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Henshin Inspection presents Going Ultra. This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer.

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You can find all my work at mjmunoz.com. Join me as I talk about Ultraman Arc Episode 6, Welcome to the Akebono Inn.

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I have a lot of notes on this one. Lots and lots to say, so let's get right into it.

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I'm going to say...

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So this episode featured alien Kuroko, who's a mushroom-hunting alien in human disguise, as well as Shigong.

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So something interesting, the effect that they had for revealing the human face actor beneath the alien head in this episode of Arc is the same effect they used in Blazar,

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when the musicians were there and they were revealed to be alien... I don't remember what they were. Anyway, doesn't matter.

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But yeah, when they were revealed to be whatever alien they were, and you saw the head, the puppet head for the alien, you could see underneath the human face as well.

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And it's the same technique used. So I wonder, is that supposed to be... well, these are kind of different universes,

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and I can understand Subaru just using the same style of effect over and over again, but it also makes me think,

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is it possible that there's like a cloaking technology or whatever that they all use for doing that sort of thing?

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I don't know. It's kind of interesting to think about, but really you're not supposed to think about it, so I'll just ignore it for now.

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I thought that today's episode was a good toy commercial. I previously complained about Blazar Episode 15 or 16 being a little too toy-etic showing the Tilsenite sword.

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However, this season with Ark, I like the toy-etic-ness of it. Going to Solora's farm, it looked really cool, and also bringing out the silly sunglass sword looked really cool.

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The thing I liked most about the sunglass sword thing is that he actually held it in like a backhanded,

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so the top of the hilt was here and the blade was going down away from his thumb, or I don't know, from his pinky basically.

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That was really cool. I liked that a lot, and it looked really cool even the way that he did the activation of the transformation to Solora's form looked really good.

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It was a lot of fun, and I thought this is a good toy commercial. This is really impressive.

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I guess whoever is directing this did a better job than they did over in Blazar, but maybe it's the tone of it as well that makes it a little bit different.

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So, I really also liked how hard Yuma went as Ark. He's being utterly competent. He's got the shield of spinning death that he uses, and that was really cool.

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That was a great sign of his competency also. He fought off three Shigongs, let's say. One of them he hacked apart with that spinning shield, which was crazy.

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Especially for how nice he is and how sweet he is and how he wanted to not attack the mushroom alien dude, Kuko?

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What's that name again? I'm looking for my notes. Alien Kuroko. Is that right? Kuroko. Where is this?

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Hold on, I have a synopsis with notes, including the name of the Kaiju, so let me pull that up real quick.

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Alien Kuroko. He's nice to Alien Kuroko, but he's slaying Shigongs like it's nothing, which is interesting. Also, the way he did it was really cool. It looked really good.

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But then he lets that third one go. That's interesting. But more of my focus about the spinning shield of death is that he's combining his energy shield, or was it Giga Shield or something like that?

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It was a technique with his spinning saw blade energy thing together. He did it last episode with the whale Kaiju, Leviajira, and I forgot to mention how cool it was that he used that to displace the air bubbles or do whatever he did.

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That ended up making him able to come out on top of the fight there. But it's a really cool technique. It's a really imaginative thing to do. It feels more imaginative than some of these brain blastings that he does.

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Anyway, and he doesn't have to do the head tilt thing for it. It's something he already has figured out and knows how to do. So it's pretty cool. Maybe he did the head tilt last episode when he was underwater to do that. I'm not sure.

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Anyway, regardless, it's interesting. And it's really cool, and it's, like I said, really imaginative.

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So the core of the story thing going on here is Ishiido judging too quickly. Kuroko, he's pointing a gun at him. He thinks he's a threat. He says that you can't believe these aliens' lies because sometimes they're lying.

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And he's had friends who believe lies of aliens who worked for the space division of the GDF, and they've ended up getting killed because of that. And that tempers it because he's not just a racist guy who hates all aliens.

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He is very suspicious of aliens because he's seen them lie to people and then seen people get killed. So he has evidence that he's working off to judge this guy.

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And he turns out to be wrong, and Yuma turns out to be right. Yuma's more interested in protecting him. It was interesting. Rin didn't really say anything. She wasn't saying anything much in his defense.

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She just kind of was there, which I'm not sure why. Maybe because she's older and more mature and she can see more sides of it. She's a little more nuanced than perhaps Yuma is or even Ishiido because Ishiido's just like, no, this guy's bad right away. You can't trust him.

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But I don't know. I really do think it is interesting because then it turns out that Kuroko, or what's the other name they call him, Numa, Numa ends up lying to protect the people who he's staying with at the inn and who have been helping him for years.

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And he ends up sacrificing himself and his ship and his way home to save them from Shigong. And the earthquakes are happening because of Shigong. The energy signals are from his ship, I think, being finished or near finished. But that's happening coincident with the Shigong's awakening or whatever.

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And I know it's interesting because again, Ishiido judges too quickly. But then again, does Yuma also judge too quickly because the little hand gesture thing, he felt like, oh, this guy can't be a bad guy. And it was not his story. It was the gesture. I don't know.

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Also, I don't think that gesture means thank you, even though it means a lot of things. But also thank you is one of them. If you boil it down and have to pick one. It did seem suspicious. It wasn't like, thank you lady for helping me all these years. It was like, something's going on. I'm scared. I need to hide. I need to run. That's more what it felt like to me. So I don't know. It's kind of kind of odd.

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So I want to talk about Numa again for a minute or two. And then I have some of this stuff to talk about. So yeah, like Numa ramming his ship into Shigong is a great moment of heroism and self sacrifice for him. He seemed like a pretty cool guy already. You know, it was sad. I felt badly for him that he got left behind by his people.

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When there was an emergency, when they were just hunting for mushrooms here on earth, scavenging for mushrooms, not scavenging, hunting, foraging. They were foraging for mushrooms. That's the word. Anyway, and then he gets called away. And that's, you know, not great because he gets, or they get called away and he gets left behind, which is too bad for him. But he makes the best of it. He, you know, is nice with these. He has this relationship with these people at the inn. And yeah, like if you really think about it, he really lost something by giving up.

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That ship. And then he goes into the custody of, well, yeah, and then he's going into the custody of GDF and hopefully they will just kill him. Right. That'd be pretty bad. But yeah, it was interesting that he tried to protect them by lying and saying they didn't know about him. And then he went ahead and protected them literally by putting his future on the line with ramming the ship into the guy, into Shigong. And that was, that was really cool. I really appreciated that. I want to talk about Shigong for a little bit though, or actually I want to talk about the alien thing.

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I'm going to jump back and forth. Shigong first. So why are these Shigong also giant? Didn't, like, don't they take a really long time to go? They've only been around for about 14 years max because K-Day was 14 years ago, right? Or 16 years ago. Sorry. 16 years ago was K-Day. So like, what's the Shigong life cycle? Are they adult size within a year? Because the little Shigong that they found in the cave, that Yuma found in the cave that attacked him was eating rocks. It quickly grew because of the parasite thing that was inside of it was from space. So, yeah.

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So what happened to these guys? How long have they been alive? How long have they been around? What have they been eating if they're carnivorous? That doesn't really make sense to me. And I think the whole, I think that's kind of weird, but I mean, I guess just was the hand wave it away. I don't know. They already have the suit. They've already used it. But I don't know. If it was one, it would make more sense to me than having three show up there. Also, like, why is the GDF so separate from Skiff or the space division of the GDF so separate from Skiff? It almost feels like they're hiding something.

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You know, each just kind of spying on them. Sort of like, have aliens been coming to Earth for a long time? Have they been coming for more than 14 years? Are they coming only after K-Day? Was it, you know, like a year ago, aliens started coming? Are aliens distinct from Kaiju? Because I think they should be based on the way the world building the lore is set up in this world. But I don't know. It's unclear. And I'd like some clarity on that. So anyway, getting back to Shigong. I kind of want to call Shanagans on

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the Shigong being pack hunting carnivores, because they're going after humans when I would think there's no way a single human or even the four or five humans that were there could actually satisfy them because they're so small. That doesn't really make sense to me.

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That doesn't really make sense to me. And like, shouldn't they be hunting other Kaiju because other Kaiju are going to be big enough for them to eat? And wouldn't that make a lot more sense for Kaiju to exist in like a natural world? Like in Ultraman Rising, they mentioned that

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if they just send Amy back to Kaiju Island without giving her any training, she could be eaten by another Kaiju as a snack.

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How it says. And yeah, I mean, you would think if Kaiju are like natural animals, or if they have a natural type of existence, then there is a threat of them preying upon each other. And that should be something that goes on. There should be like a more natural type of ecosystem going on in Kaiju, not just they show up to fight and destroy buildings on them. That's it. They go away.

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Yeah, so that was all kind of weird for me. Let me see. Let me see. Let me see.

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Going back to Numa, like a mushroom based society where his ship is in the shape of mushroom and it's fueled by mushroom spores is an amazing idea. And I'd love to see more of it. And I know it's just like a like a fun kind of cookie sci fi idea that I really appreciate getting here.

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Yeah, I think that's pretty much all I want to say. Overall, I did like this episode a lot. I thought there were a lot of cool things going on. But there was just some weird things that caught my attention and kind of pulled me out of it for a moment. But overall, it was a good episode. And yeah, it was a good episode. It was fun. The competency of Arc is good to see. Seeing Yuma go so hard and like making the hard decision to just kill these animals is a good thing.

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I mean, like, you know, seeing Yuma kill these kaiju because they're threatening his friends and these innocent people at the end is good. It's like a hard choice. And like, he's not something he's struggling with yet. I don't know if we're going to get that kind of story this year. I don't know that I want to get that kind of story this year. But like seeing the nuance in aliens and kaiju or seeing the nuance with this alien is interesting because some aliens have killed people, I guess, according to each show. But then this alien is a good guy. Like that's, that feels like enough for now.

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So that's the whole, you know, struggle over what kaiju mean and, you know, how we should be nice to them or understand them or whatever. I don't really know. Is that something that's core to the Ultraman series? It might be. I haven't seen the original series enough of it to say definitively whether it is or not. But maybe someday, real soon.

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Okay, that's all I have to say. So until next time, folks, take care, be well, be ultra. Leave any comments you have for me, your thoughts about the episode, if I had any bad takes or if you want to contribute anything that I missed or that you think I should have talked about and I didn't. I'd like to hear that from you because I like having conversations about this stuff because it's fun.

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And don't forget to let your voice be heard. 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.