally,
and obviously it affects this because it's just a dub. It's still the same show.
Just, you can hear it in your own English, in your own English language, if that's what you speak.
And yeah, so, anyway, it was kind of weird how he was dealt with, but I like the idea of him and Haruki having this
psychic connection and being able to communicate to each other. It seemed like it was through the Zetriser,
but I wasn't 100% sure if that's exactly what the show was saying, but it sure seemed like it, and whatever, that's fine.
Again, since I frequently talk about Guyver, especially when I'm talking about Gede,
he has a Guyver vibe, and the Guyvers are able to communicate telepathically with each other through these things on their backs.
So, it works for me. But yeah, what was really nice was his noble and heroic sacrifice,
how he was willing to dive into the void of Giza, or Brisa, rather, and potentially not come out so that he could help Haruki.
And it was cool to see Gede put so much trust in Haruki, where he was willing to give up his medal to him,
and basically he said, hey, I'm going to hold off this guy, hold off the destruction, until you can make it work, or you can find a solution.
And I thought that was really neat.
Giza himself, itself, whatever, this weird void monster, and it seems like it's appeared before,
and something about the shape of its face, its head, seems really familiar to me.
Like, almost that upside-down teardrop and having those kind of slanted lines going from the outside to the center line of the face.
Like I said, something about it feels really familiar to me.
I don't know if I'm just remembering the design from last time, because I think it's a really cool design.
All that black and yellow, or that amber, the black body with those amber accents on it, they're more yellow than amber, but you know what I'm saying.
Very cool, very weird.
It's funny, it still has a very human form, not like the Bolton, which was the previous Kaiju,
but it feels more inhuman in the way it moves its body, in the fact that it apparently has no weight or mass or energy or whatever that you can read.
And of course, that's, you know, somebody says that, you don't see that visually.
But definitely all those weird effects of it blending and almost like bullet time, right?
Like, or how like Agent Smith would move really fast, but not quite bullet time.
Anyway, something about that effect combined with its fairly inhuman like face, like it has no face, right?
Even though it has a humanoid body as the shape, it just felt very weird.
It felt very not of this world in a really creepy and wonderful way.
So I enjoyed that a lot.
And the threat of it having been basically like a living black hole and it's going to destroy the planet.
That's that's pretty good stakes.
I like that Juggler both joined in the fight and then after that didn't work, that he went and helped Horki find Celebro in his base,
which it was really funny seeing Juggler in the back seat of a car and like him directing hierarchy driving.
That was that was pretty funny. And then, you know, we had this weird instance of like, you know,
I was going to use modern warfare as one of the key phrases for this episode, but it's like this weird, you know, urban infiltration of it's not even a base.
I wouldn't call it a base that Kaburaki has.
It's just where he hangs out and does his thing. And I don't remember how Juggler knew where to find that.
But apparently he did. And that's fine, I guess.
But anyway, it was just kind of a weird instance of like all this gunfighting going on in there.
And that was that was pretty cool, actually, especially the effects they used.
Like you get to see through Horki's scope and they had this like he wasn't using Voltaic.
He was using like a lightning blast or whatever, which makes sense.
You don't want to kill the guy. But I just I kind of wonder what Juggler told him about that.
But it made sense that he went to Celebro to get that Belial medal because he knows he has it and or figures he probably has it.
And that Celebro doesn't want the world to be destroyed because it will wreck his plans or his plot or his game as.
As Juggler called it and Celebro had a weird reaction to that.
He laughed maniacally and questioned it almost like scoffing at the concept that he's playing some sort of game when.
I'm pretty sure at the end of the series, we have Celebro directly say that it is a game that he's playing.
So I don't know what that was about. If that's some sort of misdirection or trying to lead us, you know.
Well, yeah, misdirection. I was going to describe misdirection in more words.
So, yeah, that was kind of strange. And.
That's kind of all I have to say about that. But I mean, Juggler doesn't want the planet destroyed.
If he is on the planet while it's stuck into a black hole, he'll die, too, which I'm sure he doesn't want.
So you can see, again, a motivated self-interest, a villainous, you know, if he is a bad guy,
a villainous reason for him to fight so hard against the Kaiju, against Grisa and against the black hole in the void.
And that's because, like, you know, most others, he wants to continue living and he can't do that if the Earth is destroyed.
So, you know, that that's kind of that makes sense. No issue there.
Just it's interesting examining Juggler's motives from multiple perspectives.
And it's still difficult because the way they structure the scenarios in the writing to tell exactly where he's coming from,
what his goal is, what he wants to do. So I like that. So.
But I do feel overall like he's good, but it's just I don't know. I don't know.
So, yeah, there was this this is an interesting cap off to the whole hierarchy struggle and his, you know,
finding his resolve to do what he has to do.
We see him in the beginning of the episode lose the fight to or the arm wrestling match to Yuko.
And he says he's going to get stronger and he goes running and he's, you know,
lifting weights and things like that, which does look like tiny weights.
That should be bigger than you think. Anyway, they were going to fast, weren't they?
I don't know. I've been in a I've had instruction in a gym before that seems like it's too fast to move weights.
But maybe in Japan, they've got a different ethos about it. I'm not sure.
I know you're just trying to tear your muscles. You can do that with little weights, big weights.
It doesn't matter. But anyway, just kind of an odd kind of an odd aspect of the episode.
But maybe it's accurate. Maybe it's just something I'm ignorant of, which is very possible.
Anyway, so I talked about how much I like Riza.
I'll get to the thing I didn't like or the thing that bugged me in a little bit.
I want to make sure I address these things. So, yeah, so Jude coming back, you know, he's got those belly yellow eyes.
It was funny that Yuka pointed out that he's the ultimate of the mean eyes.
And that was pretty cool. I thought it was interesting that when he was inside of.
The void, when he was inside of Grizza, he I don't know if did he actually see the belly all eyes, the red glowing belly eyes?
I'm not sure, but. When he was inside, he kind of had like a like it was right as Haruki was getting him out of there.
He had this moment where I don't know, almost like introspection or something like he was.
Taken aback by the darkness that was surrounding him of the void.
And I don't know that just because it was like being in a black hole, you know, without all the being torn apart and dying that we have theorized would happen.
Or if it was just that he was surrounded by utter darkness and like that reminded him of the corruption of,
you know, Belial, his dad and the darkness that he faces or face that he was altered by that he represents.
And if it almost was like something about the darkness inside of Jid as well, because.
You know, he has these Belial factors in him that the Belial metal was made of and that we see this Belial needle was made of as well.
And. That's interesting because it almost feels like Haruki like Haruki in a way is facing darkness as well.
And it's being aided by Jid and it's almost like the.
Emotional growth and development is being split between the two of them.
Jid inside or heart, you know, heart. Yeah, Riku inside of the void and Haruki outside of the void, like trying to find the strength to face it.
And I don't know, maybe like Jid is trying to find the strength to face the darkness within him while he's in the void.
And that parallels the journey of Haruki trying to have the determination to do what he needs to do.
And when they combine the metals, you know, Zet tells him in Zet space that, you know, we need to swallow the darkness together.
Like they need to be able to embrace the darkness of Belial and integrate it into themselves in order to utilize one, this form.
And then two, because the Belial needle is, you know, it's got Belial's face on it and it sure looks like his head and stuff.
And it came from the Belial factor interacting with something inside of the void.
I don't know if that means the needle was already there and the devil splinter or the Belial factor in Jid shaped it to be like Belial or what?
Like that part kind of bugs me. It doesn't make sense.
But Haruki is embracing the point is Haruki is embracing this darkness, this darker aspect of himself.
And like the ferocity that he needs in order to, you know, be an effective fighter and, you know, kill and destroy for the right reasons and for the sake of saving people.
And here you had to save an entire planet by killing one Kaiju.
You know, you do the math on that.
It makes sense, especially because the Kaiju was not innocent and it was, you know, causing destruction and harm.
And it was part of the reason that the destruction was coming to the planet or was being threatened.
So that all makes sense to me.
But it's just an interesting way that they kind of split up the journey between the two of them.
And I like the idea of the Belial needle and it talking and stuff.
That's pretty cool.
But at the same time, it was kind of odd because I don't quite understand what it was doing.
I don't quite understand why it has this whole personality and everything except for, you know, the Belial factor interacting with it.
But it's just kind of kind of an odd choice.
And like Haruki having to like mash that button three times in order to do the finishing move with it.
It just felt very toyotic.
And yes, I know this is, you know, glorified toy commercial.
That's what people like to say about Tokusatsu.
But usually it's a lot better.
It's just by making the thing look cool and be cool that the toyotic effect of it works.
And it, you know, makes people interested in it.
And I think just seeing this weapon be powerful is enough to sell it to people.
And the fact that it, you know, talks and has, you know, Belial sayings and the eyes flush and light up and things like that.
To me, that seems cool enough.
And without having to resort to this weird, you know, button mash aspect of the toy.
Like, I don't know, like I would have hidden the button mash on it.
And I think it would have been better for that.
And also, it's weird that it does like this like heart throb sound when he's mashing the button.
It just again, it all kind of seems weird and off to me and I don't understand what the point was of it.
Except for, you know, the point is to sell toys.
But I just again, I just don't see that as a very effective aspect of it.
I think it being the needle itself being cool looking and, you know, being an effective, very effective weapon for Haruki and Zet.
It's cool enough on its own there that I think that's enough merit for it to sell.
And if it doesn't, then I don't know, I guess you didn't do a good enough job.
But, you know, I certainly didn't buy one.
I'm sure I could if I wanted to and I'm not going to.
Because I think it's kind of, you know, well for multiple reasons, but, you know, I'm not compelled to basically.
So if they were trying to sell it to me, it didn't work.
But I don't think I'm the target audience either.
So there is that to consider.
But that's all I have to say about this episode.
Do you get my objections to the Belial needle?
Do you have any any other comments?
You see what I was saying about the parallel journey of like facing darkness between or that was shared between Jude and hierarchy.
Let me know what you think about that or anything else that I said.
You can find everything in the show notes.
There's the video version.
There's the audio version.
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Before the video is published.
So there's an incentive for you to go ahead and go to the show notes and find the links to subscribe to it wherever you listen to stuff.
I'm going to add more.
I need to finish adding the podcast to more places, but it's got a basic distribution going right now that you can find on most things.
So check it out.
You can definitely listen to it through a browser if you have to for now.
But that's pretty much all I want to say.
Oh, Ava and the grow bug is officially up.
It is my Ultraman inspired story for kids.
And it tells a cool story of a little girl and a magical bug facing the darkness together and overcoming fear.
And there's action and adventure and excitement.
And I think if you like Ultraman that you'll like the story as well.
You can find a link to that in the show notes.
Anyway, this is MJ.
I want to let you know that I want you to I hope that you are well.
I hope that you be well.
And until next time, folks, take care.
This is me signing out.
I hope you enjoyed that.
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