WEBVTT 00:00:00.360 --> 00:00:03.220 Tension Inspection presents Going Ultra. This 00:00:03.220 --> 00:00:05.759 is MJ. I'm an author. I'm an artist. I'm an analyzer. 00:00:05.820 --> 00:00:08.820 Find all my work at MJMunoz .com. Prepare yourself 00:00:08.820 --> 00:00:11.220 for hard -hitting Ultraman discussion and analysis. 00:00:28.039 --> 00:00:29.320 I don't know. I don't know what to say about 00:00:29.320 --> 00:00:31.140 it. It's really weird. It's very interesting. 00:00:31.460 --> 00:00:33.359 I brought this up earlier, but I'll say it now 00:00:33.359 --> 00:00:36.039 and I can expand upon it a little bit now. There 00:00:36.039 --> 00:00:39.619 was very little tokusatsu stuff in here. When 00:00:39.619 --> 00:00:44.479 actual tokusatsu effects were used, they were 00:00:44.479 --> 00:00:48.700 used in a very profound way. Visual effects were 00:00:48.700 --> 00:00:50.820 done for the face, which I still consider to 00:00:50.820 --> 00:00:53.250 be, you know. Special effects, even though I 00:00:53.250 --> 00:00:55.049 think special effects are more in -camera things 00:00:55.049 --> 00:00:57.450 that are happening. There was definitely some 00:00:57.450 --> 00:01:00.390 forced perspective shots. There were definitely... 00:01:00.390 --> 00:01:03.009 What else was there? There was forced perspective, 00:01:03.049 --> 00:01:07.189 I would think, for Yuma and Appleman, whatever 00:01:07.189 --> 00:01:08.950 the man in the white mask, to be on top of the 00:01:08.950 --> 00:01:11.790 pillar. The pillar was a practical effect. I 00:01:11.790 --> 00:01:13.390 don't know about its face cracking and all that 00:01:13.390 --> 00:01:17.349 stuff, because I know for like... Degelios or 00:01:17.349 --> 00:01:19.590 Delios or whatever, the two horn guy, when he 00:01:19.590 --> 00:01:23.010 cracked, they made a 3d model of it, like an 00:01:23.010 --> 00:01:24.829 elite scan. And then they had that thing shatter, 00:01:24.930 --> 00:01:26.909 um, from like the first episode, I believe it 00:01:26.909 --> 00:01:34.890 was. Um, so I don't really know if that was done 00:01:34.890 --> 00:01:37.849 practically or not. There were, there were a 00:01:37.849 --> 00:01:39.489 lot of things that were done practically humor, 00:01:39.530 --> 00:01:42.349 reaching out to the, where the preschool or where 00:01:42.349 --> 00:01:44.450 the art school used to be for kids and touching 00:01:44.450 --> 00:01:47.180 it. There was a visual effect, a visual effect, 00:01:47.200 --> 00:01:49.459 a digital CGI, whatever, of ripples or whatever. 00:01:49.620 --> 00:01:52.019 There was the sound though, bloop, of the water 00:01:52.019 --> 00:01:54.640 dripping. And then when his hand, when he pulled 00:01:54.640 --> 00:01:56.599 his hand back, as you see it, like he's reaching 00:01:56.599 --> 00:01:59.219 for it and then he comes back and he looks at 00:01:59.219 --> 00:02:01.159 his hand, his palm is covered with chalk, like 00:02:01.159 --> 00:02:04.400 he talked about before. The dialogue with Rin 00:02:04.400 --> 00:02:09.379 is what made it believable or like is what made 00:02:09.379 --> 00:02:12.500 us understand. The dialogue and just the conversation 00:02:12.500 --> 00:02:14.909 between them made us understand that. he was 00:02:14.909 --> 00:02:16.509 touching this invisible thing or this thing that 00:02:16.509 --> 00:02:18.349 was there that he didn't know was there or whatever 00:02:18.349 --> 00:02:20.770 he couldn't see, perhaps. Honestly, it reminds 00:02:20.770 --> 00:02:23.169 me of The Shadow from, like, 1994, 1993. There's 00:02:23.169 --> 00:02:25.689 this big hotel, grand hotel, whatever, that's, 00:02:25.689 --> 00:02:31.030 uh... What's the guy's name? The Golden Emperor? 00:02:31.349 --> 00:02:34.270 Whatever his name is. The Golden Master. He's 00:02:34.270 --> 00:02:36.090 such a powerful psychic that he makes even The 00:02:36.090 --> 00:02:38.770 Shadow, who's a powerful psychic, forget the 00:02:38.770 --> 00:02:42.129 existence of this. hotel and he has all hypnotized 00:02:42.129 --> 00:02:44.349 so that they think it's not even there they think 00:02:44.349 --> 00:02:46.530 it's a vacant lot and it's all caged off and 00:02:46.530 --> 00:02:48.530 nobody touches it nobody goes near to it because 00:02:48.530 --> 00:02:51.069 hey it's not there because he's tricked them 00:02:51.069 --> 00:02:55.270 there's kind of something going on here um and 00:02:55.270 --> 00:02:57.629 there's another visual effect not you know or 00:02:57.629 --> 00:02:59.990 special effect or sorry visual effect you cdr 00:02:59.990 --> 00:03:03.669 whatever where when yuma gets back to being arc 00:03:03.669 --> 00:03:08.289 he uh the cube the art cube or whatever, has 00:03:08.289 --> 00:03:11.129 the drawings fly into it and they become part 00:03:11.129 --> 00:03:12.490 of it. They become integrated into it. That's 00:03:12.490 --> 00:03:14.409 another visual effect. But really, I guess you 00:03:14.409 --> 00:03:17.789 could argue that the filter or the colorization, 00:03:17.830 --> 00:03:19.949 I guess that probably would have been an after 00:03:19.949 --> 00:03:22.689 effect as well. It's very weird because like, 00:03:22.830 --> 00:03:27.430 I don't know, in an interesting way, episode 00:03:27.430 --> 00:03:30.740 21, the last episode. I, it's a hard recommend 00:03:30.740 --> 00:03:32.520 for me. I said, it's amazing. It's transcendent 00:03:32.520 --> 00:03:34.919 tokusatsu. I feel like I should be saying the 00:03:34.919 --> 00:03:37.099 same thing about this episode, but I'm not, and 00:03:37.099 --> 00:03:41.080 I'm not exactly sure why it was creepy. It was, 00:03:41.080 --> 00:03:44.099 uh, like very interesting. It kind of had me 00:03:44.099 --> 00:03:46.960 like in suspense the whole time. Um, but like 00:03:46.960 --> 00:03:50.759 not a lot happened. It was very interestingly 00:03:50.759 --> 00:03:52.620 made because it's like character driven and it's 00:03:52.620 --> 00:03:54.599 almost more of like a thematic episode. And I 00:03:54.599 --> 00:03:58.740 think. I hope I'm not doing this episode an injustice 00:03:58.740 --> 00:04:01.020 by skipping straight to the thematic stuff and 00:04:01.020 --> 00:04:03.740 going over the more technical things, which I'm 00:04:03.740 --> 00:04:05.039 going to read all the trivia on here from the 00:04:05.039 --> 00:04:07.819 wiki, excuse me, because it just makes sense 00:04:07.819 --> 00:04:13.819 to do that. After the thematic stuff, the man 00:04:13.819 --> 00:04:17.100 in the white mask found a relic that he was able 00:04:17.100 --> 00:04:20.519 to use at the cost of giving up his name, at 00:04:20.519 --> 00:04:23.519 the cost of giving up his face, I believe. Name 00:04:23.519 --> 00:04:25.680 represents identity. Face represents identity. 00:04:26.120 --> 00:04:28.240 From the back, we all kind of look the same or 00:04:28.240 --> 00:04:30.120 people generally look the same, which is why 00:04:30.120 --> 00:04:32.000 you get that moment in the movies where someone 00:04:32.000 --> 00:04:33.480 grabs somebody from behind and spins them around. 00:04:33.579 --> 00:04:36.120 The guy is, oh, who are you? And then they just 00:04:36.120 --> 00:04:39.120 walk away like, who's that jerk? Anyway, because 00:04:39.120 --> 00:04:42.379 that's how it is. From the back, you know, without 00:04:42.379 --> 00:04:46.660 the face, we're harder to distinguish. And this 00:04:46.660 --> 00:04:48.939 man gave up his identity. He gave up his face. 00:04:48.959 --> 00:04:50.939 He gave up his name. I don't even know if he 00:04:50.939 --> 00:04:52.600 remembers what his face looked like or what his 00:04:52.600 --> 00:04:57.199 name was, but he did that in order to have the 00:04:57.199 --> 00:05:04.180 power to escape anxiety for himself and to destroy 00:05:04.180 --> 00:05:08.879 the anxiety induced by Kaiju for people throughout 00:05:08.879 --> 00:05:11.939 at least Japan, if not just Hoshimoto City, perhaps 00:05:11.939 --> 00:05:15.920 the world. We don't really know. And he was saying 00:05:15.920 --> 00:05:19.319 that by... And destroying the memory and the 00:05:19.319 --> 00:05:21.480 thought and the notion of kaiju, he could destroy 00:05:21.480 --> 00:05:23.500 the very fact of kaiju. He could undo that. He 00:05:23.500 --> 00:05:27.240 could unmake that through this kind of complicated 00:05:27.240 --> 00:05:31.959 process. Ironically, the wiki says that the pillar 00:05:31.959 --> 00:05:35.439 is a kaiju. And it also calls the man in the 00:05:35.439 --> 00:05:37.160 white mask a kaiju. I don't think that's really 00:05:37.160 --> 00:05:38.639 fair. I think that's just categorization for 00:05:38.639 --> 00:05:40.699 the sake of us, you know, pet interests who like 00:05:40.699 --> 00:05:42.839 that kind of stuff. But I think thematically, 00:05:42.980 --> 00:05:44.870 it's... Like that doesn't really matter. Even 00:05:44.870 --> 00:05:47.050 if he was a kaiju or the pillar is a kaiju, like 00:05:47.050 --> 00:05:49.410 I said, it doesn't matter. What's more interesting 00:05:49.410 --> 00:05:54.350 is that he is willing to like give up on life 00:05:54.350 --> 00:05:57.209 and give up on joy and like have this depression 00:05:57.209 --> 00:06:00.389 or this, like he's unwilling to deal with anxiety, 00:06:00.610 --> 00:06:04.629 the anxiety brought on by kaiju. And in order 00:06:04.629 --> 00:06:07.730 to eliminate that, he nullifies himself in order 00:06:07.730 --> 00:06:10.310 to nullify kaiju from the world. I don't want 00:06:10.310 --> 00:06:13.089 to say that this is like a code for suicide or 00:06:13.089 --> 00:06:17.370 something like that, but it feels very thematic. 00:06:17.430 --> 00:06:19.589 Rin disappears when, when she's feeling depressed 00:06:19.589 --> 00:06:22.610 and so tired, she can't really remember and she 00:06:22.610 --> 00:06:24.170 can't really function. She's suboptimal. And 00:06:24.170 --> 00:06:25.750 then boom, she's gone. The man in the white mask 00:06:25.750 --> 00:06:28.110 appears and then Rin's gone. And then Rin is 00:06:28.110 --> 00:06:30.670 kind of reborn or recast in this role working 00:06:30.670 --> 00:06:34.389 for the chief for Bon as a, you know, cafe girl. 00:06:34.699 --> 00:06:36.480 um and i just mean like a waitress at a cafe 00:06:36.480 --> 00:06:38.879 i don't know why i said cafe girl um and also 00:06:38.879 --> 00:06:44.660 before that uh ishido was saying that he was 00:06:44.660 --> 00:06:46.199 very strong in his will and he was like holding 00:06:46.199 --> 00:06:50.120 on to everything but he was lost sort of and 00:06:50.120 --> 00:06:51.600 he was distracted he came into confrontation 00:06:51.600 --> 00:06:53.439 direct confrontation with the man in the white 00:06:53.439 --> 00:06:55.480 mask and then he disappears and then he's recast 00:06:55.480 --> 00:06:59.600 as the coffee bean delivery guy at the cafe and 00:06:59.600 --> 00:07:02.399 the reason why skip is targeted is because um 00:07:03.000 --> 00:07:04.879 Skip is what makes time travel possible. No, 00:07:04.879 --> 00:07:06.879 if there's no skip, that means there's no kaiju, 00:07:06.920 --> 00:07:10.220 or sort of, in this interesting logical progression 00:07:10.220 --> 00:07:12.139 that was set up earlier that I will not repeat 00:07:12.139 --> 00:07:17.100 because I'd be belaboring it. Now I'm thinking 00:07:17.100 --> 00:07:20.000 of another Michael J. It's also from Back to 00:07:20.000 --> 00:07:22.100 the Future. You know, if they don't dance, then 00:07:22.100 --> 00:07:23.240 they won't kiss. If they don't kiss, they won't 00:07:23.240 --> 00:07:24.240 fall in love. If they don't fall in love, then 00:07:24.240 --> 00:07:28.370 I'm history. It's... This weird, like, domino 00:07:28.370 --> 00:07:30.350 effect, this, like, reverse domino effect of 00:07:30.350 --> 00:07:33.110 logic that's, like, fantastical, where if Skip 00:07:33.110 --> 00:07:35.610 is erased and the Skip people, the Skip crew, 00:07:35.730 --> 00:07:38.189 is recast in some different role in society, 00:07:38.529 --> 00:07:41.189 then that will help to facilitate the erasure 00:07:41.189 --> 00:07:44.129 of kaiju from their, like, the memories of the 00:07:44.129 --> 00:07:45.910 people of Hoshimoto, Japan, and possibly the 00:07:45.910 --> 00:07:48.250 whole world, and then that will eliminate the 00:07:48.250 --> 00:07:50.610 fact of the kaiju. It's almost like ascribing 00:07:50.610 --> 00:07:53.970 this amazing power to thought and to human perception. 00:07:54.839 --> 00:07:56.860 to shape the world, which human perception does 00:07:56.860 --> 00:08:00.560 shape the world. Yuma's intense level of imagination 00:08:00.560 --> 00:08:03.139 is what enables him to be Ultraman Arc. It's 00:08:03.139 --> 00:08:05.319 what makes him immune to the activity of the 00:08:05.319 --> 00:08:09.000 pillar or the powers of the pillar. And yet he, 00:08:09.120 --> 00:08:11.000 when he's about to die because he can't access 00:08:11.000 --> 00:08:13.579 Arc anymore, he kind of falls into this death 00:08:13.579 --> 00:08:16.589 -like state where he's... no longer himself, 00:08:16.769 --> 00:08:18.670 he's somebody else, and he's like a former showroom, 00:08:18.670 --> 00:08:20.329 so I think that the performances, the acting, 00:08:20.389 --> 00:08:23.370 the direction in this showed, like, as he's slowly 00:08:23.370 --> 00:08:25.389 scrubbing the table, and as he's squatted outside, 00:08:25.529 --> 00:08:29.689 slowly working on the chalk drawing, it's like 00:08:29.689 --> 00:08:33.190 they're walking dead. It's so interesting, because 00:08:33.190 --> 00:08:36.289 it feels like a suicide thing, which, like, I'm 00:08:36.289 --> 00:08:39.090 very cagey about suicide being framed in fiction, 00:08:39.190 --> 00:08:43.139 um, for several reasons, uh, and Like I usually 00:08:43.139 --> 00:08:44.720 don't want to shy away from things like that. 00:08:44.779 --> 00:08:46.659 And like, I don't know that I would ever do it. 00:08:46.700 --> 00:08:50.159 Although I did, I did write a short story. Um, 00:08:50.279 --> 00:08:54.659 I don't know. It's just, it's really fascinating. 00:08:54.779 --> 00:08:57.580 It's really thematically deep. And maybe when 00:08:57.580 --> 00:08:59.019 I read through the trivia, there will be a revelation 00:08:59.019 --> 00:09:02.460 about what exactly they were saying, um, or like 00:09:02.460 --> 00:09:05.259 what the point was. Uh, but I find it like, I 00:09:05.259 --> 00:09:06.639 feel like this one's going to stick with me. 00:09:06.879 --> 00:09:10.899 The icon, the image was iconographic. The image 00:09:10.899 --> 00:09:13.500 was iconic, or iconographic, I think either is 00:09:13.500 --> 00:09:18.019 an acceptable form of that word. And, like, it 00:09:18.019 --> 00:09:20.320 had a very interesting mood. It was, like, almost 00:09:20.320 --> 00:09:23.440 a mood of existential dread and, like, this draining 00:09:23.440 --> 00:09:25.240 type of thing. And I love at the end, when Ark 00:09:25.240 --> 00:09:27.559 is reactivated and he defeats the kaiju with 00:09:27.559 --> 00:09:31.039 his, you know, rainbow blast, that all these 00:09:31.039 --> 00:09:34.360 color drops fall from the sky, but ultimately 00:09:34.360 --> 00:09:37.210 they turn into raindrops. it's interesting because 00:09:37.210 --> 00:09:38.870 there's no more rain. There's no more kaiju. 00:09:38.909 --> 00:09:40.389 The guy's trying to eliminate all this anxiety. 00:09:40.850 --> 00:09:43.710 Rain is even anxiety inducing for some people, 00:09:43.750 --> 00:09:45.730 but like rain is also necessary to life. So like, 00:09:45.750 --> 00:09:49.409 is the point of the episode that anxiety and 00:09:49.409 --> 00:09:51.570 stress and pressures are essential to life. And 00:09:51.570 --> 00:09:53.929 without those things, we will wither away and 00:09:53.929 --> 00:09:55.730 die because if it never rained, we would all 00:09:55.730 --> 00:09:58.070 die. We'd all be dead. Uh, so thank God for the 00:09:58.070 --> 00:10:01.470 rain. Um, and, uh, yeah, I don't know. I don't 00:10:01.470 --> 00:10:03.710 know what else to say. Like, it's just, it was 00:10:03.710 --> 00:10:06.200 like a very interesting episode and I. just finished 00:10:06.200 --> 00:10:08.100 watching it, I did the short, I recorded the 00:10:08.100 --> 00:10:10.419 short, and I got it edited and posted, I got 00:10:10.419 --> 00:10:12.240 it, it was in process, it's probably done now 00:10:12.240 --> 00:10:14.100 and ready to be watched, and then I decided to 00:10:14.100 --> 00:10:15.940 just jump straight into this recording, and I 00:10:15.940 --> 00:10:17.539 don't really know what else to say, so I'm going 00:10:17.539 --> 00:10:21.139 to go ahead and do some of my, well, I'll just 00:10:21.139 --> 00:10:23.519 read the credit -y type stuff, so this was originally 00:10:23.519 --> 00:10:28.720 aired December 14, 2024, the director is Tomonobu 00:10:28.720 --> 00:10:33.019 Koshi, and the writer is Masaya Honda, so i don't 00:10:33.019 --> 00:10:38.320 know who the writer is there's no link to to 00:10:38.320 --> 00:10:43.220 their work i'm typing and must say i copied and 00:10:43.220 --> 00:10:47.659 pasted and put tokusatsu or ultraman writer and 00:10:47.659 --> 00:10:51.919 i'm not seeing it let's go with tokusatsu writer 00:10:51.919 --> 00:11:03.759 and see if i find anything here The internet 00:11:03.759 --> 00:11:06.519 is ridiculous. There is no information available 00:11:06.519 --> 00:11:09.139 about a tokusatsu writer named Masaya Honda. 00:11:09.360 --> 00:11:12.559 However, you may be referring to Toshiki Idoe, 00:11:12.759 --> 00:11:15.600 a Japanese screenwriter known for his work on 00:11:15.600 --> 00:11:17.460 anime and tokusatsu. Toshiki Idoe has written 00:11:17.460 --> 00:11:20.200 for many entries in the Kamen Rider series and 00:11:20.200 --> 00:11:23.259 is the head writer of Chojin Sentai Jetman and 00:11:23.259 --> 00:11:27.139 Avatar Sentai Dawn Brothers. What? Okay, so... 00:11:27.320 --> 00:11:31.460 On IMDb, Masaya Honda is credited for... Oh, 00:11:31.460 --> 00:11:35.360 wow. No friggin' way. Ultraman Arc, three episodes. 00:11:35.860 --> 00:11:38.220 Iki Tosen, four episodes, which that just looks 00:11:38.220 --> 00:11:40.440 like an ecchi thing. Is it like the fighting 00:11:40.440 --> 00:11:42.980 girls? I don't care. Karas, the Prophecy from 00:11:42.980 --> 00:11:47.700 2005. Iki Tosen, 2010. And then 18 episodes of 00:11:47.700 --> 00:11:50.820 Baruto, which apparently started in 2017 and 00:11:50.820 --> 00:11:54.120 went till 2023. And I've heard Baruto, the Naruto 00:11:54.120 --> 00:11:59.529 sequel, is horrible. So I find that to be very 00:11:59.529 --> 00:12:02.850 interesting. Let's see if it tells me on IMDb 00:12:02.850 --> 00:12:04.889 what the three episodes are. It says The Wandering 00:12:04.889 --> 00:12:08.649 Future, Calamity Thrice, which is the next episode. 00:12:08.909 --> 00:12:11.370 Okay, that's really interesting. And then this 00:12:11.370 --> 00:12:13.370 episode. So yeah, I don't know what to think. 00:12:13.690 --> 00:12:16.789 Calamity Thrice looks really cool. The Wandering 00:12:16.789 --> 00:12:18.970 Future, I honestly don't remember what that episode 00:12:18.970 --> 00:12:33.070 was about. Apparently that's episode 15, which 00:12:33.070 --> 00:12:35.690 features, is it 15? Yeah, which features Swede, 00:12:35.789 --> 00:12:41.090 I believe. But according to the wiki, that's 00:12:41.090 --> 00:12:43.490 not who wrote the episode. So I'm very, very 00:12:43.490 --> 00:12:45.870 confused as to what's going on here. And I will 00:12:45.870 --> 00:12:50.070 just go back to talking about who the director 00:12:50.070 --> 00:12:54.539 is. The director is... Um, also the designer 00:12:54.539 --> 00:12:56.139 of the pillar and the man in the white mask. 00:12:56.320 --> 00:13:01.639 His name is, uh, Tomonobu Koshi. And, uh, I believe 00:13:01.639 --> 00:13:03.860 I'm supposed to be, I think he's like a big deal. 00:13:04.100 --> 00:13:06.360 Um, it looks like he's got a decent amount of 00:13:06.360 --> 00:13:08.259 episodes, but he directed the full moon dancer, 00:13:08.580 --> 00:13:12.480 um, internet Kenyan, which I think was the, the 00:13:12.480 --> 00:13:14.740 one with the exploding Kaiju mama that I thought 00:13:14.740 --> 00:13:16.840 was interesting or kind of weird internet Kenyan, 00:13:16.980 --> 00:13:21.340 which was okay. Um, it was fun, but I had weird. 00:13:21.759 --> 00:13:23.759 you know, disagreements with it, Maxie over here, 00:13:23.840 --> 00:13:25.820 uh, The Light of Fear, which was cool, Demon 00:13:25.820 --> 00:13:28.620 Slicing Meteor Sword I liked, and then Man in 00:13:28.620 --> 00:13:30.019 the White Mask I really liked, but just, it's 00:13:30.019 --> 00:13:32.879 interesting, and then, uh, you know, Calamity 00:13:32.879 --> 00:13:34.340 Thrice, I have yet to see it, so I can't really 00:13:34.340 --> 00:13:37.519 say anything about it, so, um, yeah, and then 00:13:37.519 --> 00:13:41.620 it looks like, um, he was the assistant director 00:13:41.620 --> 00:13:45.909 of Ultraman Z, um, So, yeah, I don't know. I 00:13:45.909 --> 00:13:47.389 don't know what else to say. It's just it's a 00:13:47.389 --> 00:13:48.909 really interesting episode. And I was hoping 00:13:48.909 --> 00:13:51.350 that looking into the production data would help 00:13:51.350 --> 00:13:53.529 me a little bit more. I will read through the 00:13:53.529 --> 00:13:56.549 trivia, though, for this, and hopefully that'll 00:13:56.549 --> 00:14:01.009 offer some assistance to you and to me, because 00:14:01.009 --> 00:14:02.929 I'm afraid this is going nowhere. And I'm really 00:14:02.929 --> 00:14:04.649 glad I left this till the end of the episode 00:14:04.649 --> 00:14:11.049 so I didn't ruin the review. OK, so here we go. 00:14:12.379 --> 00:14:14.419 Interesting. I wanted, I do want to mention the 00:14:14.419 --> 00:14:18.440 suit actor for the man in the white mask is Satoru 00:14:18.440 --> 00:14:20.919 Okabe. And I did really enjoy his performance. 00:14:21.000 --> 00:14:25.019 Very creepy. Um, what has he done recently? Let 00:14:25.019 --> 00:14:34.379 me see. He has been Zongil, Givas, Alien, Kuroko, 00:14:34.639 --> 00:14:39.899 uh, Blazar in, um, in this show uh man in the 00:14:39.899 --> 00:14:41.940 white mask and then also the swede alien form 00:14:41.940 --> 00:14:43.279 interesting which i don't think we're supposed 00:14:43.279 --> 00:14:44.860 to know about yet so i shouldn't have said that 00:14:44.860 --> 00:14:50.919 um and then let's see zongil and blazar as well 00:14:50.919 --> 00:14:54.799 alien canon herbie wait a minute i thought herbie 00:14:54.799 --> 00:15:00.700 was the was the washing machine uh anyway so 00:15:00.700 --> 00:15:03.799 uh getting back to it um getting back to the 00:15:03.799 --> 00:15:06.299 trivia here What do we have for the trivia? Let's 00:15:06.299 --> 00:15:08.019 see. So the episode features several references 00:15:08.019 --> 00:15:10.279 to the work of Belgian surrealist artist René 00:15:10.279 --> 00:15:15.340 Magritte, perhaps. M -A -G -R -I -T -T -E. The 00:15:15.340 --> 00:15:16.720 full body image of the man in the white mask 00:15:16.720 --> 00:15:19.340 closely resembles the men depicted in the painting 00:15:19.340 --> 00:15:22.259 The Meaning of Night in the bowler hat and such, 00:15:22.360 --> 00:15:26.080 I guess. Let's see if there's a link to it. The 00:15:26.080 --> 00:15:28.200 man in the white mask is appearance behind the 00:15:28.200 --> 00:15:30.360 mask that of a man wearing a suit and a bowler 00:15:30.360 --> 00:15:32.299 hat. This face obscured by an apple is based 00:15:32.299 --> 00:15:35.960 directly on... Magritte's most famous painting 00:15:35.960 --> 00:15:41.399 the son of man interesting so that image okay 00:15:41.399 --> 00:15:43.600 so yeah they are men in bowler hats and suits 00:15:43.600 --> 00:15:47.799 with white faces closed eyes they're on a beach 00:15:47.799 --> 00:15:50.019 there's shells around them and then there's weird 00:15:50.019 --> 00:15:52.580 hands grabbing other hands kind of in the foreground 00:15:52.580 --> 00:15:56.259 in front of them very strange um oddest day at 00:15:56.259 --> 00:15:59.480 the beach anybody ever had after um let's see 00:16:00.509 --> 00:16:02.950 After the pillar disables Yuma's arc cubes, the 00:16:02.950 --> 00:16:05.570 silhouettes of two pigeons filled in with the 00:16:05.570 --> 00:16:08.230 imagery of a cloudy sky appear, which is a direct 00:16:08.230 --> 00:16:13.509 reference to Magritte's 1966 painting, The Skybird. 00:16:14.029 --> 00:16:16.309 The pillar being a giant floating stone object 00:16:16.309 --> 00:16:19.769 bears a resemblance to the castle of the Pyrenees, 00:16:19.769 --> 00:16:21.889 which those are great livestock guardian dogs, 00:16:21.990 --> 00:16:23.789 if you ever need to know. Oh, I can see that. 00:16:25.529 --> 00:16:29.629 The Great Pyrenees. And let's see, the nighttime 00:16:29.629 --> 00:16:32.269 street scene is inspired by the Empire of Light, 00:16:32.389 --> 00:16:34.850 which I think that's where Yuma goes in to get 00:16:34.850 --> 00:16:37.509 the umbrella from the shop. And according to 00:16:37.509 --> 00:16:40.350 Tomonobu Koshi, the composition of the Empire 00:16:40.350 --> 00:16:43.669 of Light was suggested by cinematographer Satoshi 00:16:43.669 --> 00:16:47.509 Murakawa. The production team combined practical 00:16:47.509 --> 00:16:50.769 effects with the synthesis department's technology 00:16:50.769 --> 00:16:53.169 to achieve the final on -screen result, which 00:16:53.169 --> 00:16:56.730 let me look at what that is. So I believe that's... 00:16:57.360 --> 00:17:00.320 That night scene is talking about when Yuma's 00:17:00.320 --> 00:17:01.559 looking for the umbrella and he goes into that 00:17:01.559 --> 00:17:04.380 store. That looked like an effect. It looked 00:17:04.380 --> 00:17:07.019 like something, you know, not quite real, not 00:17:07.019 --> 00:17:09.599 quite there, but it worked and definitely had 00:17:09.599 --> 00:17:14.440 a tone and a mood. So I do like that. There's 00:17:14.440 --> 00:17:18.279 a couple other ones. Instead of using Yahoo for 00:17:18.279 --> 00:17:20.720 a search engine, Rin is using Yapool, which is 00:17:20.720 --> 00:17:23.140 funny. It even has a little explanation point 00:17:23.140 --> 00:17:25.039 at the end, so it's stylized like it. It says 00:17:25.039 --> 00:17:26.420 the filter and color tones used in this episode 00:17:26.420 --> 00:17:28.619 are reminiscent of those seen in Ultra Zone and 00:17:28.619 --> 00:17:32.019 episodes of Neo Ultra Q, and the photo of the 00:17:32.019 --> 00:17:35.220 pet dog Yuppie, the pet dog Yuppie, the chief 00:17:35.220 --> 00:17:37.900 pet dog in the alternate universe coffee shop 00:17:37.900 --> 00:17:40.259 thing, shown by Hiroshi in the cafe is actually 00:17:40.259 --> 00:17:43.099 a picture of director Takanori Tsujimoto's pet 00:17:43.099 --> 00:17:46.569 dog. Moo or Mew -chan? Initially, there were 00:17:46.569 --> 00:17:48.130 discussions about naming a coffee machine or 00:17:48.130 --> 00:17:50.650 a product in the cafe after UP. However, following 00:17:50.650 --> 00:17:54.829 the suggestion from Tsujimoto, the name was eventually 00:17:54.829 --> 00:17:57.150 given to a dog kept by the station chief, which 00:17:57.150 --> 00:18:00.869 is very cute. Very cute indeed. Oh yeah, so it 00:18:00.869 --> 00:18:05.049 is that shot with the shop that I was talking 00:18:05.049 --> 00:18:06.150 about where he goes to get the umbrella. That 00:18:06.150 --> 00:18:09.690 is the shot that is referenced to whatever the 00:18:09.690 --> 00:18:13.089 other painting was, the Empire of Light. So yeah, 00:18:13.210 --> 00:18:15.240 that's... All I have to say is all the trivia 00:18:15.240 --> 00:18:17.019 on the episode. I'd love to hear your thoughts 00:18:17.019 --> 00:18:19.539 on it because I don't really know my own thoughts. 00:18:19.579 --> 00:18:21.819 Well, I do. And I express them to you. It's just 00:18:21.819 --> 00:18:24.259 interesting. And I feel like this is something 00:18:24.259 --> 00:18:32.019 to sit with and think about for some time. Anyway, 00:18:32.119 --> 00:18:35.259 yeah. So I'd appreciate it if you would go to 00:18:35.259 --> 00:18:36.779 the show notes, check out mjmunoz.com, check 00:18:36.779 --> 00:18:39.460 out all my work there. You can also check out 00:18:39.460 --> 00:18:42.559 grobugs .com to get a... sneak preview. Get 00:18:42.559 --> 00:18:44.839 on the email list so you can find out about my 00:18:44.839 --> 00:18:46.660 book there, which features magical bugs battling 00:18:46.660 --> 00:18:53.460 monsters. It's very much a heroic story. It has 00:18:53.460 --> 00:18:56.019 bugs training and learning and growing to be 00:18:56.019 --> 00:18:58.400 better, stronger magical bugs so they can protect 00:18:58.400 --> 00:19:00.920 children of the earth from being destroyed by 00:19:00.920 --> 00:19:04.700 monsters or preyed upon by monsters who are creatures 00:19:04.700 --> 00:19:07.519 of darkness and chaos. And I think it's pretty 00:19:07.519 --> 00:19:10.470 cool. I think it's pretty cool. And again, you 00:19:10.470 --> 00:19:12.730 can find out about that at growbugs .com, G -R 00:19:12.730 --> 00:19:15.710 -O -B -U -G -S. And anyway, until next time, 00:19:15.750 --> 00:19:19.710 until next time, folks, take care and be well.