Monster Zero x SciFi Japan - Archive Only

I watched the first 3 episodes today to UltraSeven X and uh... so this is actually a thing huh? o_O

Those had to be hands down some of the worst episodes from any Toku series I have ever sat through. The music was down right dreadful and it didn't even feel like they were trying to make it fit with the show. It felt like they just put a video game track on auto loop. The effects, are terrble. The monster in the first episode didn't even look like he was actually there. Did they just green screen him into the city or did they just make cheap looking miniatures? Oh, and then the monster in the third episode gets hit with Seven's Eye Slugger, but instead of being cut up he just explodes? WTF?! The effects in the original show look far more impressive than his lazy piece of putrid.

Of course, it doesn't help that the video quality is vile. The characters are not even remotely interesting and the plots are just boring. Do I even need to talk about how fake looking the entire city looks? It's like they repoed their sets from a genetic opera or something.

Overall, I have no idea what Tsuburaya was thinking when they crapped this show out, but they were clearly trying to bootleg the success of Garo. Damn, these three episodes made Lion Maru G look golden.

So I managed to sit through episodes 4-9 of X today and the vast majority of them remained pretty bad, but episodes 8 and 9 were interesting.

I loved the Hitchcock references in episode 8 and the twist was pretty good. I hate that actor though. God do I hate him. He was awful in Kamen Rider Blade. He was terrible in Decade. And he was just as bad here. The Werewolf-like episode was enjoyable too. Oh, and surprisingly, the music in these two episodes was actually tolerable, most of the time.

However, I think I figured out some of the issues i have this show. First, it feels like UltraSeven was tacked on. It's like the show was meant to be a drama about people hunting monsters and it got rejected, so they pitched it as an Ultraman show by forcing Seven into it. He's barely even in the show and there hasn't been a single lick of development for him. It also doesn't help that they haven't done jackshit to develop any of the characters at all, even Jin. Everything is so cheap looking. There's only been I believe one actual giant sized battle in these six episodes and it looked so fake. It didn't even look like they were actually fighting in the city at all. How is it that the city battles looked so much superior in the original show?

Lastly, for a 12 episode story, they sure as hell haven't done anything to resemble a plot. It's just been filler episodes and that is it.

My review:

tried watching one episode of this, could barely get through it. There's too much dollar bin cgi and no miniature sets. Episode started off a bit odd, and really just couldn't get into this series. Least favorite Ultraman series so far....