Personally, I liked the Arc/Blazar crossover. I understand some are dissappointed that none of the Blazar cast appeared, but I found it to be a unique take on a crossover ep.

In other news, a whole lot of Zero related stuff.

First, a special pv for Zero's 15th anniversary.
https://youtu.be/A6cZ07-CCEg

Next, a new season of New Generation Stars, with Zero and Z as the main leads.
https://youtu.be/lpKZth2fXS4

Finally, the Zero related movies: Mega Monster Battle, Ultraman Zero and Ultraman Saga are receiving brand new english dubs
https://twitter.com/TsuburayaGlobal/...30929540506101

Eh, it is what it is. I'm not personally disappointed considering I saw Blazar and Earth Garon do their thing, but at the same time I think people who are have all the reason to.
But that aside, Z finally gets a cape! :rock:

Just an average day for SKIP! Yuma and YouPi antics, Rin having to put up with it, and just a bright and sunny day! Pay no attention to the black and white filter!

Also totally normal for Ban to bring up running a cafe like it's something he's totally always wanted to do and for there to be no Kaiju attacks for over a month! Everything is completely normal!

Except everything is NOT normal. The concept of rain doesn't exist, SKIP doesn't exist, people are forgetting Kaiju, Chief Ban is running a coffee shop, YouPi is now literally a DOG. What is going on!?

Honestly I would distrust any search engine named after Yapool.

It all comes down to an erasure of imagination, the thing that drives people, and the thing that powers Yuma...and is being slowly eroded by the mysterious man in the white mask, a man who has found the power of a floating stone pillar he's using to create a paradise free of Kaiju even if he has to sap away peoples' thoughts and imagination to do it. It's just like how people cover up rivers and said rivers become forgotten, simple and straightforward. And he's become so dedicated to his mission, that his face has literally become a green apple dedicated to bringing people to paradise whether they like it or not.

I see we've run into the AU where everyone at SKIP works at a coffee shop.

But there was no way White Mask man could completely erase Yuma's imagination! It's too important to him and to his relationship with Arc! And with their power they're able to Ultra Beam the pillar (which I guess fused with the White Mask guy considering the mask was on the pillar) to explode it into raindrops of color and imagination!

The day is saved, SKIP is back, and I've never seen people happier to see a sun shower!

Next week: Yuma is getting the Seven finale treatment and the return of the Gelos'!

Sounds very Ultra Q.

Yeah, despite of my own nitpicking from my earlier post even if certain elements are really not all that surprising in retrospect, I really did the enjoy the Arc and Blazar crossover arc for the most part

New trailer for the Ultraman Arc movie and full reveal of Guil Arc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIaU0sOrV8s

Yuma is feeling that unfinished report! Among other issues...does he have Ultraseven combat fatigue!?

A new heat haze up in the sky promises the return of a new Gelos sibling, but is Yuma up for it when his body is basically falling apart? At least he's still got enthusiasm.

Nice of Rution's pal from his homeworld, Biorno, to posses YouPi and inform Yuma that, yes, they have found a way to stabilize the problem and make it so they don't have to destroy the Earth! The bad news is that frickin' Ze Su doesn't believe they have that kind of chance and still intends to carry out the plan...especially when the Onxy still exists in Arc.

That's not Digelos, it's Trigelos! The three-horned Galactic Beast!

Okay, so I guess Yuma's been outed more than he already has been, but Shu has come to care about Yuma so much that he'll respect his privacy and do everything he can to protect Yuma, because Trigelos is obviously after him. It's with that same care that Yuma knows he has to face his fate and battle Trigelos.

Arc punching Trigelos' pincer during the transformation was...Chef's kiss.

Respect to Arc for holding his own in his base form, it's just too bad Trigelos was designed to match Arc in every way possible, down to being able to fend off Arc's armors. He even blew the Solaris Armor off!

Rin, Ishido is just naturally the type to analyze everything, it doesn't mean he's not freaking out too. Especially when he probably knows Arc is Yuma at this point.

Oh snap, they had Arc do the Jesus pose! We haven't seen an Ultra do that in a while!

Look at the GDF coming in like a proper attack team to bail out Arc! Just in time for him to pull out the Galaxy Armor which is the one thing Trigelos can't fend off, especially when they match each other in drill attacks and the Galaxy Claws give Arc an opening to Ultra Beam Trigelos...and get caught in the massive explosion.

So Trigelos is gone, Arc is gone, and all that is left is a giant crater. And following up on that cliffhanger...a cutesy ED and the promise of everyone's favorite character, Nakamura, who isn't even in Japan anymore!

Ahh, a good old-fashioned Ultra Crucifixion. Good times.

This has been a while coming, but I finally wrapped up Ultraman Orb, along with some of its related specials/movies/miniseries. But for now I want to focus on Orb itself. I was pleased with it in the sense that it was probably the most unique and daring of the New Generation shows so far, but at the same time I think I fell squarely outside of the sort of person this kind of show appeals to. I like that it focuses on a bunch of lame reporters (who unleash a torrent of madcap dialogue in all their scenes) instead of a defense team and tries to go for a slightly darker angle than most Ultra shows, both of which felt very Kamen Rider to me. But it was also a show where I felt like the lighter elements and darker elements of the story didn't really work well together, resulting in an inconsistent tone and a story that would often stop short of going anywhere too interesting. A lot of the fights were done in an unusual style that really emphasized collateral damage, further enhanced by the amount of from the ground shots due to our defenseless reporter squad, but the show never really went anywhere with it narratively, which disappointed me since I thought that would be interesting. Jugglus Juggler was... fine. I kind of expected him to ham it up more with a name like that. I kept joking as I watched it that he would have driven me insane if I was straight though. :p His background with Gai is kept really vague in the show and his redemption is very abrupt too. On the other hand, I really liked Gai! I thought his actor gave a really charming, nuanced performance that had a lot of warmth to it. Really sold the emotionally wounded Ultra Warrior angle. But then he has these stupidly long transformation and form changes that completely mess up the flow of fights! It was also heavy on the romance angle, even for an Ultra show, and I can't say I was particularly into this one. I know that sort of thing is often just a hard sell for me.

So ultimately? Lots of good ideas and lots of stuff that just didn't live up to expectations. I think this would be a good show for anyone who watched Kamen Rider Kiva and liked its ideas, but wished it was a bit less janky or a bit less Inoue. For me though, I once again came out of it with mixed emotions. Another C.

I also watched Ultraman Orb: The Origin Saga. It was bizarre to be honest! The style is so different from Orb itself that I have a hard time even seeing Gai and Juggler as the same characters, even knowing its supposed to be a distant prequel. I wish some of the basic Gai and Juggler details were incorporated in the original show because honestly some of my understanding of their background was WAY off. I get the impression Tsuburaya was hoping to make more adult fan oriented miniseries judging by the Ultraman Heroes branding at the start of episodes, but it never went anywhere as far as I know. It was fun seeing some of the older Ultras again of course, but that doesn't really sustain the show. Psychi's whole plan was also kept really vague for most of the show, which made things needlessly confusing. Maybe I'm wrong, but it doesn't seem like the kind of thing Orb fans would have been all that into.

Finally getting back to the swing of things in my Tokusatsu viewings now with the holidays being effectively over, albeit slowly but surely, with watching a few more episodes of Ultraman Nexus on which I am already up to Dark Faust's first official appearance in the series. I even finally got around to watching the English dub version of The Dream Bird episode of Ultraman Arc since I already watched the original Japanese version of it some time ago.