Almost done with the original series! I think I might watch some vintage anime after this entry - there seems to be a lot of it on YouTube.
If you've enjoyed these entries I'm glad. Writing them has certainly been an eye-opening experience for me, and at some point in the future I'll probably continue on to Ultraseven, the next Ultraman series after the original run.
Space creatures invade a cosmic ray research center, miniaturize various scientists, and cause general distress.
This episode's monster's name, "Dada," is, by the way, a reference to the avant-garde art movement which developed around World War I. Dadaism came after the cubist movement, and often involves cutting and pasting words or images. David Bowie used the Dada approach to writing poetry to craft the lyrics to many of his early songs.
"Golden Monster Goldon." Try saying that five times fast.
As monsters go Goldon is bad news. He eats up gold and hides inside the earth, and he likes to stomp mountain villages. Cap and Ide take a new vehicle, the Vellucidar into the subterranean depths to catch him, but that goes badly and Ultraman has to save the day again.
Things get mythological when a hunter angers the monster Woo by pursuing a "snow girl" into the mountains. Said Woo is NOT COOL with hunters bothering its lady friends.
One of my favorite episodes. It makes almost no sense from beginning to end.
The Science Patrol gets a new member, or at least a transfer from the Science Patrol's South American branch, and this transfer isn't all that he first appears to be.
Yes, Random Scientist Guy, any civilization founded by blood-drinking sentient plants is doomed to failure!
Zumbolar is one of the cuter monsters. It must have been really hot to stomp around in those flames wearing that suit.
In this episode "Patty," visiting from the Science Patrol's India branch (!), fails to help the Science Patrol deal with Zumbolar's stompiness and general disregard for both public and private property.
No idea why they suddenly feel sorry for Zumbolar at the end of this episode. It's not like he was any more or less sympathetic than the other kaiju.
This Mefilas is a real tool. I bet he hangs out with Alien Baltan when he's not attempting to seize other species' planets.
But for whatever reason Mefilas needs a particular (human) boy to verbally cede the Earth to him, and what follows are some weird "torture" sequences involving the boy and his sister, Akiko. In the course of this "torture" Mefilas (as you would expect?) turns the lovely Akiko into a kaiju, and the Science Patrol has to pull its punches when it comes to fighting the city-wide destruction which results.
At the end Ultraman just kind of says "Fuck it," and lets Mefilas fly off. Mefilas vows to return, hoping for some future human who will say "The Earth is yours!" so he can take over.
In case Mefilas is reading this, I recommend journeying to Las Vegas or some similar city next time. After people have gone through the last few dollars in their bank accounts THAT'S the time to swoop in and ask: "Hey, would you mind handing over the entire planet to me?"
Cap has Hayata fly the VTOL over just to deliver an umbrella? That's not a waste of public or private resources... at all!
Kinda weird including a suicide in the first five minutes of a kid's show, but then again they did the same thing in the Spider-Man series. Japan is... Japan.
You can tell the actors involved had more fun making this one. There are fun little improvised (?) scenes of them waking up in the middle of the night, drinking beer and (I'm not making this up) shooting a rocket up a kaiju's ass. Japan is - again - Japan.
Satisfyingly ridiculous. In this episode the Science Patrol decides to have a Buddhist funeral for all the monsters Ultraman's thrown into space.
Seabozu is a sad, skeletal-type monster who just wants to leave the Earth's atmosphere. Why be dicks about it, Science Patrol? Why attack him when he just needs a hug? Why not just help him leave?
Anyway, don't ask me to explain it, but after a lot of weird empathizing with the kaiju the Science Patrol dresses up a rocket to look like Ultraman, and uses this rocket to shoot Seabozu back into space.
The Science Patrol fights a Doomsday-like monster that gets stronger every time they attack it. Arashi ("the Spider Shot guy") goes rogue for a bit and helps Ultraman take the monster down in the end.
It's time to get meta. Pigmon shows up in a Tokyo department store and looks over some choice Ultraman toys. After that Ide invents a machine to translate Monster Language into human speech (no thanks to the professor!) and they find out that a MONSTER APOCALPYSE is about to happen if they don't defeat Geronimon, a kaiju that has resurrected all of Ultraman's defeated foes.
....the end result being Ide's realization that Ultraman helps those that help themselves... even if poor Pigmon does get squished in the process.
Our Heroes journey to Planet Q to retrieve something called a "BM Fuse" for a damaged space station.
What a weird end to the series. Aliens decide to invade the Earth and Ultraman loses - for the second time in the entire series - to an alien adversary. The difference in this instance being that he really does die - or something - and then decides to "sacrifice himself" for the sake of Hayata, his human host. At this point Zoffy, an emissary sent from the Land of Light, takes Ultraman back there in a big red globe.
BUT... what about the undefeated kaiju? What about the alien invasion? Is the world still doomed? The Science Patrol, busy saying goodbye to Ultraman, is completely oblivious to such matters!
After watching this episode I'm no longer sure that the series is set in the distant future. The scientist guy mentions that the aliens have been making contact since the 1930s, and that the alien invasion is the result of forty years of planning. So, at the latest, this series takes place in the 1970s, a little after the episode's broadcast date. An earlier episode described the Cold War as an event occurring in the distant past. Who knows?
Anyway, that's it for Ultraman for now. I'll be watching other things for a while, and, as said above, I may work my way (back) to Ultraseven in the fall.
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