Warriors Shining Beyond

Warriors Shining Beyond
Ultraman Z, episode 25
Information
Airdate	December 19, 2020
Directed by	Kiyotaka Taguchi
Written by	Kota Fukihara
Continuity
Previous	The Game to Extinction
Next	Re:STORAGE

Warriors Shining Beyond is the twenty-fifth and final episode of Ultraman Z.

Synopsis

In the face of a brutal assault by the formidable Destrudos, Haruki and Ultraman Z are gravely injured. Meanwhile, STORAGE attempts a desperate, all-out attack in order to rescue Yoko, who has fallen into the enemy’s clutches!

This is the climax of Z, Haruki, and STORAGE’s battles! Don’t miss the heart-stopping finale!

Plot

STORAGE members gather in front of the base where SAAG members were preparing their guns. Still convinced that the STORAGE members are all aliens while ignoring the threat of Destrudos, Mai orders her men to open fire, but Juggler quickly transforms to incapacitate the SAAG team members, at the same time exposing his identity. The GAF branches across the world were mostly wiped out, leaving STORAGE as the only remaining force left to oppose as the monster made its way to Japan.

The Dark Z Riser was busted and Z prevented Haruki from transforming, fearing for his life, thus Juggler and Haruki resort to using Windom and King Joe SC respectively as their means of fighting off Destrudos. The two SAA units tried to keep Destrudos busy as Yuka scanned for Yoko's cockpit. After a fierce struggle, King Joe is knocked down and Windom's battery runs out. Before the two could be obliterated by the D4 firing ray, Inaba arrives in Sevenger and stops the firing process with Sevenger's Rigid Core Iron Fist Rocket, bringing along a spare battery for Windom and an arm drill for his mecha. After discovering Yoko's cockpit behind the D4 Ray cannon, the three SAA units fought back fiercely, battering down Destrudos and succeeding in penetrating the cockpit, letting Haruki/King Joe SC punched his way into the chest to drag the monster in mid air.

An amnesiac Yoko awakened to find herself in what appeared to be STORAGE's main room with Haruki in front of her, challenging to another arm wrestling match. In the middle of the duel, Yoko broke into tears after remembering Haruki again and loses the match for the first time. While Haruki doubted that it means that he is able to marry her, Yoko accepted her defeat and returned to the real world, using her strength to purge Celebro out of her. As a last resort, Celebro was forced to inhabit Destrudos itself while losing the Belial Medal to Yoko again. Although Haruki managed to extract the cockpit, Celebro-Destrudos opened fire and forced Yoko out into a free fall. Haruki jumped out of King Joe SC to grab Yoko and summon Z, not caring about the risk transforming would bring to his body, asking to be able to transform once more to protect everybody. After inserting Zero and Geed's Medals Haruki, Yoko inserts the Belial Medal and Haruki successfully assumes Z Delta Rise Claw to save her.

As Z fought his way against Destrudos' assault, the monster regenerated the D4 cannon to fire it again. Beliarok took the full blow of the attack at the cost of his own wellbeing, creating a backlash that sends Z to a tower, both exhausted and regressed to Original form. The D4 cannon is regenerated once more and STORAGE members encouraged Z/Haruki to stand back up, chanting their names. Hearing them chant their names and powered by them, Haruki and Z stand up once more to do battle with Destrudos. Even though they were only in Original form, with their color timer blinking, they managed to overpower Destrudos' assault, before knocking it to the ground with a flurry of punches.

Both forces locked themselves in a beam struggle, but Haruki/Z's resolve created larger beam that eventually surpassed the D4 Ray, pushing it back and destroying Destrudos , blowing it to pieces. As Z/Haruki attempts to fly off into the sky while STORAGE cheers on, the strain from his fight resulted in him comically falling down onto the ground, with the STORAGE members coming to Haruki's aid. Juggler disappears from the crowd to intercept Celebro's escape, now returning to his old suit and bringing along his bonsai tree. Before he can kill the Parastic Lifeform, however, Yuka and Kaburagi catch the alien, carrying it off to dissect it happily as Juggler took his leave, choosing to avoid answering Yuka's question of whether they'll see him again, and bides her goodbye.

At some point of time later on, Haruki packed his belongings to bid farewell to STORAGE members. He decides to stay with Z and depart for outer space to reach out and help those in need of help. However, he also reassured the others that he will return for Bon Festival and New Years Day celebration. Z likewise gave his final respect to STORAGE members as he departed from Earth, where he reunited with Beliarok, who claimed to be immortal, and apparently decided to stick with the pair in hopes of facing more interesting opponents. The episode ends with Z drawing his eponymous letter's contrail in space as he flies off.

Cast

• Haruki Natsukawa : Kohshu Hirano
• Yoko Nakashima : Rima Matsuda
• Yuka Ohta : Hikari Kuroki
• Shota Hebikura : Takaya Aoyagi
• Kojiro Inaba : Jun Hashizume
• Shinya Kaburagi : Rihito Noda
• Satoshi : Reo Satou
• Seiji : Fuuma Tsunoda
• Hiroshi : Daichi Takaoka

Guest Actors

• Mai Yuki : Maya Hayashi
• Guard Captain: Keisaku Kimura

Voice Actors

• Ultraman Z : Tasuku Hatanaka
• AI Voice : Katsumi Fukuhara
• Beliarok : Yuki Ono

Suit Actors

• Ultraman Z: Hideyoshi Iwata
• Sevenger: Kenji Kajikawa
• Windom: Yuto Nagachi
• King Joe STORAGE Custom: Satoru Okabe
• Destrudos: Yoshiki Kuwabara

Appearances

Ultras

• Ultraman Z
  • Original
  • Delta Rise Claw

Kaiju

• Jugglus Juggler
• Sevenger
• Windom
• King Joe STORAGE Custom
• Destrudos
• Celebro

Trivia

In memory of Kota Fukihara

• This episode ended with a dedication to the series writer Kota Fukihara, who passed away on May 17th, 2020 due to brain hemorrhage.
• This final episode aired the day after Keisaku Kimura's birthday, who portrayed the Guard Captain.
• Two days after the episode's airing, director Kiyotaka Taguchi jokingly stated in his Twitter account that he went for a discussion for additional episodes which would amount to either 49 or 50 in total. His tweet garners attention from both fans and former actors from the Ultraman Series to give in their own ideas. The popular hashtags were #ウルトラマンZ全50話 in Japanese and #UltramanZ50Episodes in English.
• During Haruki's final words before his departure, he stated to return to during Bon Festival and New Years Day in the original dialogue. The English subtitle by Tsuburaya's YouTube channel only described the festival as "summer" in general.
• Two kanji in the episode's title are 遥 and 輝, referencing Haruki's first name in kanji literation.

Errors

Initial (top) and fixed (bottom)

• One of the cameramen was unintentionally recorded during Z's battle against Destrudos through an interior vehicle view, though it is non-existent in the Netflix Japan platform. This mistake was corrected in the Blu-ray version and after the initial version.