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 24, The Descending Dream,
is a bit of a doozy. It was originally aired
January 11, 2025, directed by Takanori Tsujimoto,
and written by Jun Tsugita. So... We will get
back to those gentlemen later. For now, I just
want to go and talk about my episode. I actually
was so impressed by everything that was going
on in this episode. There was a lot of great
iconography and a lot of great images that I
actually grabbed a bunch of them and threw them
all into an email for myself so I could reference
them so I don't forget to talk about them. I
really like this episode. It's great suspense.
It's a great penultimate episode. By the end
of it... arc and yuma are in the absolute most
distress they possibly can be and the skip crew
knows 100 that he is ultra man or at least well
yeah no they know they know they know um first
they suspect like uh chief bonce says it's a
crazy idea crazy theory but could it be uh that
he's and um rin and uh And Ishido just look over
at him and they all continue and they're trying
to protect Yuma. And Yuma's hearing them talking
about how they're going to protect him. And just
like he's protected them all these times, Ishido
says. And he hears that when they're all ready
to go, they have their plans made. Yuma's already
gone. He's already running. He's already running
towards the enemy, towards not the future or
his future, but his future is his end. He's already
running towards that. They try to stop him, and
I guess the kaiju appears, Swede is there, and
they don't stop him because he's got to fight.
He has to stand and fight to protect his friends
and his whole planet, and that's what he's going
to do. And he doesn't even turn back to acknowledge
them as Yuma. He pulls up the art cube, he activates
it, he's transforming, which is a truncated transformation,
I'm pretty sure, just to increase the cool factor.
Because while all of this is interesting... It
also kind of takes away from things. Faster transformation
is cooler in a lot of ways. Anyway, so then he
transforms and Ark rises up. I think he does
the Ark hug first. Anyway, and Ark turns back
and looks at him, which is what I feature in
the thumbnail. Him looking at them at what would
have been the reverse shot of them seeing each
other before he flies off to go fight against
this grand... Kaiju, whose name is... They call
him Gilbaku, which makes me think of Gilbaka,
like a Chewbacca variant, but it's not. But anyway,
so he goes off to fight Gilbaku, and he doesn't
have such a great time, but we'll talk about
that in a minute. Gosh, how do I want to do this?
Okay, I'm just going to go through an order,
basically. with the clips, I think I have them
basically in order. I don't, actually. Whatever.
I'll figure it out. So, it's really interesting
that at the start of the episode, well, first
of all, like, Hoshimoto City is gone, which I
did not realize at the end of the last episode.
In fact, listening to the recap episode, EJ brought
up that Hoshimoto City's gone, and what does
that mean? And is it going to come back? It appears
to be gone. What's happening? And, I mean, there,
to me, that shot at the beginning shows, Yuppie,
Ishido, Rin, and Chief Bun looking at just a
massive hole where Hoshimoto's city should have
been, and it's now completely obliterated. So
I don't know how it works that they went ahead
and then found Yuma in rubble, but before they
found Yuma in rubble, he was having this dream,
this interaction, wherein... This is full spoilers,
right? You understand that? You understand. Anyway,
Swede is masquerading as Ark, and she's asking
for him to say goodbye to Ark and to take her
hands as Ark. And Ark goes through and says,
Your parents, you know, there was an accident
while you were camping, and your parents are
here, and they're fine. They're waiting for you.
The rescue team is on its way, and, you know,
you will be recovered soon. All you have to do
is let go. Say thank you, Ultraman Ark. And let
go of me. And then you'll be fine. You'll wake
up. You'll be back with your mother and father.
And you have to think about what a strong temptation
that is for Ark. Or sorry, for Yuma. We learn
that Sweet is just using Ark's visage to deceive
him. And she's upset and gets irritated when
he actually wakes up. And there's really cool
suit acting going on. Let me see if I can find
the suit actor real quick. Yeah, so Hideyoshi
Iwata does this great thing, acting as sweet,
acting as Ark, that when Yuma's about to reach
out to him and touch his hands, his beep, beep,
beep, beep, beep, alarm goes off on his watch.
If he's supposed to be sleeping, if it's all
a dream, why does his watch still have an alarm
going on? It doesn't make sense, and it breaks
it. He, she, whatever. Ark looks from the watch
to Yuma's face, to the watch to Yuma's face.
And then there's a really interesting cut back
and forth, back and forth, back and forth between
them. And as the cuts increase in speed, the
editing cuts, it increases the tension. And you
feel like, oh, it's going to happen. And it cuts
to black. And then we go on from there. So that
was a really neat bit of visual storytelling
as well as, well, through the suit acting, through
the edits that were made, the cuts that were
made. And they're in this. hazy black place so
it's black and there's lights coming in that
look like they've got you know the slanting rays
of like light coming out from clouds and things
like that i don't know how else to say that and
there's even a funny thing going on where um
you know arc you know sweet as arc is telling
him all these things it's all just a dream he's
like but i'm growing up and he's touching his
face whenever he says um like Even the sensation
of touching your face is an illusion. And if
you think of The Matrix, you know, do you think
that's air you're breathing now? From the famous
fight scene in the dojo, right? Neo? Morpheus?
You get it? You know? I may or may not make a
meme of it, but it was just a great moment. I
thought, oh, that's really interesting. So beyond
that, what happens next? Let me see. so they
recover him he gets out of there oh another thing
uh so E .J. mentioned that there was the, you
know, all of Hoshimo City looked like it was
blown away. He also mentioned something that
I saw but I forgot to mention because just not
having the images in front of me, it's easy to
forget there's so much going on, and I don't
just always talk about the spectacle, I talk
about the themes and everything, so it's easy
to forget. But at some point, the Galaxer feathers
were pulled together as a claw, all four of them
gathered together, and Yuma Coxback slashes through
Triglos, and that's like... a key to his success,
to defeating him, Trigolos. And it looked really
awesome at the time, and I was really impressed
by it. I thought, oh, he scratched him. He scratched
him with a claw. That's super cool. Keep in mind,
I really like Geed, and I like his galactic whatever
armor. What is that armor called? Geed Galaxy
Rising. That's the one I really like. It's fantastic.
But I feel like in... Ultraman Z, where I first
encountered Geed Galaxy Rising, or perhaps Geed
at all. I don't remember now. Anyway, we get
to see that the Alpha Flight, Beta, Smash, Gamma,
something, Delta. Delta room? No, that's wrong.
Delta, whatever the Delta form is, I'm pretty
sure he has claws. Because he's got the Belial
rock, I'm sorry, he's got the, not the Belial
rock, the Belial metal in him too, the Belial
atrocious. Anyway, I'm just getting sidetracked.
I just, I like the fiercer forms, they're a lot
of fun for me, even though I like the super heroic
stuff. But like, you know, I like my hairs to
be fierce, fierce and tough. Anyway, so moving
on to keep on track for this episode, because
I don't want it to be overly long. We get this
interruption of the dream, and, you know, Swede,
Gives up the jig, I guess. That's how you would
say that. And she leaves him alone for a while.
He's recovered out of the rubble. And they're
very concerned for him. Bjorno comes back and
takes over Yuppie as Yuppie's in the rubble looking
for him. He, like, completely hijacks him somehow.
I don't know how he's able to maintain the hijacking
by transferring himself through the phone, which
also makes me think of The Matrix. You know,
picking up the phones and transferring? Anyway.
But he stays inside of Yuppie for a while, and
after Yuppie runs off with Yuma, he talks to
him and says, yeah, you've been poisoned. So,
the thing is, it turns out that Zesu is a smart
villain, and he's been slowly poisoning Jeed,
and... He's been slowly poisoning Jeed, and Yuma,
ever since they... shortly after the Onix was
turned into the Galaxer, and then they started
using it for the Galaxer form. So that's super
interesting. He's been slowly poisoning them.
They are going to die. That's why Yuma's been
having the shaky hands, and even Ark is weakened
now, and he can't directly communicate with him,
which is why Giorno does it, which I honestly
kind of don't like that... Blazor didn't talk
to... didn't talk to Gento at all, and Ark talks
to him rarely, but then there's another Ultra,
essentially, talking to him for him. It just
seems kind of strange. I don't really like that
choice, but I do like the fact that they've been
slowly poisoned over this time, and that it will
lead to their doom, ultimately. And basically,
what's going to happen is if Biorno had not been
able to tell them, which Zesu has stopped him
multiple times from being able to get the full
message, they would just eventually... explode
i guess and the onyx would reform and it would
dump all that astral or astro i don't know star
energy uh from solana the sun in um in zesu and
swede and rutians uh, galaxy, um, it would dump
all that energy to the Earth, and the Earth would
be obliterated, and, like, they would die, and
then the Earth would die, um, all at one time,
and, which would be pretty crazy, and that's,
like, a great, like, villain win, like, oh, yeah,
you thought you beat me, but actually I had a
backdoor, and, uh, I let you, you know, I let
it, you know, burst through your chest, and destroy
your whole world, and ha ha ha, my world is safe
now, and yours is fine, it's gone, and I'm fine
with that, because I don't really care, um, about
you backwater humans, um, so that was pretty
interesting, I like that, um, I like that Swede...
Like, I get really strong... Not Dinozanon. Well,
I get kind of strong Dinozanon vibes. Oh, it's
because she gets the same type of energy. And
there was SSS Dinozanon, and there was SSSS .Gridman.
There we go. The... one of the villains is injured,
and he comes back with an eye patch, and maybe
some scarring on his face, and Sweet has the
same thing going on, and it's an ultra -series
thing, and I just like the fun little visual
connection, and it's funny that she was defeated,
and then she comes back, and she just has an
eye patch and a little, like, you know, scarring
on her cheek, and that tells us something, but
she's mad, and it's fun to see, you know, that
she failed, and this is her last chance, and...
There's this cool, like, Vader Emperor moment
where he, Zesu, appears, just his head in the
sky, and he's talking to her, and he's got subtitles,
hard subs, on this. I'm watching the dub, of
course. He's got hard subs, and she's responding
to him in English, or whatever. And that's pretty
fun. A little complaint I have, before I cap
this off and get into the climax of the episode
and say what I liked about it, is that my boy
Gilbaka, Gilbaku, looks a little bit, which the
Gil is spelled Giles. Does that make sense? Because
he's like a dream -manipulating... kaiju, I guess.
Anyway, um, he, uh, looks very much like one
of my favorite kaiju, who's a new kaiju who debuted
in Ultraman Z, which would be, um, the space
pirate. I know he's a space pirate, but I don't
remember his name right now. Uh, he's the moth
guy, butterfly guy. Alien Barossa. That's his
name. Alien Barossa. Yeah. I looked it up. I
had to look it up. Anyway. So, yeah. Alien Barossa.
Very cool. But, like, the textures and the colors
and some of the effects with, like, that blue
bleeding through. Why are images of... Oh. Probably
because I didn't put Alien Barossa. Full Transient
Alien Barossa. Anyway. Yeah. The, like... brownish
with the lines on it the texturing the blue eyes
the blue belly like it's all kind of similar
and that's a little bit too bad because that's
you know decreasing in the wonderful you know
creativity that we get to see on display by like
these new kaiju having kind of like a similar
vibe with each other um like and not just a vibe
but just like the visual cue like it it almost
feels like they're supposed to be related or
somehow they're like, made by the same hand,
which is not great, because you want maximum
variety, right? At least I do, so that's interesting.
Interesting is less disappointing, but, you know,
I'm okay with it. I can handle it. I'm a grown
man. I can take it. Oh, so in the fight, Gilbacca,
Gilbacca, sorry, Gilbacca, he somehow turns the
Galaxer Feathers, which I don't know why they're
feathers, he turns the Galaxer Feathers against
Ark. He brings them out, he's all ready to fight,
and then they start spinning and spinning and
spinning, and then they start attacking him,
which is cool, crazy cool. And then he's completely
drained of his energy, and his eyes go dark,
and he's standing, but he kind of turns down.
And that's the end. We have a cliffhanger. It
looks like Gobaku is going to defeat Ark. He's
completely out of energy. The moment he transforms,
his color timer starts going off. The guy is
in trouble. And basically, this was the penultimate
episode. We now have his identity revealed, slash
Ark's identity revealed to the skip crew. He
is a ticking time bomb. Onix will explode after
enough time. And all Zesu has to do to win is
basically run out the clock. And that's it. This
is the best endgame scenario. There is a ticking
clock. The whole world is at stake. And Ark's
out of energy. And we have no idea how he can
possibly defeat this guy. And I bet we're going
to get more mind manipulation dream stuff in
the next episode with Gilbaku. And it'll be interesting
to see. Will we get an alternate universe? I
don't even know what it's going to be. They don't
have a lot of time, but they have to sell the
conflict. They have to sell Yuma and Ark somehow
overcoming this hurdle of being weak and poisoned
and so injured that they can't do anything. I'm
hoping we get to see Givas come back, and I think
it would be even amazing if we get... Oh my gosh.
If Biorno came along and formed a bond with Ishido...
and they turn into an Ultra that looks just like
Ark, except he's got a different splash of color
on him or whatever, and somehow he was able to
save Yuma, or give him a bunch of Ultra energy,
and wake up Ark, and they got to fight this thing
together, I would absolutely lose my freaking
mind. And that would be so cool. I would love
to see that. And that's my prediction, based
on not having watched the preview or anything
for the next episode. It's a prediction slash
a hope slash... a, why won't they do this, um,
how dare you Tsuburaya, you cowards, um, yeah,
anyway, I would love it, I would love it, we'll
see what happens, um, because, like, this is
the darkest it can possibly be for Ark, and for
Isshido, or, well, yeah, for Isshido, and for
Yuma, and for the world of Ultraman Ark, um,
they are in big trouble, and, uh, I gotta say,
I don't remember how they did this with Blazar,
I think it was Let's Go Blazar was the last episode,
the catchphrase, whatever, of time to run Yuma,
is the episode title for the next episode of
25, the ultimate episode of ultimate arc. And
I'm excited about that. I think it's really fun,
really clever, really cool. Um, anyway, I got
to go. I got a hard out right now. Um, check
out my, uh, website, mjmunoz.com, to find out
and keep up to date on everything that I have
going, all my art analysis and fiction. And speaking
of fiction, go to grobugs.com to find out about
the Grobug book, Mockery Mayhem, which will
be coming out. I'm working with an artist, a
cover artist, right now. I have to get a bunch
of technical information, and we're moving forward,
so it's time to run for MJ to get this book out.
And anyway, I hope you check out the book. I
hope you enjoy it. If not, that's fine. We can
still be friends, if we must. But no, anyway,
just I really hope people enjoy it because I'm
excited about it. I think it's going to be a
really cool story and it's got great high stakes
and it's a lot of fun. Great characters, great
relationships between the characters. And it's
about magical bugs battling monsters. And if
you like to see ultras battling monsters, I think
you'll like to see my little guys battling monsters
as well. It's pretty cool stuff. Anyway, until
next time, folks, take care and be well.