Now that we’re caught up fully with Shu Ishido’s Diary, from Ultraman Arc, let’s continue our analysis of the entries by going through this double-sized one. Going forward, we will attempt to post and analyze each entry as they come, once a week.
Entry 6
Once again, Mr. Nibuya is coming up. Considering how Shu seems to report every major development to him, we’re surprised he hasn’t shown up in person yet.
More importantly, the early part of this entry does a lot to indicate the development of Shu’s worldview. In the episode that accompanied this entry, Shu revealed some very venomous opinions towards aliens in general, assuming that they are deceiving invaders. While the Ultraman Series has had a long history of villainous aliens, the show has, for many years now, attempted to assign the malice of invasion to individuals, rather than species, making Shu’s behavior here clearly a prejudice born from trauma and hearsay. It’s wonderful that he is able to begin shedding that dark part of himself here.
To be clear, the trauma mentioned is the untimely passing of at least one colleague to alien plots in the past. Far later in this entry, the name “Mr. Kiuchi” is mentioned. Is this the person he lost?
It is extremely reassuring to see that Numata, the friendly Alien Croco, has been acquitted of any suspicion by the GDF as a whole. The proprietress of the Akebono Inn even came to pick him up!
Nestled in the middle of all this is a question we should all be asking — What happened on K-Day that all the aliens on Earth felt the need to leave — with even Numata’s people abandoning him? The mystery of that day continues to deepen…
A much bigger point of strangeness comes from the Shagong that attacked the Inn. In our review of the episode, we theorized that Shagong can naturally become that large, and the Oo-ze merely accelerated that growth. Instead, Shu makes it clear that there have only been two 50-meter-class Shagong before this point, one being the Oo-ze victim. The fact that three of them, with no Oo-ze in their system, appeared out of nowhere, is deeply concerning and raises further questions. Perhaps the fact that the Monohorn is within sight of this area has something to do with it…?
The core question Shu finds himself asking, that the majority of the second part of this entry is dedicated to, is why Arc held mercy for the final Shagong. The question of Ultraman’s mercy has been an ongoing topic of discussion in recent years, with shows like Ultraman Blazar and movies like Ultraman: Rising evoking the role of Ultraman as a mediator between humanity and Kaiju, and the right of Kaiju to exist.
Shu has questions about why Arc stopped fighting, why the Shagong left, and what would have happened if this battle had occurred in a population center instead of the mountains, all valid inquiries as a member of the GDF and someone with the role of protecting humanity against the alien. Arc FAM, the division of the GDF that exclusively studies Arc, believes Arc was exhausted, and the Shagong took the chance to escape.
Shu disagrees, recognizing the mercy within Arc’s heart. He recognizes that Ultraman is an alien, and that he is undeniably biased… but, frankly, he’s right. We know that Arc and Yuma are the same person, and that Arc does have compassion for creatures that humanity finds alien. Shu himself has been influenced, not just by Arc, but by Yuma and SKIP, to start seeing the world with a kinder lens, and, like his newfound understanding of Numata, he is choosing to imagine a better world.
