SHUWATCH! Greetings, fellow Ultras. Joining Sean for this year’s Ultraman series reviews is none other than Ethan! Join these two as they check out and share their thoughts on the premiere episode of Ultraman Arc, available free now on the new Official Ultraman English YouTube channel!
Recap
Our debut episode opens with a news report from which we learn, sixteen years ago, something called K-Day took place and Kaiju started to appear all over the world. A mysterious giant of light began appearing to battle them three months ago. Meanwhile, Yuma Hize, our main character, gets ready for work, dashing out the door. When he arrives at his place of work, the local SKIP branch, YouPi (the teams robot/AI) tells him that his coworkers Rin Natsume and captain Hiroshi Ban are out investigating the weird phenomena happening around one of the kaiju horns left embedded in the ground on K-Day.
After meeting up with Captain Hiroshi and Rin, Yuma encounters a little alien parasite. While chasing it and running into a cave, he encounters the Kaiju for this week’s episode, the brand new Shagong. Yuma is saved by Shu Ishido who works for familiar group, the Global Defense Force or GDF. Back at SKIP branch HQ, Shu explains the parasite Yuma found was an Oo-ze. When they infect a Kaiju, they multiply, causing the host to start to seek chemicals found in rocks like limestone, eventually making them grow and rampage in search of food. This is interrupted by You-Bot (YouPi can split up into the smaller head-like drone You-Bot and the handy Pi-Body) who had left to aid SKIP’s investigation that Shagong has grown and is on the move, heading to a chemical plant.
The team set off to aid with evacuation, after calling this all in. During the Shagong’s attack, Oo-ze flake off and attack a civilian, whom Yuma saves and, in turn, has to be saved by Shu. Just as debris falls, knocking Shu out, Yuma is spoken to by our, hitherto unnamed, Ultra and asks to use his power. He agrees and the pair transform. After picking up Shu (who has now woken back up, conveniently), we are treated to a really cool, long fight.
After the main kaiju is defeated, the mother Oo-ze jumps out of the body, trying to latch onto our hero but he summons his sword and slashes it, treating us to an iconic ‘Ultraman weapon perspective shot’.
As the episode winds down, Shu finally decides on a name for the transformed from Yuma takes: Ultraman Arc, named after the beautiful rainbow Arc left behind when flying away. Back at SKIP branch HQ, Rin and Yuma learn that Shu is now going to be stationed with them from now on while still working for the GDF. This brings the episode to a close.
Extra Lore and Fun Facts
Hey all, Sean here! While Ethan handles the main recap portion for this year, I’ll be providing some extra lore and fun facts!
Starting off with some fun facts, the English dubbed versions of the episodes have some minor differences to the subbed versions, such as the lack of any in-video commercial breaks and, more predominantly, some embedded English-translated text in areas such as Yuma’s drawing of “The Ultimate Hero”, while the subbed version lacks these embedded translations.
Next up, some extra lore! From the minute the episode starts, we learn that Arc has been active for quite a while, specifically three months prior to the events of the series.
We also learn about today’s Kaiju, the Armoured Shell Kaiju, Shagong, a turtle like Kaiju that typically lives below ground; A species that SKIP has encountered before.
Ethan’s Thoughts
I loved this first episode! There’s some real Ultraman Orb energy to SKIP, though that might just be the fact it’s a small, not really combative, team that does investigations. Yuma seems like a fun character and I’m interested to see his dynamic with Arc as we go; we didn’t really get much of them in this episode, just enough to know that, unlike last year’s Blazar, we have a more traditional human/Ultra host relationship.
Something I’m also interested to see play out and if it gets explored is the Oo-ze. They seem like they might be a sort of dark parallel to the Ultra/human host dynamic, being space Kaiju that bond with a host and make them big. Unlike Ultras, however, who have a positive impact on their host, they make them rampage and eat bricks. The most negative thing I can say about this first episode is that it feels more grounded and less bombastic than Blazar’s debut episode but that’s just comparing apples and oranges. Clearly Arc is going for its own thing and it’s silly to hold that against the show.
Sean’s Thoughts
Like Ethan, I absolutely loved this first episode. As a huge fan of the Showa Era Ultraman, I loved how much of this episode alone evoked so much of the aesthetic of that era, from the model work to the design of Arc himself, as well as the subtle homage to 1971’s “Return of Ultraman” in the opening sequence; the way Arc charged up the “Arc Finalize” beam was reminiscent of the way Ultraman Ace charged his beam in his show.
Gushing over subtle homages to the Showa Era aside, I watched both the subbed and dubbed versions of the episode and, I must say, like the Z and Blazar dub casts before them, the Arc dub cast is doing an amazing job, especially Shu Ishido’s voice actor during Shu’s panic over the lack of coffee at SKIP Hoshimoto branch.
Speaking of voice actors, if I had £5 for every time Brandon McInnis was part of the dub cast of a Tsuburaya Productions show, I’d have £10… Which isn’t a lot but cool that it’s happened twice! He voiced Yuta Hibiki in the English dub of SSSS.GRIDMAN and is providing the voice of YouPi.
For me, the highlight was definitely the fight scene. From the looks of it, it was one continuous shot. The best part of this was that it was the same length as a traditional colour timer limit for an Ultra: Three minutes. I’m hoping the rest of the episodes keep this up!
Oh, and on a minor note, the ending theme sequence being filtered to look like old film adds to the Showa homages I mentioned earlier.
All in all, a 10/10 opening to the show. We can’t wait to see what comes next.
But what did you, our readers, think? Did you enjoy the episode? Let us know your thoughts in the comments! Until then, this has been Sean and Ethan: Writers, reviewers and Ultra’s-in-training for The Toku Source. We’ll see you all next week.
