I thought it was average, not as good as the previous two eps. The Sakamotoisms weren't as obnoxious as I thought they would be, but still not a big fan of it in general. I thought the finisher for Gamma was...weird.

Did they ever explain how Haruki found Yoko and Yuka? It just seemed like he stumbled onto them while randomly looking and they didn't seem remotely surprised that he had found them!

That aside, this was fun given the splendor of Gamma Future! Using ethereal versions of Tiga, Dyna, and Gaia was unexpected and they topped themselves with "Gamma Through". Did not see that manner of defeat coming. Gamma Future seems so over-powered that it wouldn't surprise me if Haruki would lose one of the necessary Ultra-Medals for that form. I also have visions of Gamma Future shrinking down to human size or going inside someone's body to stop a miniaturized villain (similar to what Jetman did with Jet Icarus and Leech Drill).

Since we're getting King Joe next week, will we see the inside of the Joe as well!? Gamma Future is so ridiculous and I find myself wanting a Gamma Future figure just for kicks (cause such a toy could be considered a 1:1 ratio given the shrinking power)!

I also thought the episode felt rushed. Were we supposed to know who the two alien girls are? The episode treated them like recurring characters when (afaik) this is their first appearance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRELWOmUsrs

This week on Ultraman Z, it's more Medals, more robots, and a more straightforward plot. Like, I really loved how simple this one is. There's not a subplot or anything in sight. No old lore or whatever. Just a nice easy to grasp premise playing out in a tense and energetic fashion. This kind of episode is where Z really shines, I think.

This was a fun, I guess you could say Part 1 of a little arc we're doing with Alien Barossa. Slowly but surely build him up, and him having a ton of weapons (I spotted one familiar one) next episode would explain why the hell he has a King Joe since that's usually Pedan stuff.

I do like that they decided to hold back on Ultra Medal Forms by relegating certain medal combinations to finishers instead. It's a nice way to keep the Ultra Medals steadily flowing in without giving us a ton of forms to burn through.

Oh also next week! Tiny Z is back yet again!

The special Z-Riser finishers would probably be more impressive if Ganma Future didn't already have like half a dozen outlandish powers it pulled out in it's debut episode alone.

I can feel it coming soon, Z fighting alongside three giant robots, and it'll be great...

After this episode I'd like to imagine Ultraman Max and Victory storming into Hikari's office and demand answers as to why they are left out of Ultra Medals, only to find 80 in the room saying "first time?" :lolol

Also since there's no news yet of Z's new form other than that rumored Delta form, it is quite possible Z won't have a Super Form, although Gamma Future could easily fit that role given how crazy that form is.

Basic episode, but fun. Seeing King Joe in action is always nice. Seems a bit more foreshadowing for next week though, and we'll get our updated King Joe soon after, awesome1

Also, this was uploaded too, very interesting to watch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T6evbPqcME

The one thing I didn't like is that all of of the sudden, two new organizations that have apparently already been working on the medals just appear out of nowhere, so much so if the narrator didn't how up to explain things, it would make no sense.

It was a fine episode otherwise, but making up new groups out of nowhere just to tell the story did not impress me.

I mean, Storage already is part of one big Organization, given well, episode 4 where they had to impress a bunch of foreign bigwigs to even get the funding for Windom.

So I don't see how more groups being made known to us the viewer as they become relevant is a bad thing? Especially cause like, I don't know why you'd think Storage is the end all be all organization given it's well, it's just the Japanese Branch of the global defense teams and we know there's a Monster Cleanup/Research Branch too.

If it's so abrupt, it requires a narrator, which they don't normally use, to make any sense out of the thing, than yeah, that's a bad thing.

It's not the like medals are new. They've been around since the beginning. It's not like in universe these groups are new either. Just SOME brief mentioning of them. Some indication they were out there.

But these groups seem to have been introducted solely for this single episode and I will be very surprise if they are even mentioned ever again.

That's lazy writing.

Finally caught up on the last couple of eps, so here's a few thoughts:

Episode 7: Deep lore, deep lore, yadda yadda

Episode 8: Sakamoto really does have a signature style, huh? Was just like being back in 2013. But yeah, as someone else said, this one was very very busy. Maybe not enough that it needed splitting down, but maybe slim down one of the subplots. Or spend less time on the girl-on-girl martial arts, who knows? Gamma Future is very cool, though. What's less cool is Haruki's Z-Brace just going missing, guess they ran out of "Invisible to humans" material that day. I'm nitpicking though, it was still good episode all round.

Episode 9: This one definitely started out a little clunky, and I think that's mainly due to the narration? You don't really need it, the visuals explain themselves well enough. But it quickly picks up the pace, and King Joe is my new favourite kaiji. He's just so 70's! Also, Nexus's medal is here, so I guess I can't even complain about past Ultras this time round since I've seen Nexus! The twist was a little obvious the moment they told Haruki he'd be in Windom, but it's good to see the aliens managed to play both sides too. Basically, good episode, looking forwards to next week!

New forms for Z and Geed revealed for UFF.

https://youtu.be/1eWRwJMTo4I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vh4VrGpWXtM

This week on Ultraman Z, thrill to the members of STORAGE fighting off a pirate from space! Be wowed by the noticeably different, maybe more old-school(?) style of direction! Laugh uproariously at Haruki's terrible nickname for Juggler! And get disappointed when it turns out next week is a clip show!

I mean, that last one is admittedly understandable enough. I can't imagine producing a TV show is a smooth process right now. Plus, this week's Ultra Navi segment has Cosmos in it, so I can't be mad.

Alien Barossa was really cool in this episode for being a newcomer, a good amount of creepy and threatening while also showing a more wack goofy side. Also the bombshell that there's 9,999 of his kind out there. Possibly more if there's like... more Alien Barossa who lay eggs.

That being said I do like how Ultra Medals now are relegated to attacks, helps include them but not make them too overbearing since well, attacks I feel are more manageable to be introduced than whole new forms.

Next week is a clipshow but I figured we'd get one, granted I didn't expect one this soon but oh well, should be fun.

It was fun! Kinda confused about Barossa, as he said he didn't use vocal cords, but he apparently does talk. The battle was a cute balance of action, comedy, and fun.

Kinda funny how it ended on Juggler looking a little dismayed from that dissection joke (for obvious reasons)!

Given that next week's clip show is about franchise Robos, including Jean-Bot and Jean-Nine, I don't mind too much. The more Mecha, the better.

If they are probably watching some sort of video file on the robots, they might see little Nao and say, isn't that Riku as a kid?

So that's why Jean-Bot did that joke in the Geed Movie?

Z: Cuts up an alien into a dozen pieces until it explodes.

Yoko: "So pretty!"

A lot of that fight certainly did look more 'old-school' (low-budget) like from the 90s series... Barossa smacking Z with that rubber stick reminded me of Tiga getting clobbered with a flimsy tree, and just like that time I found myself asking 'i guess this is supposed to be dramatic'.

Clip-show time already, huh. And it's not even the annual recap of the show itself that usually comes after the halfway point! All the mecha talk that is to come has me thinking that I'd like an Ultraman one day that is kinda like a mecha/cyborg themselves.

Z has a base form, but since he's joined with Haruki, he uses Medals for enlarged combat. Perhaps another Ultra Series could show the new Ultra in a base form again, but have to be digitized or kept alive within a mechanical body that changes forms and parts depending on the Veteran Ultra powers the pilot/human protagonist uses in the cockpit! Main question is whether Toei would erupt into a frenzy because such a premise might be construed as too much like Sentai?

OMG the Sabre Dance scene :lol

That's prime Ultraman right there, scary, funny and awesome all mixed into one episode. I also like how different the abilities with the new medals are, they aren’t just beam attacks, the sword was really cool.

Next week is a clipshow sadly but - a focus on Ultraman robots? That's kind of interesting actually.

Yes! I thought was what really clever.

It talks in giant form. Which doesn’t mean it can only talk as a giant, but only Ultraman can understand it, since I assume like Ultraman it talks telepathically and humans cannot hear it.

It's similar with Ultraman himself. I only recently came to this conclusion (yes I'm dumb), but when Ultraman "talks" on screen we as the audience can hear it, the host / other Ultraman can hear them, but the humans in the show cannot. What they hear are the "grunts", that’s the only audible sound an Ultra makes humans can hear in-universe.

Although I assume there have been lots of instances where an Ultra could talk to the humans, although in Z it is pretty clear that they cannot. Remember the scene were Z wanted to tell Yoko to throw him the Ultraman-medal? :lol

Gotta love when Ultraman pulls out songs like this, Symphony No. 9 - 4th Movement, or Immediate Music - Redrum at seemingly random points, and yet... they all work so well.

Delta Rise Claw has been revealed.

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/...20200824095241

https://m-78.jp/news/post-5598/

It's a fusion of Zero, Belial and Geed and he looks pretty cool! He also has a talking Belial sword???

I think I'm in love.

I like how this form looks, even if the sword is a shame. Poor Riku's cry of "Let my father live in peace!" just rings more true every week.

Fun choice of medals, too! This is really turning out to be Geed 2: We Have Robots This Time, huh?

So Z is now Kibaranger.

The form looks cool, could sue a bit more black though, but the Belials word is hilarious, I love it!

That’s how you get me to buy a role-play weapon Bandai, sculpt the evil guys head on it :lol

How can anything possibly top Gamma Future?

Don't quote me on that!

I have a question - how can something be a fusion of Geed when Geed is made out of fusing other Ultras too?

Well if leaked toy listings are to be believed... which oh boy they are really real now...

It's Geed, Zero, and Belial, but all of their fusion form versions. So it is a fusion form made out of fusion forms! And I love this insanity.

Well, it was never explained but I believe when they* channel the power of an Ultra into these trinkets they* basically take a snapshot of their current form and for that process to work it apparently doesn’t matter how the Ultra in question achieved said form in the first place.

*Ultraman Hikari

Thank you Ultraman Hikari, very good.

I recall Geed had a fusion form that combined Orb - Emerium Slugger with Belial.

Sometimes also known under his pen name, Ultraman Bandai.

Anyone know where the leaked toy listings would be? I'm especially curious about Ultra Action Figure

Too true. Geed gave such a perfect sense of closure to the Belial super-plot, even bringing in Zero in such a major capacity, but Tsuburaya just can't seem to help themselves. Heck, it was bad enough the whole Devil Splinter thing means Riku basically has to play f***ing Simon's Quest all across the entire multiverse and go lay his dad's bones to rest, but now Belial's face is being plastered on the role-play weapons? Somewhere out there, Tregear is laughing hysterically at the needless cruelty of it all.

The form looks okay, by the way. My least favorite of Z's so far, but not anything offensive.

Finally we got the Zoffy medal. Zoffy is my all time favorite of the old school Ultramen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8USJtam13jY

This week on Ultraman Z, Z can't really decide what the subject of this recap episode is and just kinda rambles disjointedly about a bunch of different topics. Please buy a DX Ultra Z Riser!

Hey, I know it sounds underwhelming, but they play Ginga's theme song in this one, instantly making it the best episode of Z ever! :p

A neat little one-off episode and it looks like I suspected right after double checking a while ago.

This doesn't count as an actual episode and we're still going with Episode 11 as usual next week. Meaning we may end up just having little retsudan styled recaps to give the show a week off every now and again.

Like with what they did with X, well I wouldn't know specifically since we never got them, but Crunchyroll always had the preview for like the recap episodes of X that weren't part of the main episode count at the end of certain episodes. So I can only assume this is a similar approach.

Next week though, mmm, new Robot, and our way to basically get past giving every important upgrade to the Ultra. Since it's looking like King Joe STORAGE custom is taking the standard 11 to 12 power up spot that Ultra's usually get. Which is a neat way to go about things and makes sense since King Joe is getting a DX Toy.