Hey, UC faithful! A little while ago, we brought you some official translations of the diary of Shu Ishido, a GDF member and ally of the SKIP team of Ultraman Arc. Despite Yuma Hize being the protagonist, Shu’s perspective is fascinating, and these diary entries reveal a lot about his thought process, and even hint at the greater world going on beyond the bounds of little Hoshimoto City. Let’s go through each of these entries one at a time, and see what we can discover.
Entry 1
Firstly, we’re introduced to a name that we haven’t actually heard in the show before this point — Mr. Nibuya, who seems to be Shu’s superior in the GDF, and the one that assigned him to Hoshimoto City. Curiously, it doesn’t actually read like simply helping SKIP is Ishido’s duty, but rather the excuse for his presence in the area. Curious…
It’s truly shocking how taken with Arc Shu seems to be. Even to the point of being unable to contain his excitement and being the one to coin the name “Ultraman Arc.” He finds this embarrassing and unbefitting of his position… but he certainly doesn’t seem to be interested in stopping, of course. If you’ve been following one of the other columns connected to the show, “Ask TsuPi,” you’ll note that a “GDF member saved by Arc” was the one to name his beam the Arc Finalize… The names definitely aren’t going to stop any time soon — not that that’s a bad thing. This is a series about unleashing imagination, after all!
It’s here that the SKIP sidearms are identified as “Soniter,” or Supersonic Intimidation Devices. They look like proper weapons, but Shu makes it clear that all they actually “fire” are disruptive bursts of sound, sort of like handheld LRAD devices. These make sense as something that can be used by a civilian agency like SKIP, but considering how often they find themselves in the middle of Kaiju attacks…
Speaking of weapons, we also get the first in-universe mention of Shu’s Elemagun, the weapon that he’s been using since the first episode. Little is discussed regarding its utility, but it is a weapon that the GDF assigns that is effective against Kaiju, so it’s likely the strongest weapon in the entire series — and might even be effective when put up against the sidearms of previous defense teams. It DOES seem to be able to take out a juvenile Oo-ze with a single shot, and Shu is quite a marksman!
For our final note, we take a peek at the studies being done at this time on the Oo-zes and their origins inside the Monohorn. Despite the discarded horn being a subject of study for over a decade and a half, at least one had been in suspended animation within the entire time. Shu has some theories as to why it has emerged now, but, just as we as UC are wont to do, put our work aside to have a desperately needed coffee break.
Entry 2
This is a shorter entry than the previous one, but it’s absolutely loaded with characterization and a few major reveals. First, and perhaps most importantly, is Shu’s dynamic with Yuma. It’s too much to call Shu cynical, but he seems to not have faith in his own organization, compared to SKIP and especially Yuma. Having prepared this review after Episode 5 (Don’t worry folks, diary entries for 4 and 5 will be coming soon as we catch up!), those words he gets from Yuma — “It all starts with a little trust” — have come up repeatedly, as if Shu has been living by them since hearing them from Yuma.
In addition, the TsuPi column makes it clear that Shu is the one naming Arc’s attacks, and he runs them by Yuma! Clearly, Yuma’s opinions matter to Shu, quite a lot. It’s very heartwarming.
In perhaps more alarming news, the throwaway line about the Space Science Division’s “SAR Satellite” — Does the GDF have an orbiting space cannon or something?! Trying to get authorization for it was enough for Shu to get an earful from Nibuya, so… whuh-oh.
Something that has come up multiple times now is the role of SKIP, not simply in society but bureaucratically. Underfunded, underarmed, and generally troubled by needing to work around occasionally egregious regulations… Shu seems sympathetic towards them, and so are we at Ultraman Connection…
Finally, the entry ends with a bit of a concerning note. It’s made clear that the Leodo attack happened not long after Shagong’s rampage — and that the frequency of the Kaiju attacks in Hoshimoto seem to have a specific cause. Shu has his theories, but even in a private diary, he doesn’t dare speculate too much. Perhaps we’ll find out more as information comes to light in the show…?
Entry 3
This entry has a bit of an interesting place in the timeline of the show, as it is written after the frame narrative of Episode 3, rather than the flashback that takes up most of the episode. It makes sense, but it means that Shu is approaching the episode’s events from a further-away perspective than previous entries.
Once again, Shu acknowledges Yuma as having a remarkably positive effect on him compared to his old colleagues in the GDF. Perhaps we’re reading into this too much, but Shu is also the character that seems to be the most uplifted when he sees Ultraman Arc. Perhaps there’s a subconscious connection…? At the very least, he’s sympathetic of Yuma’s backstory regarding Monogelos and the later Digelos disaster.
Actually, Shu’s perspective on Digelos opens up an extremely different viewpoint than the one we enjoyed during the show — that of the GDF’s Space Science Division, which we did not get in the episode at all. In the diary, Shu recounts Digelos’s capabilities and threat from the angle of the SSD and purely as a military threat. While the GDF agents were confident they could beat Digelos (eventually), there is a hanging sentiment left unwritten that they probably couldn’t have done so without incurring serious damage to the city.
Perhaps this is the moment that Shu first became so taken with Arc? The Space Science Division scrutinized the footage of that first fight very intently, after all… Interestingly, in the TsuPi column for this week, he mentions that although the name “Arc” comes from Shu, the “Ultraman” moniker was actually given by the GDF!
The final part of the entry concerns the Monohorn, and once again offers a perspective different from the one we saw on the show. There really is very little official information on the truth of the Monohorn, and details we know (The giant we saw that day) are not present in GDF intelligence. What is present is how so much of the strangeness of recent times seems to be revolving around its presence… It’s clear that the Monohorn will make further appearances in the main story coming up.
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That’s all we have to say on Shu’s diary for now. We’ll be catching up with the Japanese releases of the Diary soon, so please support us by checking them out — and our reviews — as they come, here on Ultraman Connection!
