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.
Ultraman Arc Episode 21, The Dream Bird, or Yume
Sake Torii, is... Sorry, I don't know why I did
that. Originally aired December 7, 2024. The
director is Yusuke Akitake, who I believe directed
the previous episode as well and has no other
credits. So seemingly this is the first time
I would assume he, being a Yusuke, is directing
an episode of Ultraman or Ultraman Arc at least.
I don't know that for sure. It's speculation.
And the writer is Takao Nakano, whose name is
very familiar to me. Why is that? I don't know.
I will get to that at the end of the episode
after I've done my... After I have done... Interesting.
Okay, one more tidbit. After I've done the full
review, I'll go back into it. But also, Naoki
Uchida is the special effects director specifically.
So it's directed by Yusuke Akitake, and special
effects direction was done by Naoki Uchida, which
is interesting because... That was the same case
as last episode, and that's interesting to me.
But also, there was something very special about
the special effects direction of this episode,
which is something I want to talk about in the
full review. Let's get into it. Yeah, wow. Okay.
So, it's really interesting that this episode
was so good. I honestly think the... Probably
the most interesting thing about this episode
is that it transcends Ultraman. This is not a
good Ultraman episode. It's a fantastic episode
of Ultraman, but more than that, it's a fantastic
episode of science fiction TV. It's a fantastic
episode of, I guess, fantasy or speculative fiction
or whatever. It's just a fantastic episode, and
that's it. That's flat. It really does. This
is probably the best episode of ARK so far. probably
one of the best Ultraman episodes I've ever seen.
Um, Saijuksar told me to watch from Ultra, what
was it, Ultra 7? Um, like episode 21 or something,
where the guy almost dies, it has the, uh, alien
Kanan, um, that are taking over the ship, and
the guy's, like, sad because he's... Like, he's
going to die and he's on the phone with his mom
as he's in the ship and his ship is being controlled
by this robot and he's going to fly directly
into an airplane and kill a bunch of civilians
and kill him. And they're just, like, having
a casual chat, just a conversation where they're
not acknowledging the fact that he's going to
his death and Ultraman saves him at the end and
everything's great. But, like, that was a really
great, really impactful episode. like a very
beautiful human story. And we have a very beautiful
human story here as well. And I would say that
episode of Ultra 7 also transcends Ultraman and
genre and everything else. And it's just like
a fantastic story. It's just a great story. It
doesn't matter that it's Tokusatsu. It could
have been an anime episode. It could have been,
you know, whatever. Of course, it has its peculiarities
that do make it Ultraman. We get a kaiju fight
in this. We get a monster. We get, you know,
a puppet, a little bird puppet thing. It has
all the trappings of Ultraman, but really, it
transcends. It goes beyond Ultraman and the Ultra
Series, which technically maybe is not true because
Ultra Q is supposed to be like this. I've heard
Ultra Q compared to the X -Files or the Twilight
Zone probably more accurately. Definitely more
of the time. I don't know which of them preceded
the other, but it doesn't really matter. We're
not going to fight about that. But yeah, wow.
I feel like there were multiple themes at work
here. Just a quick rundown. Rin's friend, Aoi,
is an author or a writer. She's working for a
magazine. We get to see a glimpse of them when
they're kids. And, I don't know, they're playing,
they're imagining, they're doing something fun.
Fun and cute, whatever. And then when they're
like high school students or college students.
Aoi is telling Rin about how she's going to become
a writer and Rin's congratulating her on getting
this magazine job. And she's saying, hey, it's
something in the writing field. That's what you
want to do for a living, right? I understand
Aoi's pain. I say Aoi to Aoi's pain. And I, beyond
that, beyond that, we get to see her trudging
through her life. and trudging through her job
and not liking it because she works for a very
small publication and the editor or the chief
or whatever tells her that they have to put out
all this quantity and that's what's important
because they're so small and so small staff they
need to put out a flood of content basically
in order to just work in the market to survive.
It's like the YouTube treadmill or whatever people
talk about with different content making things.
You just have to produce. And that's stopping
her from being able to produce the things that
she wants to produce, to tell the stories that
she wants to tell. And that's great. We could
stop right there and we could just talk about
it as the story of an author who wants to be
an author and who wants to tell her stories and
share what she has with the world, something
I understand and I feel as well. But that's just
one theme going on here. She finds this red orb,
and she kind of makes a wish, and we find out
at the end of the episode that it's this tool,
I would say, from a very advanced technology,
very advanced society, that enables any wish
to be granted, and that because of the greed
of humans, and, well, sentient beings, whatever,
throughout the universe, it's something that
should never have existed. Rin also tells Aoi
at some point that... You have to work for your
dreams. You can't just wish for your dreams to
come true and have them come true. That's not
how life works. That's not a good way to go through
life. It's not a good thing to have happen to
you. And the orb at the end of the episode kind
of affirms that idea that when you just work
through things, or no, when you just get things
handed to you, it's... It's less good. It's not
good for you. It's not good for your soul. It's
not good for you as a person to have that happen
versus when you actually have to strive for something
to work for it to accomplish it after putting
in a bunch of hard work. And there's some quibbles
I have with that. Actually, in my debut novel,
Mocker and Mayhem, I have an interaction between
two characters where they have kind of a philosophical
debate of... Is doing hard work good for the
sake of doing hard work or is doing hard work
good for the sake of accomplishing the thing?
And are there good things that you can accomplish
that don't require hard work? Are there worthwhile
endeavors that don't require you to do hard work?
Yes or no. And one of the characters who's kind
of very much into working hard and being diligent
about things says at first, no, there isn't like.
Everything good comes through hard work. And
the other character says, well, what about these
things? And they have a conversation about it
and they kind of learn things from each other.
And it's more the one that has the more nuanced
perspective teaching the other one, but it's
still, there's a good exchange between them and
it's really cool. Something I value. Another
dimension, another theme potentially, is possibly
parenthood, selflessness, and balance in life,
like work -life balance. Allie feels kind of
like a slave at her job. She has to work so hard.
She has to give up other things. She says that
at one point she laments that she saw her friends
getting married, and I would presume having children
as well. The birth rate is low in Japan right
now, but we don't need to talk about that, and
I can't talk about that as an insider, so I'm
not going to. But it's not great. There is ample
evidence, I think, that when a country's birth...
rates decrease past a certain point or below
a certain point that it becomes very bad for
the outcome of the country and They need to fix
it is a problem so it's almost like highlighting
a problem of childlessness or maybe of like a
lack of familial connection or maybe it's Like
it's either like representing her loneliness
She's chosen this career, and that career precludes
her from having a relationship and having a marriage
and having children. And that's something hard
for her because there are ways that Dory, the
dream bird, is framed where he feels like her
child. Somewhere between a pet and a child because
the way he comes up when she's working, you get
to see him pop up. into the scene or into where
she is in the frame where she's working at her
desk and she has to feed him and care for him
and she ends up defending him um there's this
i think it's a hilarious scene where um her boss
and like the photographer or some other person
who works with her um they see dory when he's
grown from ugly little baby bird to like this
huge, like man size, like, you know, five, six
foot, probably closer, like six foot tall, um,
guy with wings and red eyes and stuff. And he,
uh, terrifies them and they're scared. And it
almost made me feel, and it's, it's cute. Cause
he's being innocuous and innocent. He's just
trying to get somebody to eat. Um, that scene
in Men in Black for Will Smith or Jay, whatever
is like, you know, like you. How did you feel
if I came up and, you know, bust a cap on you
while you're on the treadmill? Like, this guy's
just working out over here. Like, all these aliens,
you know, there's nothing wrong with them. They're
just living their lives. And this little girl
with these textbooks, you know, advanced quantum
physics, like, how's she going to understand
that? You know, whatever. It kind of reminded
me of that. Like, he's just doing his thing.
He's just eating these sweetbreads or whatever
that Aoi bought for him because she's, you know,
tending to him and acting as this guardian or
parent to him. And these guys are freaking out
and they don't like what they're seeing. And
honestly, when you have kids, sometimes they're
like little monsters and people are uncomfortable
around them or don't want to be around them or
like are repelled by them. And that's just, you
know, that's how it is. There's only so much
control you can exert over another person if
you're going to be good about it, you know? So
it reminded me of that as well. And there's like
a lot of dimensions here. That's at least three
themes. I don't know that I want to expand anymore.
I think... By way of review, or instead of doing
an actual full -on review, I want to highlight
these three kind of disparate themes that were
presented to me in the episode. I'll go one more,
just to talk about the depth and the profundity
of what's here, and to back up my argument of
why I think this transcends Ultraman as a series,
why this transcends Tokusatsu, because I really
feel it does. Oh, and then I've got to talk about
Givas, my man Givas, my main robot! Anyway, so...
The other thing is when Aoi is unable to keep
Dory hidden, because he's so large, they're out
in the park, whatever, the GDF comes and shoots
him, and there's this crowd of people, they're
all crowding around, she's saying, no, stay away,
don't take pictures of him, he just wants to
be whatever, and she's trying to protect him.
Oh gosh, there's a fifth thing I want to talk
about today, or a sixth thing, really, because
it gave us number five. After he's been shot,
and I don't know if he's... I guess he's dead,
or he's dying. I think he reverts to the little...
baby bird form, she freaks out. And in her anger
and her rage and her grief, she says, I'm fed
up. I try so hard at my job. I work so hard.
I never get anywhere. And I had this one thing
that was special to me, and you took it from
me, and I don't care about this world anymore.
And for all I care, this world can burn. And
then he becomes King of Mons. And also, we get
this great flash to these little post -it notes
that have stuff scrawled on them. They're kind
of scattered all over the place. The camera keeps
shifting like they're in different places around
her office or home or whatever. And it's all
these little ideas that she's gotten, and they
all combine, and he becomes King of Mons, which
I don't know if King of Mons is an established
kaiju. I kind of feel like it is, probably. Let's
see. The suit actor for it is Shun Takahashi,
but that doesn't tell me if King of Mons is like
a standard Ultraman monster or what. And this
wiki, hold on. It looks like King of Mons is
from Ultraman Tiga, Ultraman Dyna, Ultraman Gaia,
The Decisive Battle, and Hyperzor. So is it a
movie specifically? Okay, let me just read about
this, this history of it. King of Mons was a
kaiju created by the evil thoughts of Hiroshi,
Kashimata, and Ultra... kaiju fanatic who wanted
to make the strongest monster to defeat Ultraman
Gaia using the Red Sphere that brought Gaia in...
What in the world? That brought Gaia into their
world and making his kaiju out of modeling clay
as a demonstration of what it would be of...
Sorry, as a demonstration of what it would look
like, Hiroshi's creation came to life as he made
his wish to the Red Sphere, and King Amon's was
born. Whoa, so this is like very deep layers
of connections here, I can see. And as I'm scanning
through this, it says there's a King Amon Sparkdoll,
an Ultraman Ginga, an Ultraman Orb. Juggler's
Juggler talks about the five king cards, Red
King, Yellow King, King... King of Bonds and
King Joe. Um, let me see. And then this Taiga
Daina ultra, uh, Gaia novel, apparently. Okay.
Well, it's referenced in the novelty of that.
I didn't know there was, did not know there was
a novel. Um, wow. Interesting. Very interesting.
So pretty, uh, pretty interesting, pretty interesting
thing. And I don't, I keep saying it's interesting.
So I'm going to stop now and talk about the rest
of the episode. Um, so yeah, I, I liked that.
That was a reference. That's cool that I, um,
It's interesting how deep the reference goes,
and I'm kind of surprised by that, and I think
that's a pretty fun thing. The wiki has more
trivia, so if you wanted to go look at that,
you can. I'm not going to read it to you. I did
that last episode. I don't want to do that too
much. I just want to keep going. However, there's
an Ultra 7 reference here as well. Let me just
find that. And then I'll stop. The publishing
company where Aoi works is located in Kitagawa
Town, a place that serves as the backdrop for
Episode 8 of Ultra 7. Bringing in Ultra 7 again.
Interesting. Anyway, I've got to wrap this up.
It's getting a little bit too long. I thought
that stuff was really interesting. I loved seeing
Givas come back. Aoi wishes that somebody else
would come back, or that somebody would come
and help Ultraman, and Givas comes from the friggin'
moon and helps Ultraman, and that's fabulous.
I really liked that. I wanted to see Givas come
back. I wondered how he would. I thought he might
come back in the very end, you know, when presumably
Yuma and Ark will be fighting some super big
bad that's very difficult to defeat, and then
Givas, his friend, would come back. Anyway, I
expected that, but it didn't happen that way.
It happened this way instead, and it was amazing
because it created such a good moment. Givas
has such a simple design, but it's really interesting.
I love his claw. I love how he... uses the Batclaw
to hold King of Mons still so that Yuma can hit
him with his final attack with the, whatever,
the Galaxy Slasher, Galaxy, Galaxy Slasher, whatever
it's called. That was really cool and really
fun. So like, you know, there's the standard
Tokusatsu stuff. It was just, you know, neat
giant monster fighting with a giant robot and
an Ultra. Like that's, that's cool stuff. But
wow. Yeah. I really like that. Another element
I wanted to talk about, so like the depression
and the rage that Aoi felt was good stuff. And
then at the end when she like wishes for it to
go away and she says that, like it starts speaking
with her voice and it's like, hey, no one ever
asked me what my wishes are. Like I was created
to grant everybody else's wishes, but nobody
ever asked me what I want. she has that moment
of connection with it. And she also says something
about how the fact that it was her all along,
like she thought it was this great friend for
her, but it was just like a reflection of her.
And we can see that manifested, I think, in the
fact that the dream bird, Dory, like gives her
an idea for a story and she thanks him and says,
oh, this is wonderful. And that story gets accepted
with the twist that's included. But like, those
were her ideas already. And it was just like
reflecting them back at her sort of, which is
kind of an interesting thing that could be delved
more deeply into, but I'm not going to do that
now. be an interesting thing to have a conversation
with somebody about but again i'm not gonna do
that now i just think it's a really fascinating
idea and then her letting it go and like letting
her dream go and then striving to be happy and
work towards this stuff is good and then at the
end there's this weird thing i think they call
it a coda um i don't know what that means but
i've heard people say that when talking about
stuff at the very end she gets she hears she's
walking up the stairs again she's trudging along
carrying bags and stuff and she hears the kitty
kitty or whatever That's actually the Spanish
onomatopoeia for what a rooster says. They don't
say cock -a -doodle -doo. In Spanish, they say,
kikiriki. Anyway, and the dream bird, Dory, sounds
kind of like that. She hears that somehow, even
though she's let Dory destroy himself and get
rid of this red sphere, red orb, whatever. And
it will never exist again, whatever. It's supposed
to be a lost memory. She's supposed to forget
about it. And it tells her, treat this as a dream,
as a lost memory. And yet... she hears this echo
as she's trudging up these stairs, and then she
kind of looks and she listens and kind of maybe
has, like, fond remembrance of that time with
Dory, and then she happily watches up the stairs
and, like, goes on to, like, pursue her dreams
and do her work. And I just thought it was a
really beautiful episode. It had a great ending.
There was a lot of, like, paralleling going on.
We get to see her go up those stairs, like, three
or four times. She's got it in a soft... SSC,
a soft -structured carrier for a baby. Like...
It's just really interesting because like she
wants to tell stories that will make kids happy
and help people like be inspired. And then she
wants to destroy the world when her dream comes
to an end because she had this false dream that
was broken by these people interfering. So it's
just it's like a really interesting, really complex
episode. And I've gone on about it for far too
long. I'm going to keep talking about it right
now. The writer. of this episode whose name I
recognized, uh, he wrote episode 15 of Blazar
along with a lot of other Ultraman stuff from
2014 on, basically, uh, which is, uh, episode
15 is Betwixt Morn and Dusk, which is an important
episode. It references an older episode of, I
don't know, Ultraman 7 or something like that.
Um, I'll check in a moment or two. Um, But yeah,
he's doing good stuff. Check out Nakano. And
he wrote, let's see, Betwixt Morning and Dusk.
Let me go down to the trivia to see. It references
a tribute to Terrifying Cosmic Rays, the 15th
episode of the original Ultraman with Gavidon.
And Gavidon is in episode 15 as well. of, um,
Blazar, so that's a pretty cute little parallel
that they did, that's a double parallel there,
and, uh, yeah, so then he made this episode as
well, which has references to older Ultraman
shows, and, um, had a lot of heart, and was able
to touch on so many different things, and I found
that very, very interesting. The other thing
I wanted to talk about, which is like the seventh
or eighth thing now, total, is, uh, um, Naoki
Uchida did the special effects fight. stuff directing
and i thought this episode was absolutely excellent
he did a fantastic job he was the assistant special
effects director for all of blazar um as well
as uh decker finale journey to the beyond uh
and he's also credited uh as directing one episode
in decker which is episode 13 um and new gender
uh trigger episode 13 as well over there interesting
and then for arc he directed goodbye rin which
is a fantastic episode as episode 9 as well as
episode 10 which is to my distant friend um which
is the first oh no that's the one with the guy
talking to the alien girl on another planet and
then she dies because her planet dies and then
episodes 28 21 the last two or this one the one
before it um he did those as well which were
all great episodes pretty much um and There was
cool trick shot stuff going on. Oh, I think episode
20 is the one where Ark does the cool thing where
he brings the I -Ark sword in front of his face.
Yes, he did it, and it was a really cool flourish,
and there was some really cool framing of the
shots with Gomez. That was really cool. And in
this episode, there's this great thing where
when Givas and Ark head off to attack together,
they like... ring their swords down to a certain
point, and then they go and surge forward, and
when they do, these cars and stuff fly up, and
one of the cars, it goes up, up, up, up, up into
the air, and the car flips around, and then we
see through the car's window, like, as if you're
in the car looking at the fight going on, and
there's also great aerial shots looking straight
down at the fight, like a flat aerial view, which
is kind of weird, you wouldn't think that would
look great, but it just offered a different perspective,
and it was interesting because the way the effects
showed off and things like that while they were
fighting, I really love the effects work in this
episode. So while I did go on and on about the
themes and the depth and whatever, the spectacle
was absolutely fantastic as well in this episode.
I think the spectacle was less well -present
in what is passed down, which is episode 20.
However, I think Uchida really did a great job
here with this episode, The Dream Bird. So that's
all I wanted to say, and now I will continue
and go back into the normal episode. I will stop.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. Did you
think this was as deep as I did, or do you think
it's just like nothing? It's just another episode
of Ultraman, just another episode of Ultraman
Arc, whatever. I'd be really interested in hearing
your thoughts and opinions on that. And I would
encourage you as well to go to mgwinners .com,
but more importantly, go to growbugs .com where
you can find my book and check it out. Find out
what's going on with it. Check out... Check out
the upcoming book, Mockwing Mayhem, that I have
in which a couple of little bugs, magical bugs,
with weapons made of light, fight these dark
creatures who are coming to destroy them in their
home. The dark creatures are doing that. so that
the bugs will not be in their way, so that they
can be free to hurt more children. And these
bugs are going to give their all, possibly give
their lives to protect these children and defend
their home and the little brothers and sisters
and whoever else they have living with them in
their home. And it's a pretty cool story. It's
called Mocking Mayhem. I'm working on a cover
for it right now and doing just last minute edits
to the text to make sure everything's perfect.
There's no typos or anything like that. And then
it'll be going to print soonish. And I'll let
you know when you can find out. If you go to
grobugs .com, you can find out about it. You
can get on the mailing list so you can be notified
when it's going to be released. And you can also
get the bonus material, which is a guide to the
world of Mocking Mayhem, the world of the grobugs,
which are my special magical bugs that battle
monsters. Anyway, until next time, folks, take
care and be well.