[Switchblade]

Man, it feels good to be caught up on this show again.

I'm really enjoying this story arc with Haruki questioning what he's doing. End of the day, he is killing all of these creatures and that's not something everyone would be able to do without having some moral concerns. Between this and the early "wait, how does the henshin device work" scenes, it feels like the show is going for more of a deconstruction of how a standard, hot-blooded, "YOSH!" shouting protagonist should work. It's a good, subtle deconstruction, too; another show could easily overcompensate and give us a much more obnoxious or ineffective character. I like that the show is going this complex with its hero.

I know that this episode was at least 33% toy commercial for the DX King Joe, but man am I happy to see an Ultraman show with some flashy vehicles again. My first Ultra series was Nexus and I really loved the multi-combination jet/tank from that show. A lot of the other, older shows had similar forms of unique vehicles and it's something that we haven't seen in a long time. Even if it's based off of a kaiju, it's still great to see a return of the awesome support vehicle.

Also, Yoko's leg-jettisoning finisher was totally badass. So cool to see her upstage Z for a change.