This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer. You can find all my work at MJMunoz.com.
Welcome to Going Ultra. This episode is called Ultra Dance because it's funny.
And I'm actually here to analyze, review, and talk about Ultraman Zet Episode 20.
It's the dub that I'm talking about. This episode title is To Care and What Lies Beyond.
It originally aired, I don't know, because I cut off that information for myself, so I can't see it right now.
But I can tell you it was directed by Masayoshi Takasue and the screenplay was by Yuji Kobayashi.
I believe the last one was October 30th, so this one should have been something like November 6th or something like that.
2020, because that's when the show originally aired.
And this is a weird episode for being so close to the end of the show, especially because I remember how dramatic and desperate and interesting the end of the show gets.
Although I guess thematically it's setting up some stuff that's going to be important for going down the line.
But basically we get to see in this episode that Bako is awesome.
Bako is really, really cool.
And if you remember a few episodes ago, I was geeking out over the fact or freaking out over the fact that when people asked him where he learned certain things, he would say,
It's just something I picked up along the way. And I suppose he learned to fire a bazooka with medicine in it at a giant Kong King like kaiju that his daughter made along the way.
It's just something he picked up along the way too, right? Anyway, just the guy is so cool.
I wanted to make a meme or a joke combining some images of this and make it like that manga or light novel series or whatever it is.
I think it might even be an anime. If it's for my daughter, I'll even defeat a demon lord.
And I thought, oh, if it's for my daughter, I'll even defeat a kaiju. Like, that's cool.
But it's a little bit strange that that ended up happening because he seems awkward around his daughter.
She lives in Canada. She has come back to Japan. I don't know how long she's going to be around.
But when he met with her, he asked, hey, where's your mom? And she said, no, she thought it'd be better if we had father daughter bonding time, basically, which is OK.
I don't mind that. I think there's nothing wrong with that, of course. But he seemed awkward, upset, distracted.
Like maybe he's not very good. Maybe he's not very adept at being human.
It's another Evangelion reference, guys. Anyway, maybe that's the case. I'm not exactly sure.
But it was really interesting to see him go from kind of cold and distant to maybe it was just being in a social situation where he's not being called upon to be the boss.
It's different with your kids than it is with other people, even other people's kids.
You get treated differently at home or you treat people differently at home than you do out.
You're better. You're kinder. You're more gentle. You're more considerate with other people than you are with people who you're closest to.
So maybe he just doesn't know how to be around her. Maybe because she's been an adult for so long.
Maybe because he didn't want her going to Japan or to Canada and learning all this bio stuff.
Maybe he wanted her to stay there and be a mechanic like him. Who knows?
There's this really interesting, like untold story between Bako and his daughter. And it's really fascinating to me.
I wonder what's going on there. The actor's performance, like he just fills it with this, I don't know, like this tension and maybe even like this tenderness or like this forlorn type of attitude.
In the end, he comes around when he goes through all the action and he you get to see this more fatherly, more loving, more warm side to her where he like, I don't know,
almost like he's embarrassed by who he is or by his failings as a man, as a father to be around his daughter and have Ruruko like be okay with him.
I know it's really weird. It's really weird. But he like betrays this sense of like, I don't know, shame or vulnerability or something.
And it's really awesome to see. And it creates a really interesting contrast to him being this awesome, like, you know, commando basically attacking this kaiju for her
and like pulling out all the stops to make his daughter happy because she'll be sad if M1, this synthetic life form that she's helped to create, is killed because it has to be because, you know,
it's turned into a kaiju. It's gone rampant from people trying to steal it for their own selfish desires.
Like she made this awesome thing, beautiful thing, this good thing that was designed to help people and designed to aid humanity.
But it's a thing in and of itself and it's a life form that she created that she gave birth to, so to speak.
And she wants to take care of it and tend to it and love it and have this relationship with it that she's being denied.
And like if her father can help her get that back, that would do something for them in the relationship.
That's what it feels like. It feels like those are the kind of stakes there.
But it's also kind of this maybe paternalistic thing that Bako's had where he's wanted to care for the people under him, younger than him, his subordinates,
people he can pass on his wisdom to and like show this interesting, like tenderly fatherly type of love to where he's like helping them navigate the world around them.
And maybe there's something going on there. Maybe there's just subtext and it's not, you know, I don't know, actual text or meta text.
I don't know how you say that, you know, main text. But gosh, it's really interesting to me.
And like the, I don't know, there's just something about him and her and the way they play and the way like M1 exists and like, you know, is he kind of in love with her?
He's just a sweet guy and she's like his mother. Like there's a lot of like weird like psychological stuff going on in the background that I can't quite put my finger on.
But it's really interesting and really compelling. And I know it was just interesting to see like what an awesome, cool guy Bako is.
And, you know, especially with what he represents, this creator of these deadly weapons.
There's a lot going on in this episode, but the like gentleness and humanity even goes so far.
It goes so far, it goes so silly and ridiculous and like fun and good spirited, good natured that there's this soya soya soya soya song with drums and stuff like very traditional Japanese.
I have no idea what soya soya soya soya is supposed to mean, but it gets M1 dancing and Haruki and Yoko are dancing in their mecha.
And it's like, it's just, it's super funny and kind of adorable and endearing that these goofballs would go so far to save this, you know, albeit he's not.
He's a kaiju with an asterisk, right?
They'd go so far as to save this kaiju that they would, you know, dance like a bunch of goofballs, run down the battery and everything on those, you know, mecha in order to do this, to save his life and to neutralize him.
You know, in a real generative sense of the word, neutralize him and then restore him to who he was as opposed to being forced to destroy him because, you know, otherwise he's going to hurt lots of other people.
So that was super interesting, super weird, very unexpected.
It's probably the most out of left field thing I've seen in the little bit of Ultraman I've seen.
Although all the smile, smile stuff with the plant in Trigger was weird too.
So anyway, but yeah, it was a lot of it was a fun moment and I got to be honest, I had a, I think I had a crying baby on my shoulder the night that I watched this or like hours after watching this and I tried soya soya soya.
It did not work.
Did not work.
I guess Ultraman lied to me.
But ultimately I like that it got brought back to the point that the reason and Haruki said this and then Bako affirmed it later, that the reason that these mecha exists, that the reason that Bako built these weapons was to,
was to defend people's lives, to protect people's lives.
It isn't to just kill Kaiju.
The killing Kaiju is a necessary evil, sometimes a necessary step, sometimes, not always, to ensure human flourishing and happiness and that human lives are preserved.
And that's really interesting and really deep and really beautiful.
And I don't know why Windom and King Joe are holding hands at the end of this episode.
It's the last shot of the episode, I believe, before it closes out and I have it as one of the last images you're going to see in the video now that I'm back to experimenting with doing multiple images per video.
And it's interesting that like these lethal weapons are things that can be used for defense and for protection and lethality and killing is a tool in your tool belt.
But that doesn't mean it's the tool you always have to use. It's not the ones you always have to reach for.
There are other measures that can be taken up until you find it necessary to go that far.
And I like that now we're at a point where we have that balance where Haruki would have been okay.
He would have been sad, but he would have been okay with taking M1's life, I believe, if he had to.
But he and the others all worked really hard so that they didn't have to.
And look at the goodness that that brings about. Look at the joy, look at the happiness, look at the wholeness that that brings about.
It doesn't need to be this way. We don't have to just kill and destroy in order to maintain the status quo or keep things the way we want them to be.
There's another path. And I like that you're seeing that people can, through courage and determination and cleverness, ingenuity, hard work, and a little bit of rhythm and blues,
they can come up with a solution that means the most joy for the most people and doesn't necessitate killing.
And yeah, that's idealistic and that's perfect and that's beautiful.
But we need those ideals to strive towards, even though if they're difficult, even though they're difficult to achieve in real life.
And it doesn't matter how fantastical it is. You still want that idea in the zeitgeist, in the mind and the heart of the culture that you're in.
Otherwise, I think it's all black pills and damnation and ruin and hell and nihilism. And that's not what we want. So anyway.
Yeah, this is a really weirdly emotional touching episode full of silly stuff and interesting things that I didn't think I'd get to see in or I didn't think I would be forced to see in Ultraman.
And I really appreciate them taking the time and the effort to doing an episode this weird and this odd and this interesting and that has so much to say.
Kind of in preparation for or as they're about to enter the end game of the show and of the series. And it's a really I really appreciate it.
Let me know what you thought about this episode, because like I said, it was weird and there was a lot to to say about it.
So I'm curious to hear how other people one like the episode itself to how you like my analysis and review of it and what you thought about me waxing so philosophical.
If that's something you'd like to see more or less of. And I don't know what else. But until next time, this is MJ signing out.