And Shin Inspection presents Going Ultra. This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyst.
So you can find all my work at mjwinnews.com.
Welcome to Going Ultra 4 episode 2 of Ultraman Arc, which is called
Something or Other, The Monster Underground. That's not what it's called.
I don't remember what it's called, but it doesn't matter.
I'm gonna go ahead and throw out some criticism for this episode right away.
But then I'll bring it back by being a little positive. So I
I
don't like
the sword.
I don't like Arc's silly
eyeglass slasher sword that Bandai already did with
Combinator Ghost, one of the best shows ever.
Fight me on that one. Go ahead. Let's do it. Throw it down right here in the comments. Anyway,
also the sunglass slasher from
I don't remember what show that was and was that
Hold on I
Want to say Dawn Brothers, but there could have been one other one. Oh
Dawn Brothers also had this sword. They reused it and
also
Gobusters. Gobusters used that as well, I believe.
Anyway, so three shows
Or four. I think this is the fourth show with the same base model sword and I just I don't like it.
Ace has a very simplistic design and you would think so
I don't know if the design philosophy behind that is let's give them a real simplistic design.
Let's go with this theme where there's like this naivete and this childishness to it.
And I'll have this simple streamlined design and then we'll have all this
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
bolsters it. It stands out from it. It gives it something more to the design rather than
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
Just referring to the last Ultraman Blazor is very extra. He's a very extra design.
He looks like the Guyver. Hold on.
He's got all this veining and details and cracks and things in his armor, which is beautiful.
And I was, you know, getting used to the arc design. It's simplicity. There's nothing wrong with being simple.
It can be good in a lot of ways, but I was thinking about it and
I don't quite like...
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
you know, do things with imagination and they're gonna be like
after-effects or they're gonna be more special effects-y thing as opposed to like suit
parts. Does that make sense? Him cracking the shield in half in the last episode and then stabbing the Kaiju with it and stuff.
The guts are unique and that's not a piece of armor that you can sell. You could sell,
like a figure art has done, you could sell, you know, the cracked
shield or barrier, whatever. You can definitely do that and you could do that kind of thing. He could have like,
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
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
look as cool, but you could go a little more unique and use like a gel,
like clear plastic design and maybe have a base thing like he's got like one shard of it.
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
competition, whatever, you know I'm talking about, right? If you know Yu Hakusho, you know I'm talking about. Anyway,
like you could go with that, like he's got like a like a cracked, really just like a small
prismal flight thing, just enough to be like a hilt and then it like transforms into a
light thing, just enough to be like a hilt and then it like transforms and all these different things and
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
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.
That's a different approach you could go with and keep him streamlined and simple and maybe even have his forms
be like this glowing, like the stuff that the arc is made out of, have it be like that kind of thing.
Which I guess would probably appeal a little bit less to kids but he's, I don't know, just the
goofiness of his thing took me out of it and then the fact that from his little crystal in his forehead,
the cube popped out and it went into there, just like, I don't know, I'm just not buying it.
I don't like that stuff, it's a little too much and I mean between the Kaiju and him and like
doing like prop replica type stuff of like the little, like the big, you know, SD or
it's not KTF, that's from Ultraman Rising, whatever. The Mr. Ishido, his gun and then like the little
light and sound blasters that Skip has, like you could, you know, do stuff with those. I don't know,
just I was really bothered by that and it just, it doesn't work for me. I don't like,
you know, I kind of let it slide last episode and he did that cool slash and it was like a great
angle and everything but just seeing it in this episode it really hit me and I'd felt that way
before, just when I saw it the first time in motion in action in the show, I was okay with it but
looking at it again, it's just, it doesn't do it for me, it doesn't work. But I did like the fairy
tale thing, I liked them researching it, I like how this was a story from an old time ago or from
a long time ago and it was like passed down generation to generation and there's like,
like woodblock type stuff. That's pretty cool, although that's sort of similar like that in
Ultraman Z and it was also like a foresty, you know, mountainous kaiju type guy and that's a
little, a little much. But this being a different universe, it just brings up the question to me
again, like what's with the kaiju, like why do they exist and how does that work and how do they
justify it all? And they don't really get into it in this episode and I wonder if it's something
that's going to be expanded upon in the future but I don't know and I don't know that Ultraman,
the live action series is really interested in exploring that idea, that conflict that, you know,
why, okay, okay, you know, 60 years ago, whatever, 58 years ago, we started with the show with
giant monsters and we decided to just all kill them except for Piglon, right? I guess he's the
only good one, I'm not sure. Piglon and the coin guy. Anyway, like, I mean, even back then there
was a thing that kaiju weren't all bad but instead of like having, you know, Ultraman reduce them to
being eggs or put them to sleep or something, like they just said, yeah, we're going to kill them
and now they're kind of fighting against that. I didn't understand why they didn't just like shift
the show away from that and have killing be like absolutely a last resort. Kind of reminds me of
like Digimon Adventure 02, how the kids had a conflict with having to kill Digimon even though
they started off just, or because they started off not killing them at all and the older kids
were like, yeah, sometimes you have to kill a bad Digimon, that's just what you do and
that really worked. It was a great source of conflict and I just feel like Ultraman should
maybe do something like that at some point. Running out of time here. Oh, the point of view
perspective, you get to focus on the eyes and then you go into the eyes and then you turn around and
then look out of the eyes of both Ultraman Arc and the kaiju. Super cool, they did an eye effect
last time for Yuma unleashing his imagination. They did this time to have the POV, I'm punching
you because you're a kaiju, you're punching me because you're Ultraman or whatever. Super cool,
I loved it, that was fantastic. Really, really cool. And what else? Oh, I love this air of mystery
towards the end of the episode with Mr. Ishido getting a call from somebody and it seems like he
probably hid using the satellite just checking on the location of this episode's kaiju, Leidos,
or Leidos, I think is his name. But actually I think he was looking at that monohorn because he
only showed Skip one reading or let them have a portion of it. Maybe he did all the scanning of
the monohorn before because he thought there's a lot of stuff going on in this area, whatever
the city's called, I can't remember what it is, that this city has the monohorn and it seems to
be from space and blah blah blah and I'm from the space portion of the antique kaiju thing.
And I like that. I had a little bit of a feeling about Mr. Ishido, but when he was nerdy about
coffee and then when he brought the coffee maker and when he seemed to be so nice in some ways,
I thought, oh, so he's kind of like the gruff guy, but maybe they're not going for gruff guy,
maybe they're going for, but he's nice, he's got a heart of gold. Maybe there's something else going
on and I feel like they're setting up something that could be really interesting to see why is
the space division of the kaiju defense force or whatever, kind of secretive and going and doing
their own things. And I'm really looking forward to seeing what they do with that because I think
it could be very interesting and that's about all I have to say. So definitely some real solid
criticisms, but also some solid praise. And I'm still interested in the story going on overall,
because I think it can be interesting. I just think there's other more interesting, different
areas that the show should start going because otherwise it's just the same thing over and over
and over again, which doesn't really make sense. Like it should each different iteration, each
different instance should be bringing different things and new things and be saying or doing
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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Stories are always better when you're part of the conversation until next time. Be well. This is MJ
signing out. This has been a story over everything production.