[Frontier]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kiwami

I'm still trucking alongside the Ultra Seven road, and this week they finally got me good: "Super Weapon R1" is a fantastic episode. The best one yet IMO.

This is exactly the type of story I wanted from this show: The humans finally realizing they went wrong and actually go through with the moral all the way.

The King Joe two-part episodes got close, but the end was so lame. Dan was really rooting for a non-violent solution, got the humans to believe that peace can only be achieved through mutual understanding, but who would've guessed, the aliens lied, got blasted to smithereens and all is well. So stupid. It could've been a much better ending if King Joe went berserk or something, and the aliens willingly aided the humans in destroying the robot.

Because that's my main issue with Ultra Seven, way too many episodes are basic "aliens invade and are evil, kill them"-setups. Although elaborately and well executed visually, the messages tend to be similar and are more about humans enduring with their ways than evolving and learning something new.

But this episode handles it differently, the alien threat only happens because humans invent a super weapon and test it on a far away planet. Which in turn creates a monster that attacks earth.

While that is fairly basic too, what gets me about this episode is Ultra Seven's peril. The absolutely wonderfully acted despair on Dan's face as he realizes that the humans he loves and wants to protect are becoming aggressors. They have their reasons, to protect themselves, but are about to enter a state of conflict that will never end. And after the monster is destroyed, humanity has to reevaluate their ways, and maybe think that building more and more powerful weapons is not the best way of defense.

The phrase used in the episode to describe this arms race, "Running a marathon while coughing up blood" is so great. Can you run all the way and survive? If you do, at what cost?

I wish more of Ultra Seven was like this. It is not a bad show, far from it, but the messages it tells could be more diverse. I hope to see more stuff like this; the show is far from over, I'm about halfway through now.

Also, the way Seven ends the fight is so brutal, but to awesome. Ripping the monsters arm off, and as it lies on the ground struggling, he jumps on it, takes the Eye Slugger and just cuts its throat, spraying blood all over his face. Like, damn. Although now that I think about it again - it might've been an act of mercy. Quickly end the fight, end the monsters pain. But you have all kinds of beams for that Ultra Seven! I won't complain tough, it looked spectacular.

I think the crux of the King Joe arc for me is when Dan confronts the Alien Pedan and talks about them and humanity understanding each other and the Alien Pedan tells him "You're the only who believes that Ultraseven," which is basically true for pretty much the entire alien to human relations in the series.

Like as violent as Dan can get as Seven he is ultimately someone who believes in understanding and making peace with people, it's just he's one of the only beings in the universe who does, even as his role in the Ultra Guard represents what is possible for humans and aliens together.