Ultraman Teo 4 – Going Ultra – Presented by Henshin Inspection
The video and audio above contain the full unfiltered analysis. What follows is the razor focused version of the strongest point I had to make.
The Balance of Silliness and Realness
Ultraman Teo continues to surprise and delight me.
Ultraman Teo 04 has this great moment where Ibuki says that he wants to send Pucchi home. He is sure that Pucchi has a home planet that he misses, and that it would be great for him to get back there. It would be the best thing for him. It would be the most natural and the safest.
The thing I like most about this is that Ibuki is coming at it from the perspective of someone who has lost his world.
He has lost his planet. He can no longer be where he is supposed to be. He can no longer be with those who he cares about and who care about him.
A Simple, Beautiful Truth
This gets reinforced later when Ibuki is speaking with Kanna while they are looking for poop.
Kaiju poop.
They are having a break—a poop break—and this is not funny.
Kanna tells him about her dog that died. She has a picture of the Shiba Inu on a keychain, and Ibuki says that it is a cute dog. She explains that she had the dog from before she could remember, so she must have been very young when they got it.
When the dog became sick and died, it was really hard for her. She did not want another pet to replace it.
Ibuki responds that the dog must have been really happy because Kanna is so hurt. She seems surprised, like she is wondering what he is trying to say.
He explains that the magnitude of the pain you feel when a loss occurs corresponds to how much you cared and how deep those emotional ties were.
It is a simple, beautiful truth that he is sharing, and I really appreciate it.
It is funny because it is not funny.
The scene is made stronger by the fact that he is a person—or an Ultra—who lost his planet. H12 is gone. Everybody there is dead.
Isolation and Connection
I spoke previously about how I suspected from the first episode that this story was going to be about isolation and that there would be themes involving connection.
Even the donut song, which seems ridiculous, talks about linking hearts.
I think an important thing about the donut is that it is missing something from inside of it. It is hollow. It is empty inside.
I think there is something there.
I have not read the lyrics closely enough yet to completely analyze them and see whether they fit thematically with this idea, but Pucchi does not belong in this world. He has to have a home, so why not send him home?
That is what Ibuki is thinking.
I really love his performance during this moment. He is looking down, his eyes are shaded, and he has this smile that seems to speak to the fact that he is remembering the joy, happiness, love, and connection he had with the people from his home world.
Instead of being hurt by that, he is transcending the emotion you would normally expect. He is pushing through it. He is focusing on the good and trying to help somebody else—a fellow alien—reach that same good.
He is trying to get Pucchi back home.
Silliness on the Surface
It is very interesting how silly the show seems from the outset.
You have the donut song. You have Pucchi. You have Emma calling him Pucchi Pie. You have everyone looking for poop in this episode and treating that poop like a very big deal. There was even a poop joke in the first episode.
There is a lot of silliness on the surface.
Ibuki looks very earnest, but he also looks kind of like a goofball. To me, that makes his more serious moments more impactful, which is good. You want that contrast. You want that range.
The show is also very serious.
You have the UTTF operating in the background. You have real approaches—almost hard science-fiction approaches—being taken toward all these things.
The kaiju poop is important because it can help determine the ecology of the kaiju. It can help determine its genetic code. They could run genome testing on it.
I guess material from the inside of the tunnels would be scraped off as the poop passes through, so that makes sense.
Anyway.
Pushing Past the Poop
More importantly, pushing past the poop, Pucchi has a ship—or a pod—that he landed in.
Ibuki says, “Let’s send him home. Let’s put him in his pod and send him home because he is not meant to be here.”
My point is that this is a serious and logical response.
If the show were only silly, it would not really matter. The pod could simply be treated as a gag, or it could be broken without any explanation or attempt to understand why.
Instead, Kanna goes to inspect the site and spends a lot of time examining the pod. She studies animal science and biotechnology, but she also mentions that she likes machines and enjoys seeing machines and vehicles up close.
Again, this is a show that contains a lot of silliness, a lot of cute things, and some things that are just outright, unapologetically cute.
That is Pucchi.
“Unapologetically cute” will be written on his gravestone.
Despite all that, the show still takes a more serious, hard science-fiction approach to what is happening.
It asks: If this kaiju were really in this world and really came through this pod, what would the natural course of action be?
You would send it back home using the same pod.
Asking the Right Questions
There is another gag when Emma and Ibuki try to lift Pucchi, but he is too heavy.
He is a chunky guy.
He is a thick king, you could say.
They are unable to get Pucchi into the ship, so they start wondering why. Where is the door? Where is the ladder? Where is the beam? Where is whatever is supposed to get him inside?
That is a great point. There should be something like that.
More importantly, they are asking the questions.
I really love how thoughtfully everything is being treated. Consequences are real, and people seem to think about things in realistic ways, which is a lot of fun. There is not a lot of hand-waving. There is not a lot of dismissing ideas. There is some pursuit.
Was the Space Pod Meant to Be One-Way?
I have a little bit of a theory.
If the ship has no way for Pucchi to enter it again, maybe that is because he was not supposed to enter it again.
Maybe Pucchi was placed on the ship so that he could be dropped on the planet without being able to get back inside, for whatever reason.
I think that is an interesting idea, and I will be curious to see whether it is explored in future episodes. The preview makes it look like Kanna is going to be inside the ship doing something, so it will be very interesting to see what the fallout is.
This Is the Tone
I am thoroughly enjoying Ultraman Teo. I think it is very fun. I think it is very cool.
The balance of the silliness and the realness is very intriguing to me. It is very enjoyable to me.
This is the tone.
I think I like this tone.
It is very kid-friendly, but it is also very real in a way that is surprising. It is logical, it has a good heart, and it has a good, mature emotional vocabulary.
I find that to be very important.
It is a great blend.
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Inspector’s Notes
What’s the Secret of Pucchi’s Pod?
Pucchi’s pod is an ongoing mystery in Ultraman Teo, and I find that really interesting. I’m excited about the possibilities it holds and what else it might mean. I have a feeling it’s going to be important to the story.
At first, I thought it was nothing. But then I started asking myself, why is it there if it doesn’t mean anything?
The more we’ve seen—especially in this episode and the preview for Episode 5—the more it looks like it’s going to matter.
What do you think the secret of Pucchi’s pod is? Why do you think it matters? And do you think it’s a cool direction for the show to take, or are you not really into it?
Ultraman Teo Gave Me Major Guyver Vibes
Guyver immediately came to mind while I was watching this episode.
Kanna reaching up toward Pucchi’s pod and Ibuki getting grabbed by those tentacles both reminded me of Guyver.
If you’ve seen the live-action Guyver movies, you’ll probably know what I’m talking about. During Sean Barker’s first transformation, the Guyver’s tentacles wrap around him before the armor fully forms. The pod itself also reminds me of the egg-shaped ships from the manga, anime, and Guyver 2: Dark Hero.
Maybe it’s just me, but those visual similarities immediately stood out.
I’ve always had a soft spot for Guyver. It was one of the first tokusatsu series where I understood that what I was watching came from Japan and belonged to a different style of superhero storytelling. Shows like Power Rangers were just superheroes to me as a kid, but the Guyver always felt like something different—a transforming hero with a very distinct aesthetic.
That’s probably why I enjoy noticing these little parallels whenever they show up.
Ultraman Rising had a scene that reminded me of Guyver, too. I even made a Short about it.
I don’t know if these similarities are intentional, but they’re fun to spot, and they definitely made me appreciate these scenes even more.
Do you see the Guyver connection, or is it just me? And if you’ve never experienced Guyver before, let me know. I have a lot to say about it, and I think it’s something tokusatsu fans should absolutely check out.
Science Fiction or Horror?
This shot of Kana reaching up toward Pucchi’s pod is really cool.
I think it’s a great visual.
The whole vibe of this little scene, before she reaches up to the pod, reminds me a little bit of Independence Day.
“They’re here.”
It’s beautiful.
It’s opening.
I found myself feeling both wonder and dread at the same time.
I was actually sitting there wondering, is this little kid show science fiction, or is it horror?
Because I’m getting both science fiction and horror vibes from this unknown thing that’s happening.
I think that’s pretty cool.
I think it’s impressive.
Does that work because Ultraman Teo is also kind of a sillier show?
For me, it does.
The show can spend one scene talking about Pucchi’s poop, then turn around and give us a mysterious sequence like this that genuinely feels like first contact with something unknown.
That’s a combination I wasn’t expecting, and I’m really enjoying it.
Are you getting more horror vibes from this scene, or more classic science fiction? Or are you getting both like I am?
Loose Threads
Where There’s Life, There Will Be Poop
I can’t believe “Where there’s life, there will be poop” is an actual line in Ultraman Teo Episode 4.
It’s hilarious.
And it’s hilarious because it’s taken completely seriously.
That’s one of the things I love about tokusatsu.
You have people in rubber monster suits fighting people in rubber hero suits, and somehow these shows can still tell meaningful stories. They can be sweet. They can be emotionally sincere. They can be cool.
They don’t need to be edgy or self-conscious. They can simply be themselves, and that authenticity is what makes them so impactful.
This episode is another great example of that.
On the surface, “Where there’s life, there will be poop” sounds like a ridiculous line.
But it’s true.
Where there is life, there is poop.
That includes kaiju.
To me, that tells me Ultraman Teo is treating kaiju biology and ecology with a seriousness it doesn’t actually have to.
If you’re going to present kaiju as living creatures—as animals—then you should also treat them like animals.
Sometimes taking something seriously means talking about things that are silly, uncomfortable, or even gross, because those things are simply part of reality.
I really appreciate that the show was willing to go there.
Even better, it gives that line to Professor Minobe, a character who is both accomplished and just eccentric enough that the moment feels completely natural.
I never expected an Ultraman episode to revolve around poop.
Yet here we are.
Pucchi is a friend of our heroes, and they’re trying to keep him hidden.
That means somebody has to clean up after him.
When you say it out loud, it sounds ridiculous.
“The heroes of an Ultraman episode become heroic poop scoopers.”
But within the logic of the story, it makes perfect sense.
What I also like is that this isn’t coming out of nowhere.
Episode 1 already planted the idea.
A child tells Ibuki that you’re supposed to pick up a dog’s poop and take it home to throw it away.
Ibuki misunderstands the lesson.
Now, in Episode 4, everyone is carefully collecting kaiju poop instead.
That early joke quietly becomes setup.
Again, it’s funny because it feels like something you’re supposed to laugh at.
But underneath the joke is a real truth.
Poop tells you something.
Here’s a real-life example.
I used to live in an area with lots of coyotes.
Did I actually see coyotes very often?
No.
Even though it was open grassland and mountain scrub, I usually only heard them.
But if I hadn’t heard them, I still could have known they were nearby.
Coyotes have distinctive scat.
I don’t know whether it’s because of their carnivorous diet or something else about their physiology, but it looks noticeably different from dog poop.
Sometimes you’d be walking and immediately think,
“That’s different.”
“I don’t recognize that poop.”
The poop is proof that coyotes are there.
Wildlife researchers identify all kinds of species this way.
So why not kaiju?
Why not use something that’s a little silly to introduce kids to a real scientific idea?
I think that’s actually pretty clever.
I also like that earlier in the episode Pucchi is given his own little toilet.
I still have no idea how he’s supposed to get inside it.
But that’s okay.
It’s a fun little setup that suddenly becomes important once the episode starts focusing on poop.
It also creates a natural way for Professor Minobe to get involved.
Without ever seeing Pucchi, he now has physical evidence that a mysterious creature exists.
He can start learning about it through its biology before he ever meets it.
That’s a much more interesting way to move the story forward than simply having him stumble across Pucchi by accident.
One other detail caught my attention.
Ibuki mentions that the stool sample Prifessor Minobe grabbed is unusually large.
I wonder if that’s meant to hint that it actually belongs to the tentacled kaiju rather than Pucchi.
Then again…
Pucchi is a pretty big boy.
So maybe it really is his.
We’ll have to wait and see.
Either way, I’m fascinated that Ultraman Teo made poop a legitimate part of its storytelling.
If they never bring the idea up again, that’s perfectly fine.
But if they do…
Apparently I’ll be here writing about kaiju poop.
MJ Muñoz 