[Fish Sandwich]

Getting close to the end of my Zero-related checklist with Killer the Beatstar and Ultraman Saga.

Killer the Beatstar has a stupid name. It's also fairly enjoyable. More so than the other direct-to-video things I've watched doing this, but it still didn't leave a bigger impact than "that was pretty good I guess". One thing I will say is that you can tell how much they've honed Zero's character with his last movie, and it's great to see at least one adventure with the Ultimate Force Zero before he went back to teaming up with whatever other Ultramen were in vogue that week. Not gonna lie, I'd love to see a series on Amazon Prime or something about these guys set in the year between Revenge of Belial and this.

Saga on the other hand is another really good one. It's no space epic, and it sure as heck doesn't have space epic level effects, though what it does have is a very solid script courtesy of Keiichi Hasegawa. I suppose with as much Ultraman as that guy's written it's only natural, but you can feel the love he has for the franchise here. This is sort of weird to say, but I get the distinct feeling that if I were a kid who grew up really loving Dyna back when it aired, seeing him here would choke me up a bit. While both Cosmos and him are portrayed as these awesome, larger than life legends, the extra affection Hasegawa has for the show he was head writer on is evident. Asuka is the star of this movie and he isn't even in most of it. Zero's pretty great here too. I was worried for a couple minutes I'd hate Taiga, but he makes a great host for Zero, and the movie's willingness to outright embarrass the both of them shows just how far Zero came as a character in just a couple years (i.e. he actually IS one now). Combine all that with some decently likable new characters for how many there are in such a short runtime, and you've got yourself a movie I like a whole bunch.