Hello and welcome, Ultraman Connection readers! It’s hard to believe we’re almost three months into Ultraman Arc, with all the laughs, thrills and chills we’ve experienced thus far. The last several episodes have brought some heavy emotional drama, but despite the tragedies our characters have faced, they continue fighting for the hope they have in a better future.
But there can be times when the challenges we face seem to be too much, and the obstacles in our way might be impossible to overcome. Is there a challenge so great that even the power of Ultraman falls short? I don’t know about you, readers, but I have yet to find one. Things certainly seem to be in dire straits at the moment for our heroes though… but I’m getting ahead of myself. If you haven’t watched this week’s episode yet, be warned that there are major spoilers for episode 11 of Arc contained in this article. It might be a good idea to catch up first before proceeding.
All ready? Well then, time to run!
The episode starts out innocuous enough, with a challenge that our characters are very experienced in handling. The SKIP team canvasses a nearby neighborhood looking for information about mysterious sinkholes appearing, in addition to the heavy construction occurring around the area. We’ve already seen cases of Kaiju being disturbed by construction projects, so it seems like a no-brainer to assume some unidentified monster is causing the sinkholes. That seems to be the conclusion SKIP comes to, even if they can’t find the Kaiju on their scanning equipment, so it takes them no time to jump into action when Oka-Gubila -- an underground creature, as opposed to the more familiar marine version -- bursts from the ground.
Yuma similarly wastes no time as part of the team. I appreciate that his unique skills as part of the SKIP, his expertise in Kaiju biology and behavior, continues to play an important role on the team, in addition to just being the guy who transforms into Ultraman! He drags Shu along to help him lure Oka-Gubila away from the city, giving them some distance from civilian casualties before he fights as Ultraman.
As a general rule of thumb, readers -- it never goes well when your protagonist transforms to fight a Kaiju before the 10 minute mark of an episode.
Even then, Arc’s battle against Oka-Gubila doesn’t seem to be unusually difficult. But when the fight against a Kaiju begins so early in the episode’s run-time, it always means there’s more to the story yet to be revealed.
So of course, out of literally thin air, a brand new opponent appears, known only by its alien bellow ending in “GIVAS”.
Givas stuns everyone by its arrival, and seems to lash out at everything in its path, attacking both Arc and Oka-Gubila with no time for either of them to comprehend what’s happening. Even worse, the three-way-melee puts two children at risk who had unluckily stumbled onto this newly-embattled scene of destruction.Trying to fight both Oka-Gubila and Givas while trying to protect them overwhelms Arc’s power, even when using his Luna armor!
I believe this is the first time Yuma has ever gotten knocked out of his transformation after being thrashed so badly in a fight. He is forced to watch helplessly as Givas and Gubila continue to throw themselves into that fight. Oka-Gubila comes terrifyingly close to killing the two kids in the middle of their battle, and is only stopped… miraculously by Givas.
Spared from disaster by only the most heart-stoppingly thin margin, the battle reaches an uneasy truce -- Oka-Gubila burrows back underground and Givas seems to shut down for the night. But the challenges for our characters have only just begun.
Immediately, we question what Givas is, and why it has appeared on the Earth. The only clue SKIP has to go on is Givas’ cry. Shu, as a member of the GDF, seems to have access to other tools and other intelligence. He goes back to his headquarters for new orders… and to meet an old, familiar face, Numata, the Alien Croco from episode 6! I have no idea if he has a connection to Givas’ appearance, but I suspect that Givas has perhaps appeared elsewhere in space, and may be known to other alien civilizations already. I suppose we’ll find out more next week!
As an aside, this isn’t the first time a terrifyingly powerful intergalactic robot has appeared on the Earth, and this episode reminded me a bit of Galactron’s first appearance in Ultraman Orb. But Galactron was made of ornately-decorated, pristine white and shining metal with an almost divine appearance. Everyone thought it was a benevolent harbinger of peace at first… until it determined that it should eliminate all human beings from the Earth.
Givas seems like its exact opposite. Rather than a gleaming white appearance, Givas looks much more plain and rougher. It seems to be designed specifically for combat with no other bells and whistles or aesthetic decor to distract from that purpose.
But what was it designed to combat? And why did it come to Earth?
Back at SKIP’s headquarters, Rin has difficulty translating Givas’ message, apart from determining that it is searching for something. Looking for a clue in the linguistic patterns of its speech, she comes to a rather… unusual leap of logic. The missing key comes from considering the number of suns its home world would have. We have a single sun, other alien civilizations known to the characters have multiple, but what if a world had no sun at all?
That seems strange from a scientific and especially a linguistic perspective, but the concept of a world with no sun immediately draws some parallels with the oldest pieces of lore in the Ultraman franchise. Even though Arc himself isn’t from the Land of Light in the M78 nebula (or at least, as far as we know) it’s important to note that the Ultras themselves gained their power as a result of dealing with a specific, singular crisis -- when their sun was extinguished. To save their planet, they created the Plasma Spark, which gave them the ability to turn into the 50-meter tall silver, red and blue heroes we know and love today!
So we have an example of what can happen when a world has no sun, when it is bound by crushing darkness and despair. In the case of the M78 Ultras, the power they gained to overcome that existential threat became the power they use to help save others throughout the universe. It seems as if this unknown civilization from a lightless rogue planet has also gained power through advanced technology to overcome the same challenge, to rise above a seemingly-impossible obstacle.
That breakthrough provides the key to understand Givas’ message. Givas isn’t just a name, as it turns out -- it’s a word literally meaning “obstructs the path”, which the system translates as “enemy”.
Is “Givas” itself really an enemy to Earth though? Yuma is doubtful, understandably since he saw it save the lives of two children by putting itself in the path of a powerful blow from Oka-Gubila! Shu comes back with new orders though, and tells the SKIP team that the GDF demands that Givas should be destroyed.
For all the challenges and obstacles that Yuma has faced during this show, and even the tragedies he’s overcome in his past, they’ve always been rather impersonal obstructions. The power of his imagination, his hope in the future, his honest trust in those around him, and his strength fighting with Ultraman Arc utilizing all of that, have been enough to overcome fights against Kaiju. Even when facing tough situations which required miraculous events to overcome, Yuma was able to pull through all of it with Arc and the support from his teammates.
That makes his final words to Shu in this episode, blankly stating that he is no longer one of his teammates, sting even worse.
You can tell it hurts Shu a lot to hear too, but I honestly don’t know what he expected. This whole series, Shu has kept his real mission secret from the team, disappears off to GDF headquarters with no word, and seems to keep his entire working relationship with them on a strictly need-to-know basis. My brother in Noa, of course they don’t trust you!
At the end of the episode, this interpersonal drama is just as gripping as the mysteries around Givas, and just as crucial for Yuma’s success or failure in the next episode. SKIP is still a branch of the GDF, how can Yuma prove Givas’ real intentions and exonerate it without the resources or help from his team? Just like Givas’ home planet, Yuma seems to have found himself in a place without light, and will have to find the strength to overcome these new obstacles.
Even if those obstacles are people he once trusted with his life.
