This episode of Ultraman Omega isn't really about
Ultraman, or even about a big kaiju. It's about
love. About the kind of love that gives life,
the kind that takes life, and the pain of doing
the right thing when it hurts everyone involved.
And I wasn't expecting a story about a teenage
girl and a metal snake puppet to hit me this
hard. What makes life worth living? Love might
be the answer. Love hurts us. Love gives us strength
love fuels us It lets us do what we need to do
And sometimes it lets us do what we want to do
and it makes the smallest things The most mundane
things special and important and I can't believe
that I'm talking about this in response to Ultraman
Omega Episode 5, Miko and Mikoto, which is about
a metallic snake puppet kaiju and a teenage girl
who share a connection and a bond that's killing
them both. It's a very mythic episode. It's a
very mythic story. It's based on a myth spoken
of, mentioned in the episode. Whether the myth
is true or not, it doesn't matter. Well, whether
it's an actual genuine Japanese myth or not,
it doesn't matter. What matters is that it works
for the story and it operates on a mythic level.
And it tells a story that has so much depth and
layers to it, even though it's simple, that...
I don't quite know what to say about it, but
I loved this episode. The first time I saw it,
I said it was probably the best. It was definitely
the best episode of Omega so far, in spite of
the fact that there was barely a fight. The city
wasn't in danger. It was a little town. Why does
that matter? A city is full of people. It's full
of infrastructure. The countryside town is full
of nature, less homes, less buildings, farms,
small farms. a much lower population. And yet
the stakes are the same. Whether a city gets
destroyed or a small town gets destroyed, people's
lives are getting destroyed. And like the scale
of the destruction doesn't matter because the
loss matters to each individual person who loses
something, who loses someone. And they are hurt
by the loss because they have a connection. to
the thing or the people around them and they
have that connection for multiple reasons love
being one of them and the pain hurts more the
destruction hurts more the loss of a you know
farmhouse or a stable or a shed or whatever hurts
more because you have a connection to it than
if you don't have a connection to it it's like
how they say if one person dies it's a tragedy
and if a million people die it's a statistic
I don't know that they were consciously trying
to make a parallel there or speak to that idea.
But I know something special was happening here.
The episode was directed by Tomonobu Koshi and
the writer was Masaya Honda. And I don't remember
specifically other things that they've worked
on that I've connected to. And the direction
matters less, even though the direction played
a very important part here, the direction matters
less to me than the writing of the episode because
in the direction we got to see, well, but it
is still important because the way the shots
were framed, especially with Mikoto, the way
that the puppet, the kaiju puppet was shot and
framed, you could feel his emotion. At one point
he does cry. He lifts his head in a posture of
wailing, calling out mourning because he's, Like
he knows that he's harmful to Miko and his solution
is to become a monster, act like a monster and
have threatened the whole town so that Omega
would kill him so that her life could be spared.
And there's something tragic and rich and deep
in there. And I don't quite understand what it
is. She had lost her mother to illness and she's
obviously in mourning. as she should be. And
she's living with her aunt, who she's refusing
to make a connection with. This aunt knows her
to some extent. It looks like Miko is from the
city, and her aunt is obviously from the country.
Her aunt is her mother's sister, though, so you
could imagine that her mother's sister, her aunt,
so you can imagine that Miko's mother moved away
from the country, moved to the city for whatever
reason, job, marriage, whatever. She wanted to
pursue something different. When she died, being
that her father was unavailable, she went to
live with her aunt in the country. And she was
still holding on to the loss of her mother, mourning
the loss of her mother, dealing with the loss
of her mother. And she couldn't connect to her
aunt. Maybe her aunt looks like her mother. Maybe
she's an old fuddy -duddy. She's a backwards
farm lady with her thick accent, which I appreciated
very much, the dub, how much of a... country
accent they gave her. I really do think it's
a good thing. And I think it added to the contrast
between the two of them. And my point is that
I feel like when she started connecting to Mikoto,
she could connect to him because He wasn't a
replacement for her mother in that he was another
mother figure, another parental figure. He was
a replacement for her mother in that he gave
her the chance to be a mother, to be on the other
side of that relationship. It was too hard for
her to be a daughter, but it wasn't too hard
for her to be a mother. I just find that to be
absolutely gorgeous, absolutely beautiful. And
I don't really, I don't know how, I don't know
how to process it or deal with it. It's just,
it's a very powerful emotional punch going on
here. And then you have at the same time, her
aunt, whose name I don't remember, like wanting
desperately to connect to this girl and to love
her, you know, her sister's daughter. And she's
being met by the stone wall, which she kind of,
she tries to respect it because you can't break
through someone's grief with force and make them
accept your love. And it's interesting. I think
I subconsciously chose that phrasing because
Mikoto is breaking through the boundary between,
his life force and Miko's life force, his body
and her body. And he's using something. He's
using her love essentially to grow, but it's
killing her. And it reminds me of the idea that
biologically a mother can die giving birth. A
mother loses life force. She loses life energy
to her child. Even a nursing mother, she expends
much more calories each day just nursing the
baby than she does actually growing the baby.
on a day -to -day basis. I'm not saying cumulatively,
like one nursing session doesn't equal nine months
of growth, but a woman needs to eat more after
she gives birth so that she has the nutrients
pulled from her food so that the nutrients isn't
pulled from her body, because that will happen.
A mother can be depleted by nursing to her child
without filling herself back up. And we see that
Miko's willing to do that for Mikoto. And because
Mikoto is able to perceive that, he doesn't want...
to do that to her. He doesn't want to burden
her anymore. So he chooses to die and he makes
himself into a monster, which in a way he is
a monster already because he's taking life force
from her against her will, but maybe it is according
to her will because she looks so pleased in one
scene, specifically when he's giant and he's
pulling energy from her. She's happy that he
has the nourishment from her and she goes with
him willingly, but it's not sustainable. And
it isn't a healthy relationship. It isn't a healthy
connection. Love can give meaning to life and
it can inspire us to persist and to do the things
that we need to do, even though they're hard
for us. But when love is twisted the wrong way,
it can be detrimental, deleterious. It can kill
you from the inside. And that's not okay. That's
not okay. I mean, it's a fact, but it's not something
that should be encouraged. It should be something
that's dealt with properly. I think this episode
is describing this, like, the mythic arc of love,
the phrase that comes to mind, and how it can
be both life -giving and life -destroying. And...
Sarato, Omega, like, mournfully deals with it.
I really think... that when he kills Mikoto and
the cherry blossoms fall from him, and he's posed
in a particular way where the slugger and his
hand are covering his eyes, but then there's
one cherry blossom that falls. I think it's supposed
to be representative of a tear. It's symbolic
of that. And I think it's just a beautiful visual
and a beautiful way to give us the story in a
single image. And I guess the story is that sometimes
we, or sometimes somebody, has to be destructive,
has to make the hard choice, and just because
they do it doesn't mean they want to. Just because
they do it doesn't mean it's easy for them. Just
because they do something that they feel needs
to be done doesn't mean it doesn't hurt them.
It reminds me of a parent saying, this is going
to hurt me more than it hurts you. I don't know
that that's true. But definitely there is a burden
and there is a pain that goes along with being
a parent, with raising a child into an adult,
being there for them through their development
and helping them to become who they should become,
who they want to become, the best versions of
themselves. And I don't know. I don't know that
that's what they were trying to say, but that's
what I got from it. It's a beautiful episode
of Ultraman. It's a beautiful episode of television
in general. It's a beautiful episode of Tokusatsu.
Tokusatsu is being used to the fullest, I think
here. And it's absolutely gorgeous. And I love
it. And I'm so thankful that I got to watch this
episode and that it made me emotional. I love
that the kaiju gets to cry too. And then we see
his pain. And it's interesting because so far,
The kaiju have been framed very much as animals,
but in this, he gets this additional mythic framing
and this great humanity given to him, Mikoto.
And I don't quite know what that means. I don't
know if that means that two different perspectives
on what a kaiju is are being represented in Omega,
or more perhaps, or if it means something else.
I think it's a question worthwhile answering.
I think it's a topic to discuss. If you'd like
to share your thoughts on this episode with me,
I would love that. I would love to talk to other
people, geek out about this with other people,
talk about the depth of the myth or maybe other
things I missed talking about this specific topic.
And if you want to hear more of, or if you want
to hear more from me in general, I'm talking
about Omega and Zets and other broad henshin
hero, transforming heroes, tokusatsu type of
stuff. You can find links to everything in the
pinned comments. For now, I got to go. This is
MJ with... Going Ultra, signing out.