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News Stay At Home With ULTRAMAN| Ultra Science Fiction Hour on YouTube

Omega #12, "What I Want to Do":
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Not a bad conclusion to the midseason 2-parter. Kosei gets some sense knocked into him by a "Mysterious Researcher" (per the credits) who press-gangs him into helping her search for kaiju samples, Ayumu uses them to figure out how to stop Eldeghimaera, everyone works together, and Ayumu sees Kosei using Rekiness, finally bringing her in the loop. Good. I was getting sick of her being clueless all the time. Next week is the annual midseason clip show, and presumably the frame for the clips will be the guys filling Ayumu in on the backstory.

We even get a bit of good old-fashioned action with miniature kaiju-fighting vehicles, basically giant harpoon guns to stab Eldeghimaera and deliver an energy overdose. Maybe the defense force will be a continuing factor in the rest of the season after all. I mean, they even gave them a musical motif complete with the militaristic "bum-ba-da-ba-da" chorus traditionally used in Ultraman defense-team marches.
 
Omega #13, "Ayu Finds Out":
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They could've made a worthwhile clip show if they'd really focused on Ayumu being brought into the loop and dealing with the impact of the truth and how it affected the trio's relationship. Instead, they only spent a fairly small part of the episode on that, while the rest was pretty routine "Remember when" flashback setup and a token Pigmon appearance. So most of it was pretty dull.

As for the small part that did have actual substance, it seems the idea is that Ayumu has implicitly figured out that Sorato is Omega (or is at least connected to him) but is choosing to let it remain unspoken and pretend not to know, so that they can continue their existing status quo. Which is kind of a disappointing outcome for me, since characters who are fully in the loop have a lot more story potential. I also don't see why she thinks it matters to let them keep the secret, when they'd already decided to share the secret anyway, and when the defense force is pro-Omega as she said. It seems like an arbitrary choice to just avoid any major evolution of the story arc, which is oddly timid for modern tokusatsu.
 
Omega #14, "Omega Elimination Order":
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Looks like the story arc is finally starting to ramp up, with Sorato being attacked by an assassin apparently connected to his own people somehow, though also connected to a destroyed race called Geness, and able to turn into a Zetton-inspired kaiju form. And Sorato's memories finally start to return.

Also, it looks like Sayuki, the bossy scientist from episode 12, is a new regular, added to the opening titles and everything. The actress previously played the ruler of the underground Victorians in Ultraman Ginga S.

I had a YouTube glitch of some sort where the image froze after returning from commercial, but the audio and subtitles played normally. So for over a minute, I was just looking at the establishing shot of Sorato and Kosei sitting on the steps looking out at the vista beyond while their conversation went on. It took me a while to realize I was looking at a still frame, since I thought it was just a stylistic, arty choice to hold on a long, minimalist shot while their conversation went on. It's the sort of thing Ultraman directors have done before, after all, and they were small enough in the frame that I couldn't tell they weren't moving, since my eyes were largely on the subtitles, and my brain sort of convinced me I could see them moving slightly, because I expected them to. I finally figured it out when the sound effect of Sorato detecting something kicked in and the image still didn't change. Luckily, once I rewound and started over from the top of the act, it played normally.
 
Omega #15, "Those Who Protect":
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An okay episode, nothing special. Sorato starts to remember his life as Omega, and he has some kind of minor epiphany that's basically to be even more carefree than he was already. Kosei gets his Meteokaiju working together and adds a third one to the stable. And Sayuki coins the name "Ultraman" and recruits the trio to join a monster-fighting team, so the show is finally sort of turning into a conventional Ultra series, though I doubt they'll be getting any super-aircraft or giant robots.
 
Omega #16, "The KSCT Special Task Unit":
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So the retooling continues, with the trio formally starting as part of the government kaiju task force. Yet for the sake of the show's budget, Sayuki implausibly co-opts the warehouse as the team's base of operations. I can't shake the feeling that someone higher up ordered a retool, since the change in format feels kind of awkward. Kosei even lampshaded how weird it is for people like him and Sorato to be recruited for an official task force.

And they do get an aircraft of sorts, but just a small ducted-fan transport rendered in CGI, so it won't be doing any kaiju fighting.

I think by this point I can say that I just don't like this season very much. It's not working for me. Which is disappointing, because the last season by this creative team, Ultraman Decker, was terrific. I had high hopes for Omega because of that, but it's really been a disappointment.

King Alligatortois is a very deep cut. The original Alligatortois appeared way back in 1966 in episode 26 of Ultra Q, even predating Ultraman. It hasn't been seen since, except in a photo in one of the supplemental recap episodes of Ultraman Arc last year.
 
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