EJ
Hello, and welcome back to our special Watch Club 2-parter! I’m EJ Couloucoundis, editor-in-chief of Ultraman Connection!
SL
And I’m Sarah Last, staff writer and content creator at Ultraman Connection! I have to say, after revisiting the first episode of Ultraman Leo last week, I just haven’t been able to get that theme song out of my head!
EJ
It’s a very good theme song, but I always grew up hearing the second one. I think it was the second one?
Maybe an insert theme…?
SL
The second opening theme is also used a lot for Leo and Astra’s modern appearances, but I can’t help but get hyped up hearing “Moero Leo! Moero yooooooo!” whenever I watch these episodes.
Speaking of getting hyped up for the show, we return in this episode to find Leo… getting absolutely thrashed by the Gilas Brothers and their commander, the Alien Magma.
EJ
Yeah, yikes. This beating is utterly brutal — something that is distressingly common in Leo, as we come to see. Worse than just the fight, however, is the collateral damage. I saw this episode first when I was 12, and I was legitimately horrified that they actually set a person on fire! I hope that poor stuntman was OK…
SL
Showa-era stuntmen are a special class of their own. They don’t make ‘em like that anymore! (Probably a good thing, considering workplace safety concerns…)
EJ
The propwork is insane too, to be clear. There’s the wreckage of what must be at least a FEW junk cars actually burning. It genuinely looks like they’re shooting in the apocalypse here. And then, y’know, we see a car fall on Momoko and Kaoru, Gen’s close friends from the sports club we met in the prior episode! Dire doesn’t begin to describe it.
SL
We’ve only been introduced to these characters for one-and-a-half episodes so far, and yet this tragedy is made all too personal and painful when the audience can see Gen’s reaction alongside the rest of the Sports Club in the hospital. Like I said last week, Leo is far more of a character drama than Ultraseven, and the stakes here are so dramatic because of the emotional wringer our main protagonist gets sent through. He’s failed twice over in this defeat: he wasn’t strong enough to protect the Earth itself as Ultraman Leo, but he also failed in his literal sworn responsibility to fight for the individual people he cares for.
And Dan’s here to remind him of that -- right after he saves his butt with the Ultra Telekinesis technique. Unfortunately for Dan, who’s still critically wounded from the previous episode, the same technique also shortens his own lifespan even further. Gen has to come face-to-face with the hard consequences of his rash actions, and how they have hurt the people he wanted to protect!
EJ
Gen is cocky coming off that fight, despite it going poorly — unaware of Dan’s aid at first, he assumes he just… won the fight! That ego is something that gets dashed quickly when he actually visits Momoko in the hospital, in an almost disturbingly accurate hospital scene. Between the IV drip, the lighting, the worried loved ones standing over her, it’s a shot that really highlights the jeopardy her life is in — all because Gen went off all half-cocked.
There’s one way for Dan to get out these feelings, and that is to leap in the forest and absolutely destroy some foliage.
SL
I mentioned Leo’s appearance in the Mebius series already, but that episode calls back to this as well. In that later appearance, Gen initially sets Mirai, the protagonist, to go kick some trees in the woods, with the intention of him eventually discovering that it solves nothing except for exhausting his energy.
Here, a younger, less experienced Gen discovers that he has no outlet for his frustration, no way of making things right, except for buckling down and actually doing something constructive to grow stronger, instead of just lashing out. He needs some direction for that though, but now he’s been humbled enough to actually follow Dan’s advice, even when it seems tough -- and even when it seems downright cruel at times.
I know Dan’s character in this series is the source of some contention and discussion among fans, but I genuinely think their dynamic is one of the best parts of the show’s drama. In many ways, Dan’s just as frustrated as Gen over his own failures and helplessness, but he’s still trying, dangit! He has to cope with those losses as well, and you can tell the two of them develop a real bond of trust and camaraderie through that shared struggle as the series goes on.
EJ
There’s definitely a difference in Dan’s character since Ultraseven, but it does make sense, even if it is a little sad — Dan historically puts himself through hell to protect the Earth — as we’ve seen on Watch Club — but he’s never actually been taken out of action in a way that makes him this… powerless. And it really is powerlessness that feels like such an insult to him, not from an outside perspective, but to Dan Moroboshi as a person; after all, other than the fights against Iron Rocks and King Joe, Seven’s never so much as struggled in a fight in any of the episodes we’ve seen.
SL
Right, they may not have all been the cleanest victories, but Seven’s always had some trick up his sleeve to end the battles in his own show. There’s nothing like that here in Leo; no battle in this episode, or the episodes to follow, is ever won without blood, sweat and tears. Quite literally.
Dan’s solution to fight back against the Giras brothers, and Magma, is to teach Gen a new technique, the “Corkscrew Kick”. Immediately, he demands that Gen start training night and day, without stopping, in order to perfect it before another attack occurs.
EJ
This is a pretty common element of episodes of Leo — when Leo isn’t enough to take out the threat and loses the fight (a common situation), he trains until he finds a breakthrough that lets him come back and win! In this case, the Corkscrew Kick is designed to counter the spinning technique that the Giras Brothers use to become invulnerable. These techniques usually aren’t just “punch harder” but are generally tailored to the threat that Leo is facing. It’s a really cool storytelling element that makes you feel like Leo is becoming more powerful before your eyes.
SL
I love it when the suit acting and direction in these fights conveys an obvious narrative of its own, and Leo always does that in really interesting ways. The main plot line driving all the action in this episode, of course, only comes down to one thing… can Gen pull off the Corkscrew Kick?
EJ
Of course he can pull off the Corkscrew Kick! Never doubted him.
…Well, maybe I doubted a little, considering how spartan Dan’s training methods are. With Momoko still in the hospital, not recovering as far as we can see, Gen’s thoughts stray to her — and Dan SMACKS him back into reality. Gotta focus, Gen. If you can’t split a rock, you can’t split the Giras Brothers.
Unfortunately, Gen’s on a steeper time clock than anyone knows, as the Giras Brothers and Alien Magma return to finish the job of sinking the Japanese archipelago.
SL
Seriously, what do they have against this country? But now in the rematch the audience can immediately tell that Leo’s become even stronger when fighting the Giras themselves. I also love the wrestling moves Leo pulls out here; if you enjoy watching kaiju suits getting suplexed into the ocean, you need to check out this show.
All this just leads up to the final, finishing blow of the kick itself and hoo boy it’s worth the build up. Seeing Leo literally kick their heads off was absolutely the highlight of this two-parter.
EJ
The Corkscrew Kick training certainly paid off! His pawns defeated and his own life on the line, the cowardly Magma retreats, denying Leo his vengeance — but he has something more important to check on. Momoko is still in hospital, and Leo finds himself worried that his efforts in the end were pointless.
Of course, they aren’t. As the effects of the Giras’s attacks begin to recede, the sunken island from the previous episode begins to rise from the depths again. A cold comfort to the lives lost, but nevertheless a chance for a new beginning. At the same time, almost in parallel, Momoko finally wakes up, greeting and thanking Gen for his help. Gen is able to look at the people — the world that Ultraman Leo saved. The world he will continue to save.
So begins Ultraman Leo. A dark, thoughtful, even controversial series that has underpinned some of the greatest moments of the entire Ultraman Series. However! We will not be continuing with Leo — not for now. For now, we return to Ultraseven with Episode 21, “The Human Farm!” Don’t miss it!
