[Switchblade]

I liked the premiere. It definitely did a better job of getting me engaged and interested than Taiga's premiere last year (I'll get around to watching that, I swear; I have the whole series on my computer just waiting for me to get in the right mood). Yes, it's very Ultraman-y (saving the puppy is straight out of the first episode of Return), but it's Ultraman. Ultraman has always been very formulaic so I have a hard time really faulting the show for not doing something radically different, especially after how cold R/B left me.

I loved the scene where Z had to explain how the transformation gadget worked to Haruki. It reminded me a lot of Den-O and Ryotaro's awkward first transformation. You could probably argue that it was kind of an instruction manual for the roleplay toy, but I still thought it was a cute scene that ended on a good joke.

My only real complaint is Z's tendency to add "Ultra-" to the start of some phrases. I grew up in the 80s and this just makes me flash back to the Captain N version of Mega Man. That is not a good thing.