Ultraman Mebius Episodes 25 - 28 (DVD)
I finally got a chance to watch Mebius Volume 7 DVD. Quality is great as always and at last I can discard the TV encodes. Even though this was by no means my first or even second times viewing these episodes, I never really put into thoughts the specific parts I like or not like.
Episode 25 is nice, though I could do without that spanish dance scene of Professor Fujisawa and George. They were discussing all the Yapool stuff after all and not exchanging tender love words. Loved the bit at the end about George's reasons for not wanting to go into the sea. As a side note, Professor Asami Fujisawa was played by Kei Ishibashi, whose previous appearances in past Ultra series include Shinjoh's sister Mayumi in Ultraman Tiga and Ultraman Dyna, and Tadano, one of Team Crow pilots in Ultraman Gaia.
Episode 26 is a good conclusion to the Yapool arc. I found Sakomizu's barely whispered command (Sally Go) to Crew GUYS to be quite touching. And I wonder, if ever, when the viewers would find out about the identity of the person Misaki-san was writing to. Also still a mystery is the possibility that Sako could turn out to be someone not quite human. The flying Pheonix Nest was cool, and I understood that the need for it in the plot, but I hope it won't get used again, if ever.
Episode 27 is my favorite of the batch. True, it is mostly a 'recap' episode, with scenes of monsters from different past episodes, but looking at Crew Guys members pushing each other trying get a hand on their favorite Marquette Monsters was just so fun. Loved Mirai's reactions when he saw Birdon piercing Mebius in the leg, and when the marquette Mebius appeared. Too bad that Marina was against the monster they could have used (Bemstar), because she almost got eaten by it back in episode 18. And although I don't normally like Toriyama, it was so cute the way he tried to reason with Marina, but he was clearly no match for her.
Mebius sure talked a lot to himself in this episode (I think he actually talked more than when he was Mirai). It was mostly a sappy kind of dialogue (cannot lose, never give up, etc. as if I need to be reminded since those were what he did all along), but it's okay though. The target audience for this show is made up of mostly kids after all, and sometimes you just need to spell things out for them.
Episode 28 is actually a very good episode, although I must admit that I didn't appreciate it much the first time I saw it. This is such an uplifting story, and it helps that Suzaki-kun's actor, Ryunosuke Kawai (whom I talked about a bit toward the end of this post), could convey his character's different emotions well. Besides, any human who can cause the mostly smiling Mirai to snap gets a high mark from me. And once again, I appreciate Mirai-kun's apparent naive outlooks and sheltered existance when his question implies that he doesn't understand why good people don't always stay good.
Of note, Kousei Kato (Ishibori in Ultraman Nexus) made a cameo in this episode as a tabloid journalist who apparently wrote some unflattering things about George and clearly meant to cause trouble for Konomi and GUYS. However, I believe his appearance was wasted on such a useless one-dimentional character. I mean, they could have gotten almost any other actor for this part.
I love the extras, but then it is pretty easy to please me if a DVD would just include some sort of a behind-the-scene segment. The interview with Minoru Tanaka (Sako's actor) looked great (although I wish I could fully understand it), especially the parts when he was asked to give opinions/comments on his fellow Crew GUYS cast members. And they apparently loved that spanish dance, because there was a behind the scene segment on that dance. But what make me really happy is that there was an interview with Ryunosuke Kawai, who played Suzaki-kun, because I totally never expected it to be included. I mean, some other people (such as Serizawa's actor) who appeared in more episodes than Kawai don't get interviewed (yet).
Whew, that's longer than I intended. See you later.