[Fish Sandwich]

I joke about Sevenger stealing the show, but being completely serious, my favorite scene in the entire episode was by far Z's chat with Haruki. His inability to stick to one tone when speaking continues to be hilarious, to a level I'm not sure the subs are doing justice. Which isn't a knock against them, it's tricky stuff to translate, but... I don't know, imagine a fireman who occasionally speaks in the formal manner of a butler, yet is also just as liable to end a sentence with "brah". That's an exaggeration on my part, but I think it gives you a better idea of just how odd Z kind of is when he's talking. Sometimes the awkward switches even happen in the middle of a single sentence.

Putting aside the way he's saying it, the things he says in that scene are great either way. It's a lot more meta comedy, which is the kind of thing that often becomes self-indulgent and unfunny in large doses, but I found it continued to work very well, especially since the scene is taking time to further address standard toku tropes in a way you don't see too often. Even though there's not much an actual explanation, I was pleasantly surprised to see Z explicitly say Haruki only gets to transform after he's given it all just as himself first. It's one of those oft-unspoken rules of Ultraman, usually justified simply by an overall idea that Ultraman isn't meant to just be an omnipotent savior who solves everyone's problems for them, but to see Haruki actively try to give up on fighting a monster without Z's help, it was a nice way to drive that home a bit. It's a strange thing to see happen, and feels faintly wrong.

It doesn't explore all these concepts in a particularly deep fashion , but it was still cool of the show specifically write in an instance of Haruki breaking the rules onscreen as part of establishing their importance. It's something I, and probably a lot of other viewers, like to ask questions about and poke fun at, so seeing the show get in on the joke, down to going "look, nobody can see Haruki's giant blue coin purse please stop worrying about it", it makes me feel... I don't know. "Heard" is too dramatic, but you can tell Kouta Fukihara was having loads of loving fun with all the little quirks of the franchise, and it's bittersweet that these episodes are so sharply written knowing he didn't get the chance to see the final product. Which is a heavier note than I expected to end this post on, but I guess my main point is just that I'm getting a ton of enjoyment out of the work he did. Z has been as fun as an Ultra show can be so far, and I'm eagerly awaiting the next episode.