#UltramanArc #Ultraman #Kaiju
In Hashimoto City a giant kaiju is attacking, as is typical in these situations, causing destruction of everything in its path. As a damaged building is about to fall on onlookers a pair of giant hands reach out to stop it. And we get our first look at the new Ultraman.
News report lets us know about the past 3 months since this mysterious ‘giant’ appeared and started fighting the kaiju who have plagued the city and the world for 16 years, which is known as K-Day. I’m assuming K for Kaiju. And we get our first look at Yuma Hiza (Yuki Tatsuka). He works for the ‘Scientific Kaiju Investigation and Prevention center’ or ‘SKIP’. As he rushes to gather his things and heads to work, passing and interrupting the news report.
At the SKIP offices we get out first look at what will surely be the comedic element of the series, an AI robot called ‘YouPi’. After informing Yuma that the rest of the team in on location. As he runs to catch up he nearly runs over Shu Ishido (Sho Kaneta).
In the field we meet the other members of SKIP : Rin Natsume (Kaho Mizutani) and the chief of this office of SKIP, Hiroshi Ban (Koichiro Nishi). Who are looking looking into the ‘Monohorn’ part of a kaiju that was defeated 16 years earlier on K-Day. As they take reading to update their info, they find that something is not only alive in horn but moving, as they get a closer look something comes out, what looks like a disembodied gooey hand.
Yuma chases after it and YouPi, now transformed into a flying version of itself, has caught up to him and they continue their search for the creature. Tracking it to a cave Yuma goes in after it where he meets a small kaiju who chases him out of the cave but before he can get attacked the creature is shot by Shu who Yuma seemingly knows, you know because he nearly ran him over when leaving the building earlier.
Shu explains who he is; he was assigned by the ‘Space Science Division’ of the ‘Global Defense Force’ with each introducing themselves ad giving US the chance to know who they are and what they do. They discuss the monster in the cave, Armored Shell Monster Shagong, who are a group of kaijus that live underground and rarely comes out. The parasite inside the monohorn. or the OOZE, finds hosts and mutates them, and it seems it’s infected one of the Shagong. But first, a coffee break. Shu goes into a near panic when he learns no one drinks coffee of has any way of making coffee in the office.
A report comes in from YouPi about the Shagong, which has now grown in size, is going toward an area to feast in calcium carbonate, which in turn will just make it grow more. By the time the team make it to where the Shagong is and it’s grown to over 50 meters tall and as they do, goes on a rampage while the military attacks it. And more of the parasites/OOZE come out of the kaiju tp attack as well.
Shu is hurt in an attack and a voice is heard talking to Yuma, I think we know whats coming next. Yuma uses the ARC device to transform into Ultraman Arc and heads off to face the rampaging kaiju after putting Shu in a safer place. DO like how they are using a clock for the Ultraman transformation to show how much time is left before he reverts back to Yuma. Nice addition.
For those unfamiliar, each person who transforms into Ultraman only has a set amount of time to get the job done before they change back, so they have to quick.
And after a quick and brutal fight Ultraman defeats the kaiju AND the parasite that continues the attack before flying off. With Yuma running back to check on his friends. Just missing the action, as he always seems to do.
Back at the office they all learn that Shu will be permanently assigned to the office with them and he brought a gift, a coffee maker. Altho the coffee maker may just be a gift to himself.
And with that we close out the first episode of ‘Ultraman Arc’
Nice start to the series. Quick intros of the characters, an exposition dump in the news program fills in the gaps. and leaves us questions to look forward to in the coming episodes. Like When did Yuma gain the arc device/bond with Ultraman and what is the monohorn and what is the parasite. All fun things to look forward to over the coming season. Which I’m hoping to get caught up on quickly.
Any comments? Questions?
Till next time…
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