This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an author, I'm an analyzer. You can find all my work at MJMUNOZ.COM
Welcome to Going Ultra. This time I'm talking about Ultraman Zet, the dub, episode 19, which I'm calling Ultra Ace.
The actual name of the episode is The Last Hero. It originally aired October 31st, 2020.
The director is Takanori Tsujimoto, and the screenplay was done by Toshizo Nomoto.
So, first of all, I'm gonna say I liked this episode, I enjoyed it, I watched it two times now, and both times I enjoyed it.
And while it feels almost as if it's filler, there is a lot of good in it that I do want to discuss, so I will go ahead and do that.
One of the first things I want to say, I want to kind of get the light stuff out of the way, is that this shot of...
What's his name? Bestar? Beastar? That's not his name. Man, I forgot his name. The guy with the starfish stomach thing going on.
Anyway, he... Gemsstar, I believe, is the name. Anyway, he's kind of a crazy monster. I haven't seen anything...
Well, anyway, he's kind of a crazy monster. It was weird that he was sucking up Windom's hand, and, like, was he gonna swallow him or not?
He swallowed Oraltanker, so why couldn't he swallow all of Windom? I think that would have been kind of cool and interesting to see.
Kind of a unique take, but one thing I really like is when they first show the fight between Windom, King Joe, and this guy, Gemsstar,
it's showing it on a storage monitor, and it's just kind of a cool effect, and then it goes into the, you know, regular camera being right on them view, which is good.
I hope this doesn't bother the real Ultra fans out there, not like me. You know, not that I'm a fake Ultra fan. I just... I'm not a super fan. I don't know all the stuff very well.
But this Baraba being called the Hitman Terrible Monster, I got a couple problems with that. First of all, Terrible Monster is a terrible name for these
Yapul synthetic created Kaiju specifically for whatever this purpose is, or whatever the purposes are of Yapul.
I guess Universal... Universal Domination? Yeah, I guess if he wants to conquer the whole universe, it's Universal Domination. Anyway.
But Terrible Monster is a terrible name. I don't like that at all. It's from Ultraman Ace, so it's older, so I kind of get it, but it just seems like a bad name.
Like, I would think even in Japanese, you know, whatever terrible is, you know, Bakumoto or whatever, like, for Monster, I would even think that sounds bad.
So, Bakumoto, I think is what it... Anyway, it doesn't matter. So I don't like the name. This guy's... he's like a weird bison with like all these weird weapons and stuff grafted to him.
I see where that's monstrous, and I see where it's terrible, and he's a monster. I just don't like his name.
But yeah, other than that, I don't really have too much to say about this guy, but he's kind of weird.
Although, it is... so one kind of cool thing is he's called... he calls and cries out to Ace when he recognizes... sort of.
When he sort of recognizes Windom as Ace, which I'll just leave it at that, he's saying, Ace! Ace!
And his tongue is sticking out, so I thought, that's kind of cool that the voice actor chose to make him say Ace in a weird way, where it sounds like what he would say, has his tongue sticking out?
I don't know if he ever did that as a kid or not, but I thought that was kind of a cool, fun detail.
And, you know, he's not a monster. He puts up a good fight, I guess.
But, and I guess too, I do like the fact that BEMSTAR was scared of him, and that they took the time and energy and effort into giving BEMSTAR a, I'm scared face, I need to run away. That was kind of fun.
I was, however, very pleased by the appearance of Ace, because Ace is cool!
I thought the choice for his voice actor to be kind of like deeper and gravilier and sounding kind of older was interesting.
I definitely did not expect that. I mean, he doesn't need to sound youthful.
Like, Zet has a, I think Zet has a youthful, he's not naive necessarily, but like a youthful, almost innocent sound.
Maybe naive, because he's, yeah, he's a funny guy. And he doesn't necessarily grasp things the way he should.
But Ace's voice made him sound like a cool, kind of grizzled old man, like he's been through a lot, and like he's got all this experience and he's imparting wisdom, and that was really cool.
And I loved seeing him take on whatever this terrible beast guy's name is right away without any issue.
Like, it just, it's so cool that he was the one who stopped all these guys in the beginning, or you know, at the end of his show, from allowing Yappu to do, you know, domination of the universe.
And he just jumps right in there and has no issue fighting him, and that's really cool.
And I like the fact that, you know, he and Beta Smash team up to fight against this guy.
Although it was really weird that towards the end of the fight, Ace stares at Beta Smash for a minute and says,
Use, focus on the ultra holes in your head, and do this, and whatever, and you know, now use this attack, which I think he called Z-Ball, or Z-Beam, or something like that, which is a cool name for an attack. Oh, he called it Zet Spark, Zet Ray, something along those lines.
And I thought that was kind of cool, because apparently he named Zet, he, I don't know where Zet was and why he was just running around his Ultraman, no name, but then Ace gives him the name Zet, because he's hoping he'll be the Zet, the final hero that the world, the universe, the galaxy, universe, or whatever will need.
And I think that's a cool sentiment, but it is funny that it's mixed in with this weird thing of like, you know, use your Zet holes, or your ultra holes, and it's like, why are ultra holes a thing? That's a weird name. That's a really weird name.
I do appreciate the fact that, I'm forgetting his name right now, gosh. I do appreciate the fact that Zet has those circles, or those holes on his fin, and that Ace has one in the front of his fin.
It makes it feel like there's a design connection between them, and I believe Alpha Edge uses Ace. I think it's Ace Taro and Zero, maybe? I honestly don't pay attention to those too much, but I think it's kind of cool that there's that visual correspondence between them, and then that I guess he's able to pass on this Zet attack to him, and the fact that he named him Zet.
It's all very cozy, it all very much blends together and deepens the connection between them, which I think is cool, and I like it because it makes Ace a cooler character to me, and it makes me want to go back and watch his show now, which I think is a good thing.
So, you know, the two of them fought, they talk about, you know, they defeat this terrible monster, they send him back to the dimensional gap, which like, does that mean that Yapool is extra-dimensional, and he sent these creatures into this dimension, whatever this dimension is, to do stuff?
And Ace is also extra-dimensional, or he's from this dimension, he's defending it from these extra-dimensional threats, I can't quite tell. That's not something, you know, that I need to worry about so much, it's just kind of a curiosity and an errata.
I'm sure somebody can help me figure that out, or I can look it up on my own, but you know, somebody can help me figure it out, that'd be fine.
But yeah, so I really liked the fight between them, I liked them tag-teaming. It felt a little funny how quick Haruki was trying to transform into Zet when he was stuck in Bemstar and stuff, but it all makes sense because it slowly set up this thing where the Ace metal resonated, and then, you know, Ace emerged when he had the opportunity to.
After the fight, there's a weird moment with Yuka though, where she's looking at that, like, dimensional sword or whatever that this guy had, and I don't know if all of them... Baraba, Baraba is his name.
I don't know if all of them have this, like, dimensional cutter sword thing, or what, but she's super excited about this, and super excited about the possibility of breaking through dimensions, and it's kind of disturbing.
It's kind of disturbing to Hibikura, and I can't tell quite what he's thinking, but he is looking at her to scance, and it made me... like, first of all, it gave me a pause, but then when I saw him looking at her in the background, and how it wasn't focused on him, the camera, which is really interesting directing, I thought, huh, I should probably pay attention to this for the future of the show, because I think this is setting up something that's going to happen down the line, and I don't think it's going to be a good thing.
I won't speculate right now as to what that thing that's giving me foreboding is about, because I'm pretty sure it will happen soon. Yeah, we're in the endgame. It's, you know, episode 20 is next, and it's only 24 episodes long, I think, or maybe 25 at the most, the whole series, so I'll hush up about it right now.
But I do like the effect of seeing that thing on the screen again, and seeing it in the storage facility. So for some reason, the heads-up displays like that are cool to me.
I almost forgot to mention something important that I don't want to neglect, though.
I was basically dazzled and charmed by the heroic, triumphant music, which I can only assume is the Ultraman Ace theme music, because it was so cool.
I don't know, I mean, it didn't feel nostalgic, because I've never seen Ultraman Ace, but it felt vintage, and I do like a lot of more vintage music, ballads, and, you know, specifically heroic ballads, like Let's Go Rider Kick, and things like that. They're really cool.
Actually, the original Ultraman from 1962, right? That song is dope, and there's an English, on the dub, there's an English version of it, and I played the dub for my kids, and they sing it, and I sing it, and we sing it about each other, make up little lyrics to it, and it's a great song.
And this one, too, is pretty great. I think, if I remember correctly, it goes something like this.
Ba-da-ba-da-dum, ba-da-bam-bam, ba-da-ba-da-dum-bam-bam-bam, and it goes on from there, but like, it's a very cool song, it's very exciting, and I really liked it, and I felt like the show just took a moment and said, okay, we're just going to enjoy this, we're going to enjoy the aceness of this appearance, and I thought it was cool for them to indulge in that.
I really enjoyed it, and I mean, I think whoever was arranging the music really enjoyed it, too, because they just let it play, and I say it was to very great effect. To very great effect.
I want to say, with much aplomb, but I don't know if I'm using that word right or not, but it feels like the right word to use at this time.
So, anyway, I'm wrapping up. If you want to look at right now the thumbnail of the episode for the audio only, you can check that out, and you can also check out the links to the audio only version of the episode by going to the website, looking in the show notes, and you can find that and subscribe so that you can get the audio release as soon as it comes out.
The audio only feed goes out first through the pod feeders, then the show notes go up on the website, and then the video goes up on whatever platforms it's on.
So if you want it first and you want it now, look no further than the show notes, I guess, to find the links for that.
So anyway, yeah, that was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed the episode.
Like, I'm not sure what great thematic thing happened in it or what, you know, amazing story was told, but it was a lot of fun. Although it does feel like it basically touches on the fact that Ultraman has to be a lethal protector to some extent, and killing is part of the job.
And I like that Ace said to him something like, keep your guard up and don't stop attacking till it's dead, or like, keep your guard up and attack till it stops moving, or something like that, which was like, that was a pretty intense statement from Ace, but it was cool.
And I like it. And again, for the context of the show, it makes sense because if you don't stop that aggressive attacker, who knows how many people will be killed, will be, you know, wantonly murdered by its bloodlust.
So anyway, good stuff. I really like it. Anyway, until next time, folks, take care. This is MJ signing out.
Story over everything production.