Coming off the past two episodes, Ultraman Orb has been doing great! The action and the scenes have been incredible, and I personally enjoy how there’s been more focus on the mystery of who is the girl in Gai’s memories. Yet, how does that all hold up in today’s episode? Well one can see for themselves in the summary and the review below!
Summary:
Don Nostra conducts a meeting with his associates of the Planetary Invasion Syndicate concerning Ultraman Orb, as Juggler interrupts explaining he’ll take care of Orb. Meanwhile at S.S.P.’s office Gai relaxes, Naomi turns down marriage proposals, and Shibukawa appears with a case for the team about a U.F.O. sighting near the “Forbidden Forest”. The forest was closed off to the public, as it was government property and legends say it contains undiscovered feudal era graves which a ghost currently haunts. Within the forest is also the base of the Planetary Invasion Syndicate, they are alerted by the appearance of S.S.P. as they play poker with their obtained Ultra Cards and Nackle sets forth to dispose of the intruders. As Nackle hunts the S.S.P. team and Shibukawa, S.S.P. encounters the ghost and grave of Princess Tamayura who assists in their escape from the forest. Once outside of the forest Shibukawa attempts to fight Nackle, but is no match! Luckily Gai appears to combat Nackle and his fellow associates.
Gai forces Nackle to retreat, and Juggler intervenes by unleashing Super-Beast Aribunta. Gai transforms into Ultraman Orb Spacium Zeperion to combat the monster, but fails to overcome the monster forcing a transition into Burnmite before quickly switching over to Hurricane Slash. Now, Orb obtains the advantage in the fight, forcing Aribunta to attempt to flee underground, thus almost destroying the graves. Orb stops him with his new move Trident Slash, rescuing the land. After the battle, S.S.P. discovers the entire event wasn’t recorded and the forest will be preserved with their discovery, as well as Gai is thanked by the ghost of Tamayura. Don Nostra then makes his appearance in front of Juggler thanking him for his help in today encounter with Orb, before Juggler leaves for the night. Nostra’s associates do not trust Juggler however Nostra reassures them that he intends to bring in Juggler only to obtain the Demon Beast King cards, as well as reveals his trump card, the Ultraman Belial card.
My Thoughts:
Episode 6 practically fell flat for me, ruining the momentum I have felt emanating from the previous episodes. This episode like the last one felt very much like a filler episode, and it could have been a filler episode if the Planetary Invasion Syndicate was disposed of. Luckily enough this criminal organization was established to be a third party, who will seemingly form an alliance with Juggler to further their goals, as well as be a part of Gai obtaining his Thunder Breaster form seeing that Don Nostra has the Belial card. Had the group been written off in a single episode, my enjoyment of the episode would have been at an all time low!
Now, as for the Planetary Invasion Syndicate itself, I find the organization to be seemingly smaller than it probably should be, but enjoy that the team consists of highly iconic aliens from the franchise. The leader Don Nostra, a Mephilas (or Mefilas), is seemingly an accurate representation for the character seeing how members of its race were seen to work mostly in the shadows, or be a group’s leader like in Ultra Kaiju Rush. Then as for his associates, who are a Nackle named Nagus and a Metron named Tarude, they fit the build as typical henchmen, but decent solo-villains, most specifically the Nackle due to the race’s past in the series. What also stood out about this organization, as well as helped to clarify a few things for the series is that the Ultra Fusion Cards for Kaiju are in abundance throughout the universe, but like trading cards there are rarities amongst the different kind of Kaiju which can explain how the Planetary Invasion Syndicate has their own sets of cards. Yet, the rarest ones in the known universe at this time being the Ultraman cards, and Demon Beast King cards who are one of kind per an Ultra and specific King. The other thing Syndicate also revealed was that Juggler was once a warrior for the Light! Aside from the Syndicate and revelation that Juggler was formerly a good guy, the appearance of Aribunta was interesting since this is its third appearance in the franchise. Other than the creature’s actual design which I find intriguing, I overly enjoyed its mimicry of Orb when summon the Orb Slugger Lance because it was humorous and reminded me of the idiot known as Megalon…
Never the less, Episode 6 dragged on a bit more than it should have and did not do much when introducing the newest enemies in the series. It however attempted to better establish the value of Ultra Fusion Cards, which are the gimmick to the series/toy line, but the episode did not explain or explore the creation of the cards within the universe/canon; thus continuing their creation/back-story as unanswered question until further notice. Yet, with this new faction it brings further interest into Juggler’s past, what Juggler plans to do with the Demon Beast Kings,as now the Planetary Crime Syndicate seeks to own them as well and foreshadows Orb’s next form. Now, seeing that the Ultra Hero Orb 04: Ultraman Orb Thunder Breaster vinyl is slated for late September, it leaves me to believe we have at least 5 to 8 episodes building up to its debut! So until then I await its debut, and hope the next episodes are incredibly better than Episode 6 was!
