Tension Inspection presents Going Ultra. This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer.
Find all my work at MJMunoz.com Prepare yourself for hard-hitting Ultraman discussion and analysis.
So Ultraman Ark episode 12 happened. It was interesting.
Believe it or not, I didn't quit watching Ark because 11 was so bad or so terrible or because I hated it so much.
I don't hate the show, it's just I'm wanting more. I'm expecting a lot from it because I've liked it so far.
It's been really good. And episode 11 was a little bit of a letdown.
And episode 12 was... less of a letdown, but it wasn't great.
I'm a little disappointed that the conflict between Yuma and Ishido was closed off so quickly.
They didn't really explore that at all. Ishido did. It seemed like they didn't explore it at all.
And it seemed like the conflict was just over. But then Ishido was in support of and telling Yuma that he just
has to deal with the fact that they are coming to destroy Gi-Vas and there's nothing he can do to stop it.
And the GDF is on their way and Ishido doesn't really seem to have a problem with that, which I'm fine with because,
again, it seems like he's a threat. Very quickly they make another device.
They make a translator and it translates more of what Gi-Vas is saying.
And we learn a little bit more about it, which is kind of interesting.
It's kind of interesting, but it's not super, super big.
We don't really get a lot from it, I think. Let me see.
We don't really get a lot from it, and I find that to be a little bit disappointing.
It just kind of went on. And the best part of the episode probably was when Yuma climbed the...
He scaled Gi-Vas, which I didn't realize he had such a textured structure, but he does, which is cool.
But he scales Gi-Vas, he opens up the cockpit, basically, which I guess is near the head.
Yeah, it's like in the throat area, I think is what it showed on the heat map that you can read it.
Anyway, so he goes into there and he sees this person, this alien.
He goes to touch them and they crumble because they're dead. And then he puts on the headset thing.
And he gets this really interesting backstory, which I liked a lot, that Gi-Vas and his master are from a planet that's far away.
It's apparently in Numa's, Numaata's solar system, which is cool. Nice connection, so he knows.
And it's great that they didn't kill him because now they can talk to him.
But he's still kind of leads them... He's okay with leading them towards possibly killing this robot, which it's a robot.
It's not a person. There's not a person inside there. There was a person in it before.
And he's the master of Gi-Vas. And when he died, when he knew he was going to die, he didn't want Gi-Vas to be lonely,
which is a really interesting concept. So he sent him on a potentially endless journey through the universe looking for a friend.
And possibly also looking for a moon. I was very confused about the whole, our moon is gone on this planet and the moon was our guide,
so now we're going to do something. And then at the end of the episode, Yuma points Gi-Vas to the moon, which...
I guess...
Didn't Gi-Vas get there at dusk before? Yeah, because when he saved the kids, it was dusk, so he should have seen the moon.
It's not a new moon. They should have changed it so that it was a new moon, or there's no moon that night.
And then the next day, you can see the sliver of the moon and Yuma tells him, see that? That's our moon.
It's just, you know how moons work? They wax and wane. So go to that moon.
But to me, what I'm taking away is that Gi-Vas is now living on the Earth's moon for some reason.
I can only imagine it so that he can come back towards the end of the show to do something interesting.
I kind of thought if this Gi-Vas is from, if this robot, whatever, and oh, Gi-Vas means friend, not enemy, friend.
It can mean both because there's dual meanings to the word.
So you can say I turned the light off and the fire alarm went off. Both off means opposite things, which happens in languages.
So it's not like a ridiculous concept.
But it kind of sounds like when the moon is out, Gi-Vas means friend because they are the moon people. They're people of the moon.
And when they are, I guess when the sun's out, when the moon's hidden, then Gi-Vas means enemy specifically.
So, you know, that's kind of an interesting cultural nuance and cultural detail about our linguistic detail, I should say.
But it doesn't make the episode good or like great.
What's interesting is that I would have thought like Numa wants to go home, right?
Why shouldn't Numa be Gi-Vas's friend and he pilots Gi-Vas back home?
Like that seems to me like it would have made a lot of sense and it would have been a cool way for things to kind of be resolved.
I mean, that would have made a lot of sense. I really was expecting that to happen.
And for. I know, I just thought that would have happened and it didn't.
The fight was decent, you know, like it's Ultraman. Ultraman Ark does a good job.
I don't think they did anything really unique with Ark this episode.
Like I can't think of a gimmick he did. He had the shield up and he got splinted over time with Gi-Vas attacking it over and over again with his ranged attack.
Besides that. I mean, he untransformed.
We got to see him and it was like a cool spiral that went down into the D-Transformation until it was just Yuma.
And he didn't do before, after, before, after, before, after like Ultraman Rising, but he could have.
I for a split second I thought he might do that. And then I realized, no, I thought I'm going to have to.
Anyway, I'm trying to think. Was there anything special that he did?
POV shot.
I can't really think of anything specific, like a gimmick that they did for this one.
Overall it was a decent episode. At the end, Bon, Hiroshi Bon asks,
What was the thing that it was looking for? Like why was it looking for a moon? I can't remember what his exact line was, but it's something along the lines of that.
I think. Yeah, you're right. Great question Hiroshi. What was he looking for?
And what are we going to do with that? Because now there's like a plot hole or like a thing left to be done, a thing left to be addressed in the future, which I think is a good thing.
I like when they do that in storytelling and it's good to have.
It's good to have. I'm playing it back right now. There's still something bugging me.
Hiroshi says, What was that new moon? Givos was looking for. Yeah.
I was thinking at one point, oh, maybe Givos is going to like try to steal the moon and then I'm going to have to tell him, Givos, you can't do that. Like physically it's probably impossible.
And second of all, you'll kill everybody on Earth if you take the moon away.
So I'm almost wondering if they're leaving Givos to become a threat later on if it has a moon.
But if it didn't, I think Givos, the robot knows that his planet's been destroyed.
So and the master didn't want him to like aimlessly wander throughout the universe or something.
So he sends him aimlessly wandering. I don't know. I don't really get it.
I don't know. Like it's a nice thought. It's a nice thought that he doesn't want his robot to be lonely.
And I like that. It's very sweet. That was touching to me. And I like Givos.
Like I want Givos to be a happy robot.
But like it's not enough. Like that emotionality, that sentiment is not enough to anchor a story to.
And like I think everything around it, the mystery and the tension and, you know, Numa's perspective and all that stuff.
And, you know, Ishido and the team were already doing what Yuma wanted.
They were trying to find a way to save Givos essentially, even though they were willing to kill him if they had to.
But like that's exactly Ultraman's position too. Like Yuma will let people go.
Like how do you go if he can, but then he kills when he has to.
So it's almost like it feels like a distinction without a difference.
Like they're trying to say like, oh, yeah, we're trying to do something really different here.
It's like, well, not really. You're doing what you've been doing the whole series.
So that was kind of frustrating. I don't quite understand what exactly they're going for, what the point is of it.
Yeah. What did you think? Do you agree with me? You think I'm crazy?
Like, I feel like I'm missing something and I feel like, like there's all this stuff going around and I'm I don't know what these things are.
Trying to make an analogy to like Obi-Wan's Lost Planet in Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones.
Like, you know, there's all this stuff going on and I can see the shadow of gravity, but I can't see the star.
Like, it feels like there's something there, but I'm missing the point.
Like, here's the point. And then like the episode is doing all this stuff with the characters around it and the action around it.
And I see all this, but I don't see this here. I don't see the point.
So I don't really get it. I'd love for somebody to educate me and tell me something.
Then I say, oh, you know what? You're right. This was a really great episode.
And now I understand why I was missing this crucial aspect or idea or concept or thing that they talked about in the show explicitly.
And I somehow missed because I just don't really get it. It looked pretty.
It looked pretty. It was a beautiful design. I like his two sidedness.
I really like the design of that alien that we didn't get to see.
I don't know if those aliens show up in something else or if they're new to this, this, you know, if they're new to Ultraman arc or what.
But, you know, it looked cool. Look cool. I like that they have the I like the control crown and the control crystal things that Yuma put his hands on.
Reminds me a little bit of Martian success in a disco. And, yeah, I know.
Tell me what you thought about this and tell me if I'm wrong and tell me how I'm wrong.
And please help me to enjoy this episode better than I did or this pair of episodes better than I did.
I love D-Vos though, like D-Vos and then like knowing he had a master and the master cared for him so much and all that.
Like that's super cool. But.
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