“Aizen’s Frenzy”

The conflict between Aizen and the Minato brothers reaches boiling point, as they duke it out in public view. A mysterious woman who is definitely not the missing mother shows up and summons an even more powerful Horoboros, to the surprise of all three Ultramen.

Euri’s Thoughts

While not at the level of the best episodes R/B has shown us, episode 11 felt like a significant improvement over last week’s offering. The rivalry between the brothers and Aizen is getting heated, and it’s good to finally see some public opinion of what’s been going on. It’s pretty surface level mind you, as we only see a few members of the public picking their favourite Ultraman, with nothing to say about the hostility between them. That’s not to say the show wont go there, though the pacing of this episode doesn’t do it any favours. We get to see a very public fight between Aizen and the Minato brothers, but it’s hijacked by the return of Horoboros.

My worry is that the show will focus on the three Ultramen working together to defeat it, rather than the squabble they had before Horoboros showed up. Obviously this is where the show is going to head, but there’s some really interesting stories to tell about a public in fear of an escalating Ultraman disagreement, and I don’t think we’re going to see any of that. Seeing the three of them team up is an inevitability, but I wouldn’t mind putting off a little so that it feels like a big event when they bury the hatchet.

Another reason to expect Aizen to be pushed towards working with Rosso and Blu is the introduction of a new antagonist, a very goth-looking lady sporting not-so-subtle black, red and blue nail varnish. She picks up the discarded Horoboros pog after the initial fight and summons it again, even more powerful than before, in the middle of the Ultra-falling out. There’s a pretty good chance that this woman is Rosso and Blu’s missing mother, and given her knowledge of the Ultramen, and how the monsters work, summoning Horoboros to force everyone to work together wouldn’t be out of the question.

At the same time, it sure would be nice if she transformed in the future. A brief look at the Ultraman wiki makes it look like we’ve had very few Ultrawomen, so why not? Interestingly, Ultrawoman Beth showed up in one of the ads that wormed its way into the version of episode 10 we watched last week. Perhaps the odds of that happening will go up if she turns out to be someone other than the missing Minato mum.

Oh, and who expected that Rosso and Blu’s super cool handshake would be what outed their Ultraman-ness to Asahi? Despite it being very discreet and surprising, we did, during episode 2.

Random Observations

• Goth lady may not seem old enough to be Rosso and Blu’s mother, but this is basically anime and I wouldn’t be surprised one way or the other.
• Pour one out for Bezelb, who flies about for a bit before dying and being overshadowed by Horoboros round two.
• Horoboros getting stronger by standing up is very reminiscent of Final Fantasy 13‘s Behemoth.
• Still no Dinosaur Tank.

colons’ Thoughts

We were talking before we watched this episode that there’d be a super convenient way to justify the media’s shoddy coverage of the events of the show so far, and wouldn’t you know it, Aizen does control the media! His plan, it seems, is to tie himself to his Ultraman without actually admitting it’s him, and he’s going to use his media influence to reinforce that. To sell this idea, he acts as much like a nerdy fan of Black Black Black Black as possible, even down to ‘mimicking’ his heart beam gesture while announcing Aizentech’s support for him.

It’s not much of an act; he absolutely is an Ultraman nerd. The way he chooses the monster to summon for its part in the climactic fight scene in this episode is by looking at an Aizentech-branded Ultraman Orb Dark Black Noir Schwartz script. This fight is apparently episode three of that show, titled A Fine Day for Ultraman. That title doesn’t appear to be from a real episode of an existing show, but Bezelb is a monster that debuted and featured heavily in Ultraman Orb. Aizen is just writing and then LARPing fan fiction.

I would have no objections to this plan, it seems like it’d be fun, but he is destroying a city in the process. Not only that, but his fight with Bezelb (and his tantrum afterwards) should be more than enough to convince everyone watching that he’s not on the level here. I’m also still not sure how much of the inconsistencies to put down to this show’s low expectations for its audience. Some of the acting in this episode was especially poor, so maybe we’re to believe that the things that are obvious to us are simply being exaggerated to make sure they’re communicated at all. You can only hand-wave so much away with the combination of ‘Aizen’s just not showing this on TV’ and ‘it’s hammed up for our benefit’; if Rosso and Blu can be outed by a hand gesture, Aizen can be outed with his. Maybe he’d be okay with that, and he plans for that to happen anyway. He’s only on episode three, after all; there’s plenty of show left.
A fun aside: our protagonists drink from colour-coded cans.