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And Shin Inspection presents Going Ultra. This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyst.

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So you can find all my work at mjwinnews.com.

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Welcome to Going Ultra 4 episode 2 of Ultraman Arc, which is called

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Something or Other, The Monster Underground. That's not what it's called.

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I don't remember what it's called, but it doesn't matter.

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I'm gonna go ahead and throw out some criticism for this episode right away.

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But then I'll bring it back by being a little positive. So I

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I

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don't like

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the sword.

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I don't like Arc's silly

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eyeglass slasher sword that Bandai already did with

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Combinator Ghost, one of the best shows ever.

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Fight me on that one. Go ahead. Let's do it. Throw it down right here in the comments. Anyway,

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also the sunglass slasher from

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I don't remember what show that was and was that

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Hold on I

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Want to say Dawn Brothers, but there could have been one other one. Oh

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Dawn Brothers also had this sword. They reused it and

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also

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Gobusters. Gobusters used that as well, I believe.

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Anyway, so three shows

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Or four. I think this is the fourth show with the same base model sword and I just I don't like it.

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Ace has a very simplistic design and you would think so

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I don't know if the design philosophy behind that is let's give them a real simplistic design.

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Let's go with this theme where there's like this naivete and this childishness to it.

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And I'll have this simple streamlined design and then we'll have all this

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cool fun toy stuff that it won't clash because the design is so simple and streamlined that you can add these different elements to it and it really

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bolsters it. It stands out from it. It gives it something more to the design rather than

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saying let's just keep it all streamlined and if we're gonna do any upgrades or accessories, let's keep them streamlined as well because

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Just referring to the last Ultraman Blazor is very extra. He's a very extra design.

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He looks like the Guyver. Hold on.

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He's got all this veining and details and cracks and things in his armor, which is beautiful.

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And I was, you know, getting used to the arc design. It's simplicity. There's nothing wrong with being simple.

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It can be good in a lot of ways, but I was thinking about it and

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I don't quite like...

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Well, I wish they would stick with the simplicity and just say yeah, this guy's gonna be really simple and he's gonna have

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you know, do things with imagination and they're gonna be like

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after-effects or they're gonna be more special effects-y thing as opposed to like suit

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parts. Does that make sense? Him cracking the shield in half in the last episode and then stabbing the Kaiju with it and stuff.

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The guts are unique and that's not a piece of armor that you can sell. You could sell,

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like a figure art has done, you could sell, you know, the cracked

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shield or barrier, whatever. You can definitely do that and you could do that kind of thing. He could have like,

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I don't know, they could do like a whole series of parts that are easy to make with the figure art that is like

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it's an arc or it's a whip, you know, it's a whip, it's a sword, it's a whatever like made out of the light. It wouldn't

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look as cool, but you could go a little more unique and use like a gel,

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like clear plastic design and maybe have a base thing like he's got like one shard of it.

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I'm thinking of, hold on, I'm thinking of Kuobar with the shaft of his holy sword, the little cracked off sword that he got from the Genkai training arc or

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competition, whatever, you know I'm talking about, right? If you know Yu Hakusho, you know I'm talking about. Anyway,

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like you could go with that, like he's got like a like a cracked, really just like a small

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prismal flight thing, just enough to be like a hilt and then it like transforms into a

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light thing, just enough to be like a hilt and then it like transforms and all these different things and

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you know that can be effects or you use effects to paint out like, you know, hard pieces of wire or whatever they have in the toy or in the

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prop to make it work and then the actual toy, it can just be a clear hard plastic that's in these different shapes or something like that.

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That's a different approach you could go with and keep him streamlined and simple and maybe even have his forms

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be like this glowing, like the stuff that the arc is made out of, have it be like that kind of thing.

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Which I guess would probably appeal a little bit less to kids but he's, I don't know, just the

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goofiness of his thing took me out of it and then the fact that from his little crystal in his forehead,

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the cube popped out and it went into there, just like, I don't know, I'm just not buying it.

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I don't like that stuff, it's a little too much and I mean between the Kaiju and him and like

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doing like prop replica type stuff of like the little, like the big, you know, SD or

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it's not KTF, that's from Ultraman Rising, whatever. The Mr. Ishido, his gun and then like the little

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light and sound blasters that Skip has, like you could, you know, do stuff with those. I don't know,

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just I was really bothered by that and it just, it doesn't work for me. I don't like,

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you know, I kind of let it slide last episode and he did that cool slash and it was like a great

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angle and everything but just seeing it in this episode it really hit me and I'd felt that way

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before, just when I saw it the first time in motion in action in the show, I was okay with it but

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looking at it again, it's just, it doesn't do it for me, it doesn't work. But I did like the fairy

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tale thing, I liked them researching it, I like how this was a story from an old time ago or from

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a long time ago and it was like passed down generation to generation and there's like,

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like woodblock type stuff. That's pretty cool, although that's sort of similar like that in

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Ultraman Z and it was also like a foresty, you know, mountainous kaiju type guy and that's a

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little, a little much. But this being a different universe, it just brings up the question to me

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again, like what's with the kaiju, like why do they exist and how does that work and how do they

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justify it all? And they don't really get into it in this episode and I wonder if it's something

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that's going to be expanded upon in the future but I don't know and I don't know that Ultraman,

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the live action series is really interested in exploring that idea, that conflict that, you know,

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why, okay, okay, you know, 60 years ago, whatever, 58 years ago, we started with the show with

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giant monsters and we decided to just all kill them except for Piglon, right? I guess he's the

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only good one, I'm not sure. Piglon and the coin guy. Anyway, like, I mean, even back then there

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was a thing that kaiju weren't all bad but instead of like having, you know, Ultraman reduce them to

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being eggs or put them to sleep or something, like they just said, yeah, we're going to kill them

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and now they're kind of fighting against that. I didn't understand why they didn't just like shift

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the show away from that and have killing be like absolutely a last resort. Kind of reminds me of

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like Digimon Adventure 02, how the kids had a conflict with having to kill Digimon even though

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they started off just, or because they started off not killing them at all and the older kids

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were like, yeah, sometimes you have to kill a bad Digimon, that's just what you do and

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that really worked. It was a great source of conflict and I just feel like Ultraman should

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maybe do something like that at some point. Running out of time here. Oh, the point of view

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perspective, you get to focus on the eyes and then you go into the eyes and then you turn around and

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then look out of the eyes of both Ultraman Arc and the kaiju. Super cool, they did an eye effect

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last time for Yuma unleashing his imagination. They did this time to have the POV, I'm punching

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you because you're a kaiju, you're punching me because you're Ultraman or whatever. Super cool,

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I loved it, that was fantastic. Really, really cool. And what else? Oh, I love this air of mystery

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towards the end of the episode with Mr. Ishido getting a call from somebody and it seems like he

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probably hid using the satellite just checking on the location of this episode's kaiju, Leidos,

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or Leidos, I think is his name. But actually I think he was looking at that monohorn because he

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only showed Skip one reading or let them have a portion of it. Maybe he did all the scanning of

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the monohorn before because he thought there's a lot of stuff going on in this area, whatever

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the city's called, I can't remember what it is, that this city has the monohorn and it seems to

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be from space and blah blah blah and I'm from the space portion of the antique kaiju thing.

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And I like that. I had a little bit of a feeling about Mr. Ishido, but when he was nerdy about

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coffee and then when he brought the coffee maker and when he seemed to be so nice in some ways,

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I thought, oh, so he's kind of like the gruff guy, but maybe they're not going for gruff guy,

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maybe they're going for, but he's nice, he's got a heart of gold. Maybe there's something else going

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on and I feel like they're setting up something that could be really interesting to see why is

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the space division of the kaiju defense force or whatever, kind of secretive and going and doing

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their own things. And I'm really looking forward to seeing what they do with that because I think

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it could be very interesting and that's about all I have to say. So definitely some real solid

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criticisms, but also some solid praise. And I'm still interested in the story going on overall,

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because I think it can be interesting. I just think there's other more interesting, different

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areas that the show should start going because otherwise it's just the same thing over and over

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and over again, which doesn't really make sense. Like it should each different iteration, each

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different instance should be bringing different things and new things and be saying or doing

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something else. I think, I think that's what I would do. So I tried to do anyway. I hope you

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enjoyed that subscribe to keep up with me, like, and share to help me reach more people like you

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and go to MJMunoz.com to find your next favorite thing. And don't forget to let your voice be heard.

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Stories are always better when you're part of the conversation until next time. Be well. This is MJ

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signing out. This has been a story over everything production.