Ultraman R/B, Episode 05
“Goodbye, Icarus”
Welcome back to Super Hero Synopses, where sometimes you just have to sit back and appreciate how dang pretty these shows can be. Seriously, just look at the photo gallery below. The way the two ladies are composited into the model shot is seamless; The atmosphere of Blu’s giant hand coming out of the purple-tinted mist; The over-the-shoulder camera views during the fight. The flight scenes at the end that soar through the blue skies. They really made this episode look beautiful!
The episode begins by introducing us to a girl named Ninomiya. She’s something of an outcast at Isami’s (Blu) college as she has devoted herself to creating artificial wings that will allow her to fly like a bird. This may seem fanciful, but episode three featured Makoto Aizen casually using a jet pack, so we are seeing a more technologically advanced world here. Ninomiya drops a stack of books and Isami helps her to carry them over to her lab. They talk about her flight project while Isami fiddles with some of her equipment. Ninomiya asks him to assist her, pointing out that while they were talking he broke an expensive piece of equipment and using that as leverage to get him to agree.
The two prepare another test flight in an area in the mountains, with Katsumi (Rosso) and Asahi tagging along. Ninomiya explains that the previous monster battles have cracked the land up here and a mysterious wind is blowing up out of the ground which will assist her flight. She does indeed get more height than normal, but as soon as she flies over the trees she loses the updraft and crashes down. The siblings take her to hospital to be checked out after her fall and return to the family store.
Following an encounter with Makoto Aizen in which he buys a jacket as a pretense to plant a listening device in their store, Isami and Ninomiya return to the mountain clearing to retrieve her equipment. While there she reveals why she wants his assistance. Her wealthy family intend to send her to another, more prestigious college oversees and have arranged for her to be married immediately after she graduates. Thus the flight project is her last real taste of freedom. Back at the store the brothers discuss a signal indicating that a crystal is hidden in the mountain and likely causing the updrafts. The brothers discus how to recover it but are interrupted by their sister, who mistakes Aizen’s listening device for a cookie and destroys it by biting down on it.
Isami and Ninomiya repair the wing suit and return for another flight. They have a moment together where Isami expresses his admiration for the way she follows her dreams, and Ninomiya wishes they could both fly together. The flight test is interrupted when Aizen releases another monster, the bird-like ‘Gue Basser’. As the girls flee the area the brothers transform and take on the monster. Gue Basser generates powerful winds that keep the Ultramen at bay and sweeps Ninomiya up into the skies. Realising they need a better way to deal with wind, Isami fills the cracks in the ground with water and Katsumi uses his fire powers to boil the water into steam, forcing the Ultraman Tiga crystal up out of the ground for Isami to collect and use.
Now able to better resist the winds, Isami gets in close enough to fight the monster, which responds by taking off and summoning a tornado. Isami counter with his own tornado spinning in the opposite direction, causing them to cancel each other out and providing the brothers with an opening to destroy Gue Basser. As the skies return to normal Ninomiya soars through the air and is briefly joined by Isami/Blu. But the episode ends with the reveal that Makoto Aizen possessed what appears to be a corrupted crystal with the image of Ultraman Orb in the center.
Why is the Orb crystal corrupted? What other insane student projects are underway at this college? Will R/B provide more episodes with visuals that make me gush like this? Come back next week and maybe we’ll have some answers. In the meantime, look out for other editions of Super Hero Synopses along with other articles here on Henshin Justice Unlimited, and if you’d like to share your own thoughts about this episode with us, please feel free to visit our Facebook page or our forum and find us all there.
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