[Kiwami]

Well first of all, this week's Blazar was super fun! Love the monster, how it accidentally ends up with super weapons strapped to its back, and Blazar himself was wonderful as always. Snapping his beam spear in half and then propelling the halves with the most extra windup ever is so awesome.

However - this was the first episode that left me wondering if something was missing. This was supposed to be an Anri-focus episode, right? Then, what exactly did they focus? The episode beigns with her being a bit flustered about her home town, it ends with her saying "No place like home".

But, what exactly happened in between to show this transformation? Or rather, what conflict did she have that needed resolving? Like, her childhood friend isn't it. They were always friends, Anri always believed and supported her. She only pushes her to the side once to fulfill her duty, and then apologizes immediately after. That's pretty much it. It lacks any kind of character development because there was nothing going on.

If, let's say, the village shunned the girl that hears the voices, and Anri was her friend, but ultimately gave in to the peer pressure and left her friend too, that would've worked. It would give her a reason to dislike her town, because they made her do something she deeply regrets, and reconnecting with her past friend and dealing with these issues head on and resolving them could clear everything up.

But nothing of the sorts was in this episode, so I kind of have to ask myself what even the point of it all was. Still, good episode, just lacking a bit in potential.

Also, the big one! I have finally, finally watched "Shin Ultraman"! The replacement disk came in today. To clear that mess up first: The subtitles are still horrible. Because they are not in fact simply just dubtitles. They are terribly done dubtitles. Like, the point of these is for people with hearing issues, right? So they can read the sounds that happen on the screen when there's no visible clue to what's happening? They don't do that here. They subtitle sounds like 4 times. Throughout the entire thing. And they don't consistently label the dialogue with the names of who's talking either, it's so random. It's like they threw a dice for every segment and then decided on that specific number to take proper dubtitle-action. One time they even label Ultraman with his real name, before Zoffy appears and informs the viewer about this, so that's super confusing.

So yeah, complete trash release sadly. Just bad. I don't watch English dubs so I can't judge their quality, I hope that one can at least help some viewers out.

As for the movie, I liked it. Had fun watching. I would say it's the weakest of the three "Shin"-movies for me though. I definitely see the issues people have with this, it's painfully episodic. Surprise, here's Zarab (literally)! Cue the Zarab-stuff. Zarab's gone? Here's Mefilas. Shin Kamen Rider fairs similarly, but it works better IMO because they set up a basic frame very early on: This is Shocker, they have agents that need to be stopped! So moving on from one agent to another makes sense. But Shin Ultraman is so abrupt and random, which is probably due to the very reactive nature of the original show: Can't take action without a threat.

And it moves very, very fast. I had trouble reading the subtitles in time at a few occasions, and that happens fairly rarely to me, I would say that I can usually read fast. But they talk so fast and the camera cuts very quickly so sometimes another character starts speaking but I haven't processed the previous sentence.

So, fast and choppy story, but: The theme of Ultraman and his nature of alien and human was beautifully adapted and expanded upon, I love that so much. Plus, the SSSP is fantastic, I love these guys. Strange how they chose to compose it of completely new characters that fill similar archetypes, instead of straight up adapting the original ones. Not bad though, I like them.

Effect work was really good though I think. Shin Godzilla and Shin Kamen Rider both had a few wonky CG effect moments, Shin Ultraman worked 100% for me. Maybe it helps that Ultraman was always very "creative" when it came to visual effects so I was never taken out of the moment.

It may only take third place, but it's not because I disliked it, it's simply my third favorite of the bunch