Hello and welcome, Ultraman Connection readers! We’re back once again with our weekly recap of Ultraman Arc, breaking down all the new info, new stories, new challenges for our characters… even if some of them are quite familiar this time around.
After the heady climax of the show’s midseason, GDF Special Agent Shu Ishido seems a bit lost as the episode opens. That’s understandable, even for the viewers at home! The first half of the show was entirely focused around Hoshimoto City’s rash of Kaiju appearances, and the mysterious connections those creatures had to the events of “K-Day” sixteen years previously.
Eventually, we discovered that K-Day was the result of Arc’s battle against Monogelos, but also a larger plot originating practically on the other side of the universe! Arc was sent to Earth in order to prevent it from being destroyed by an outpouring of energy, siphoned off from a dying star in his own solar system. While the energy was stopped for a time, the leftover “Onyx” sealing it was close to bursting open once again.
The previous episode seemed to wrap up most of those plot lines. The Onyx disappeared after Arc and Yuma used it to fuel the creation of their newest upgraded armor, dubbed the “Galaxy Armor”. Without its energy seeping out into the surrounding city, it seems that Kaiju will no longer be attracted to the site, or threaten its citizens for the foreseeable future. But with no threats to be concerned about, and no mysterious alien agents meddling in the city, there also doesn’t seem to be a reason for Shu to remain working with the rest of the SKIP team.
It was surprising to see how much this realization affected Shu in the episode. Yuma obviously was sad to see a newfound friend and coworker move onto another mission, but his work at SKIP and his desire to protect the city still fuel his determination day after day in the office.
The question is… what does Shu want to do? What drives his determination? He has his own orders from the GDF to follow, and even admits to Yuma that his new assignment will probably move him to another location to serve an anonymous and secretive role once again. He knows the importance of that secrecy, even when it required lying to his friends at SKIP.
However, things are clearly different now. Shu has already come clean to Yuma and the others, and has fought alongside them, sharing his mission in a new way. He doesn’t want to go back!
I guess he was probably grateful that a brand new threat literally appeared out of thin air on his supposed “last” day at work in Hoshimoto City.
Mogusion might be brand new to SKIP and to Shu (even if YouPi independently comes up with the exact same moniker), but readers probably remember it from episode 16 of Ultraman Blazar last year, “Terror from the Underground”. The terror-inducing mole Kaiju wreaked havoc in that show until the SKaRD team summoned their courage and defeated it with the help of Earth Garon and Blazar himself.
But what the heck is it doing on this version of Earth? Perhaps the giant rip in dimensions, left behind by Zadime’s defeat in episode 15, could have something to do with it? Perhaps?
Further complicating these questions, Mogusion also seems to resemble a ghostly apparition in this episode, and is completely unaffected by their weapons. Both SKIP and the GDF forces have no way to counter its enraged attacks when it physically appears later on, and rampages within the city. Despite Arc’s new power, could he be defeated by a Monster-of-the-Week from a completely different series?
Well, as it turns out, Mogusion wasn’t the only thing which crossed over from Blazar. The alien swordmaster Zangill also appears before Arc, and teams up with him in order to stop the phantom Mogusion!
I really appreciated that Arc found a new way to defeat Mogusion, rather than just killing it with brute force. Instead, he creatively uses his own sword as a mirror, to reflect the terror-inducing light back towards its source, paralyzing the Kaiju and making it vulnerable to attack!
During this, we get a glimpse of what Mogusion itself is terrified of… and it seems to be another Kaiju, even more frighteningly powerful than any others we’ve seen so far. Maybe it was just a vague concept of an alpha apex predator, capable of hunting a top-tier hunter like Mogusion. Regardless, the threat seems to have passed after Arc and Zangill destroy it. We get a doubly-happy ending as well, finding out that Shu is continuing to stay in Hoshimoto City to work with SKIP, investigating the cause of Mogusion’s arrival.
The investigation doesn’t take long, since Zangill once again appears before Shu and Yuma, and claims that Mogusion was in fact running away from an even greater threat.
Something named Hellnarak.
And readers, I don’t know about you, but the thought of Kaiju bearing such a cursed name like that, a threat so dire that Zangill literally has come back from the dead to warn us about it, has me terrified for next week.
Until then, stay tuned right here to Ultraman Connection!
