Hello and welcome, Ultraman Connection readers! Previously on Ultraman Arc, we were sadly forced to say good-bye again to a fan-favorite character, the wandering alien samurai Zangill. Although his time on this new version of Earth was short, he had the opportunity to fight alongside an Ultra hero, entrusted him and his allies with the necessary tools to fight back against the mysterious “Hellnarak”, and then enjoyed one final cup of coffee before departing.
Although Zangill was able to finally rest in peace, there’s no rest for our heroes this week as they continue the battle against Hellnarak’s infernal army of phantom Kaiju! We immediately begin the episode with Arc’s battle against yet another Taganular!
Frequently, I joke that things always go wrong when we see the main character transform and fight within the first five minutes of an episode, but Arc’s Galaxy Armor seems to be doing the trick against the resurrected beetle Kaiju. Even before this armor was introduced, Arc’s fighting style was already flashy and innovative, making use of the traditional beam weapons in new, unique ways to defeat Kaiju and other threats. The Galaxy Armor doubles down on the flashiness, and even allows Arc to summon powers from his other armors in his attacks.
More importantly, the Galaxy Armor has a new power of its own – the ability to warp dimensions. We’ve already seen that in the past few episodes, when Arc summons brightly-colored wormholes to teleport around the battlefield. It seems like neither Arc, nor Yuma himself, had considered the implications of this power however. To the viewers, it makes a certain amount of sense. The Galaxy armor does come from the “Onyx”, a dimensional seal which trapped the expended energy from a supernova, and transported it to the Earth through a different wormhole.
GDF agent Shu Ishido is the first to note this connection, and claims that Arc’s teleportation abilities produce the same sort of energy signature as the Onyx. He’s also the first to propose a new angle to their strategy fighting against the invading Kaiju sent by Hellnarak, by contacting Arc directly in order to ask the mysterious giant for help.
It honestly strikes me as funny that we’re eighteen episodes into this show, and it’s only now that someone other than Yuma tries to contact Arc to learn more about it.
It’s also funny, in a much more ironic fashion, that the one character who wants to try and establish clear and honest communication with this enigmatic alien figure… is the secret GDF agent who spent most of the first half of the show lying about his mission. Or maybe not so ironic. After all, Shu probably knows the value of the truth and the importance of trust between comrades even more than the rest of SKIP, precisely because he was forced to keep so many secrets.
No, what’s actually really funny is the fact that nobody appears to be suspicious of Yuma’s connection to Arc. At least, not yet. Shu would be a terrible GDF agent if he never noticed how suspiciously jumpy Yuma gets whenever someone asks him about Ultraman.
There’s plenty of other humorous bits from this episode too. Just like last week, this story does a fantastic job of balancing thoughtful character moments with laugh-out-loud comedy. The dire threat of Hellnarak’s invasion is serious business for everyone involved, but the plans devised by the members of the SKIP team to actually communicate with Arc are as equally varied – and as equally enthusiastic as their various personalities.
In addition to Arc, there’s also a wide variety of ways that different defense teams have attempted to work with other Ultra heroes in their respective shows. It makes sense, if you have an ally who shows up whenever the Earth is faced with an overwhelmingly powerful threat, then you would want to be able to make a plan which includes them! The defense teams already make use of every resource, every piece of technology, every scrap of hope they can wrangle in order to protect the planet and all the lives on it. If Ultraman really is an ally to them, then they would want to make them part of the team too!
However, the operations which explicitly involve the help of an Ultra hero typically request that help in a much more informal way. Even for ordinary civilians desperate for help, any help against a Kaiju attack, they can always get the attention of an Ultra hero… just by asking.
Arc isn’t some frightfully eldritch entity who is completely removed from humanity, with no understanding of our lives, our languages, or anything else about our nature. He already has an intimate connection with the lives on this planet because of his particular connection with just one of those lives – Yuma Hize.
And even though Yuma has to make hasty excuses for leaving in the middle of their operation to transform into Ultraman, that connection allows Arc to truly be an ally to SKIP in this desperate circumstance. So despite everyone’s charmingly bungled attempts at entreating for his help, Arc can immediately get to work trying to seal the dimensional rift Hellnarak is exploiting for the invasion.
It appears to be too little, too late however.Yet another Kaiju appears from the rift – Bazanga this time, the “First Wave” of Space Kaiju from Ultraman Blazar – only to be defeated by Arc’s Galaxy Armor. But no one was prepared for Hellnarak to emerge right behind it, and it seems the only way Arc could prevent its arrival on Earth was to push it back through, sealing the rift behind both of them
That leaves us on a pretty huge cliffhanger this week! Yuma wakes up to find himself in Hoshimoto City… but on a completely different version of Earth, with a completely different defense team. Yes, he’s now in the world of Ultraman Blazar, and has to worry about defeating Hellnarak once and for all, before he can even think of finding a way back home!
Can Yuma and Arc find new allies with the GGF instead of SKIP? Will they be able to beat this interdimensional invasion together? Readers, you’ll just have to wait to find out! In the meantime, stay tuned right here to Ultraman Connection.
