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Discussion in 'Science Fiction & Fantasy' started by Kai "the spy", May 1, 2020.

  1. Kai "the spy"

    Kai "the spy" Admiral Admiral

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    "Ultraman Mebius" ends with this episode #50:
     
  2. Kai "the spy"

    Kai "the spy" Admiral Admiral

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    After the Yapool's apparent demise in last week's episode, a fragment of their body appears to turn up as a crystal with a pregnant woman and her son, in episode #24 of "Ultraman Ace":
     
  3. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    A pretty good Decker tonight, a focus episode for Vice-Captain Kaizaki at last. It's a riff on the Dyna episode "Battle! Monster Island," about a scientist creating a hybrid kaiju to be a weapon under human control, with Neomegas being a variation on the Neosaurus from that episode. The scientist is Kaizaki's mentor, and they debate the ethics of enslaving kaiju vs. the unlikelihood of coexisting with them. It touches on the question of whether there's a better way than killing monsters, a question this show really could stand to start asking, but it leaves the question unresolved, with Kaizaki being rather indecisive about it.

    There's a really nice shot of Kaizaki standing on Decker's hand facing off against her mentor in Neomegas's claw. Also a novel twist of Hanejiro turning the GUTS Hawk into essentially a wingsuit for Decker to fly with, as if Decker couldn't already fly.
     
  4. Kai "the spy"

    Kai "the spy" Admiral Admiral

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    Yeah, I enjoyed this one a lot, as well. Good character work for Kaizaki, and I also liked that this episode showed some bonding between the characters. And, of course, villain and theme show some nuance to the usually black-and-white, fight-bad-monster-to-the-death routine.
     
  5. Kai "the spy"

    Kai "the spy" Admiral Admiral

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    Episode #25 of "Ultraman Ace" sees mysterious pyramids growing out of the earth and releasing poisonous red smoke into the air:
     
  6. Kai "the spy"

    Kai "the spy" Admiral Admiral

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    Decker #11:


    Human-sized Decker against smaller, bird-like kaiju. Interesting. Also, Decker seemed surprised to be only human-sized.
     
  7. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    An interesting one. Adding a giant robot is reminiscent of Ultraman Z, and they so much as implied that GUTS-SELECT was inspired by King Joe STORAGE Custom from the Z/Trigger crossover. Although Terraphaser is an updating of the Deathfacer mecha from the Dyna movie -- which makes me suspect it's going to be taken over by evil forces at some point. Or maybe it already has some evil force lurking inside it, which is why the kaiju were freaked out by it.


    I took it more as Kanata being surprised that Decker had chosen to manifest at human size. It's interesting how Decker seems to be a background personality, not speaking but just sort of non-verbally guiding Kanata in what he's supposed to do. But Kanata's personality is still dominant when he's in Decker form.

    Though apparently Decker, like Z, can't speak comprehensibly to human listeners and can only be understood by other Ultras or hosts. Or maybe Kanata just chose not to speak so as not to give himself away.

    I suppose Decker chose to fight at that size because the Hinabasser were human-sized, and they had Terraphaser to take on Raibasser. It was a novelty, though. We've seen Ultras fight on human scale numerous times, but seeing a human-sized Ultra fighting alongside humans as a team is rare.
     
  8. Kai "the spy"

    Kai "the spy" Admiral Admiral

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    I get the distinct impression that Tsuburaya's YT department has decided to drastically scale back the output for international viewers. Last year at this time, there was basically one full episode uploaded per day. Now, the weekly output's gone down to one Ace episode and the new Decker episode. Can't really complain, I mean, it was all free entertainment, and it's not like there's a lack of content out there to occupy one's time with. But it still feels kind of sad.

    Anyway, here's this week's episode #26 of "Ultraman Ace":
     
  9. Kai "the spy"

    Kai "the spy" Admiral Admiral

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    Decker #12:

    Just posting the video, haven't had time to watch, yet. Notes to follow.

    And the day after I said what I said in my post above, Tsuburaya starts "UltraSeven" as a 55th Anniversary Programm:
     
  10. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    An okay episode, largely about getting Terraphaser up and running, with the Spheres resurrecting Neomegas to do some mysterious thing involving sending energy into the ground. It also touches again on the question of whether Kanata has any goals in life, and ends with a major twist.

    It occurred to me to wonder about Mitsukuni Shizuma from Trigger, the guy who crossed over from the Tiga/Dyna universe and founded GUTS-SELECT. I wondered if he remembered the events of Dyna and what the Sphere's motivation turned out to be in that universe, which could be useful to understanding them in this universe. But then I realized that Dyna was set nearly a decade later than Tiga, so if Shizuma crossed universes between the series, he wouldn't have any knowledge of that universe's Sphere. Since he was flying a Tiga-era GUTS Wing when he crossed over, that seems likely.

    I still think there's a good chance we'll get a Dyna/Asuka appearance sometime later in the series, though, in which case Asuka might pass on some key information about the Sphere. Then again, maybe this universe's Sphere have a different motivation. But it does seem similar, given their efforts to prevent humanity from expanding into space.
     
  11. Kai "the spy"

    Kai "the spy" Admiral Admiral

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    To kick off the Ultra-weekend (they're all kinda bundled up now), episode #27 of "Ultraman Ace" continues the story with the Ultra Brothers defeated and helpless:

    This episode marks the first appearance of Father of Ultra.
     
    Last edited: Oct 7, 2022
  12. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    I should've realized that this week's Decker, episode 13, would be the midseason clip show, as is standard in the New Generation era. As with the last clip episode (though this one is part of the regular episode count rather than an extra), it features a returning Marluru from Trigger, this time interacting with the lead cast. It ends up being kind of a decent character story as Marluru and Kanata have a bit of a heart-to-heart about the latter being Decker, but it largely just reasserts that Kanata doesn't understand why Decker chose him, a question that's been repeatedly asked but never brought any closer to an answer.

    We learn that the other characters can see the card box Kanata keeps on his belt, and he has to make excuses for it as a bandage case -- in contrast to Ultraman Z, where the large, garish blue plastic case Haruki carried on his belt was conveniently made of materials invisible to human senses.
     
  13. Kai "the spy"

    Kai "the spy" Admiral Admiral

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    Well, for all completists, here is said clip show episode:
     
  14. Kai "the spy"

    Kai "the spy" Admiral Admiral

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    And the Ultra weekend is capped off with episode #2 of "UltraSeven", in which a member of Earth's defense forces comes back from six months duty on the space station V3 to find a weird rock in his garden:
     
    Last edited: Oct 9, 2022
  15. Kai "the spy"

    Kai "the spy" Admiral Admiral

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    In episode #28 of "Ultraman Ace", Yuko is revealed to be a Princess of the Moon, and thus says goodbye:


    Also started today, "Redman" was a series in the style of the classic Ultra Fights, short episodes without any plot worth mentioning, without miniatures, without human characters or dialogue, really, just stuntmen in re-used suits outside fighting. The series has thus gotten the fan interpretation of Redman walking a barren and uncivilized planet and mercilessly hunting and killing innocent kaijus. Here is episode #1:
     
  16. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    That was such a lame way of writing out the first female Ultra host. It was the real-life equivalent of how Poochie was written out of The Itchy & Scratchy Show on The Simpsons. Although at least she didn't die on the way back to her home planet, and actually got to return on a handful of occasions.
     
  17. Kai "the spy"

    Kai "the spy" Admiral Admiral

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    Yeah, they kind of squandered all the potential of the idea of two hosts. I kind of get why they wrote her out, because they clearly didn't know what to do with her. A real shame.

    For some reason, they skipped episode #2 and went straight to #3 of "Redman":


    And, of course, episode #14 of "Ultraman Decker":

    Now, that was one hell of an episode. Initial gut reaction, I liked it quite a lot. Gotta sit with this a bit before I can make final judgement, and I guess it also depends on how all this develops in the coming episodes.
     
  18. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Definitely some surprises this week. The professor's a bad guy, and Kanata's not Decker's first host. The newcomer mentioned "the Decker of this age," so presumably they're from the past -- or maybe the future? Maybe next week we'll get some explanation of where Decker came from. I wonder if he's connected to the Ultra-Ancients to which Trigger belonged. It would be nice to learn Decker's origin, since we never learned Dyna's.

    I'm always impressed by the way the suit actors can convey character by changing their body language. The other Decker's fighting style was so much more seasoned, effortless, almost bored at how easy it was.

    From the preview, it looks like next week,
    Dyna finally shows up. I wonder if Asuka will too.
     
  19. Kai "the spy"

    Kai "the spy" Admiral Admiral

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    I guess they upload daily Redman episodes, but totally out-of-order, as today we get episode #7:

    Not that it matters, it's not like there's a serialized plot with these.

    Also, today, we get the debut of Eleking in episode #3 of "UltraSeven":
     
  20. Kai "the spy"

    Kai "the spy" Admiral Admiral

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    So, today's "Redman" episode #67 (they're really jumping ahead here) is a three-way battle on the beach: