Ultraman Z Episode 18 Rechallenge from the Year 2020 - October 24, 2020 Writer: Jun Tsugita Director: Takanori Tsujimoto While investigating the curious case of a vanishing monster. Haruki meets Kaori, a mysterious woman glaring at an old ferris wheel. Meanwhile, people are going missing from the town one after another... What's the truth behind the case? And just who exactly is Kaori? ULTRA-BAD -Is this a little soon to revisit Haruki's reticence to fight and kill? -Kaori being kind of naked felt unnecessary. This sort of thing works way better in animation, or anime specifically. I found it distracting and weird. If they made more of her skin pure white, so as to obscure it that would have made sense. I think the point is to emphasize her humanity and increase Haruki's anguish, but I have a hard time separating adult nudity from sexuality. I am sure my eldest would be made uncomfortable by those moments. I wonder how it came across for kids in Japan. ULTRA-COOL -Kemur's design is great. The fur, the long fingers, the cracks in the head and how they interplay with the eyes. It is a foreboding, alien look. I even like the unearthly gait of his run. -When Kemur starts to emerge from Kaori I got strong Deadite vibes. If you have seen Army of Darkness or Evil Dead 2, you know exactly what I mean. ULTRA-GOOD -All the night scenes were a lot of fun. Playing with the darkness aloud for some beautiful scenes, like when Z's face is reflecting in the water as Haruki is unable to commit to killing Kaori trapped in Kemur. -Yoko going inside of the fairground, I presume, with the shut down carousel looked really good. There was so nice creepy music that made the scene feel tense and it felt like peak X-Files as Haruki was trying to get to her, but was just too late. ULTRA-DEEP -We have learned that Kaiju are people too from the Red King incident. Haruki couldn't go through with killing Kaori to stop the abduction of so many people by the Kemur Rain. Beliarok was so itchy to slice SOMETHING that he resigned to separating Kaori from Kemur, just to get at Kemur. What is the moral calculation here? I am sure Kaori is glad to be alive, but she did ask Haruki to kill her to stop Kemur before. How does all that balance out? Best case scenario: Kemur stops its evil, lets Kaori and all the others go and returns to his race to enlighten them and it all works out well. Worst case scenario: Z brutally kills Kemur and Kaori and all the vanished people remain missing. Kemur's kin eat them or merge with them and they are lost from Earth forever. Second best: What happened in the episode: the good are saved and the bad is destroyed. Haruki and Z are de facto heroes because they were able to save all the good and get rid of the bad, but they couldn't have done it without Beliarok and he did it for a selfish reason. What if Haruki had just shot Kaori and been done with it? Would that have been heroic? What if Kaori had succeeded in killing Kemur by herself? Would that have been heroic? ULTRA-RANK 3/5 Ultraman Z 18 Rechallenge from the Year 2020 has some neat things going for it, but overall I found it lacking. Kemur tells Haruki "You're like me" when it senses the presence of Z within him. It is a neat moment and an interesting parallel, but I don't know that it amounts to much. It seems like a soft retread of Red King and Horoboros and it feels too soon to me. The creepiness and atmosphere were fun, but not quite enough to distract me from how these theme of equality and the burden of choosing to kill are being belabored. It doesn't feel like a foundation is being laid, it feels like we're running in circles. #Tokusatsu #Ultraman #UltramanZ #review LINKS https://ultra.fandom.com/wiki/Ultraman_Z_(series) ___ Talk to me on MeWe - mewe.com/i/mjmuñoz Contact- https://twitter.com/MJ_Scribe More Content- https://mjmunoz.com/ Support- https://mjmunoz.com/support/

Ultraman Z Episode 22 Individual Tomorrows - November 28, 2020 Writer: Sotaro Hayashi Director: Koichi Sakamoto As Haruki and Yoko are strolling through town, they once again run into the Space Pirate! Alien Barossa boasts that he will get his revenge for the defeat of his brothers. In the face of this powerful enemy's attack, SAA-1 Sevenger, which was headed for a museum, shows activity for the first time in a while! Meanwhile behind the scenes, Juggler seems to have something else in mind... ULTRA-BAD -How long have they been working on this Ultroid Zero? Zero didn't show up THAT early in the show did he? I checked and didn't appear until episode 7 of. If they started construction right away, that would be 15 weeks, but their were some breaks in airing the main show, so maybe they had closer to 5 months than 4 months to make this happen. It seems super fast too me. ULTRA-COOL -All the fights were absolutely fabulous! It felt like Sakamoto and sure enough it was. -Bako's Bruce Lee moment with Barossa was cool. -Bako to Hebikura all got these stand out moments this episode, it almost felt like they are giving everyone a big send-off, even Sevenger was back in the mix. -Yoko talking Beliarok into helping her out of pride and spite was a lot of fun. ULTRA-GOOD -Hebikura is so nuanced I honestly can not tell if he is doing things for the right reasons or not. GAFJ and to a lesser extent STORAGE are flawed organizations because they are made if people and nobody is perfect. He has disobeyed orders, as good soldiers do, in order to protect people and save so many lives. Then again he did take the Dark Z Riser for a spin a while back for fun. This time when he used Tri-King and Five King it was to help GAFJ get data on Z's Zestium Beam so they could complete Ultroid Zero. He just opposed them using D4. Whether or not Ultroid Zero uses D4, which I think it will in a beam form to be safer, it will be a more powerful weapon. Does he want them to be able to defend themselves without the help of Ultraman Z? Does he trust GAFJ? What does je support and oppose? It sure sounds like he is going to be working against them from here on out, even after he helped them. I am intrigued, but it's a puzzle. ULTRA-DEEP -I think Yoko wants to arm wrestle Haruki all the tine just for the contact. I think she might be romantically interested in him and the way she plays with him is fun and interesting, it feels slightly coy and formal, but casually and friendly all at the same time. My wife and I are watching Downton Abbey again and honestly it feels like she is running a similarly subdued game of romantic interest where she gets to probe and test this man to see if she would actually like to enjoy his company until they die. She gets to have fun, keep her dignity and honor and can walk away at anytime having lost nothing but the time she spent. It's an interesting dynamic where she holds all this power and the guy is either clueless or respectful of the boundaries ser on him. ULTRA-QUESTION What do you think Juggler is doing? Should humanity weild the power of an Ultraman mecha? ULTRA-RANK Ultraman Z 22 Individual Tomorrows was fabulous. The fights and the character moments were all top-notch. The possibilities for what will happen next have me excited, especially since Hebikura wants to prove all his doubters wrong. What will that mean? I am sure it will be good, for him at least. 4/5