Continuing my rewatch of Ultraseven with the third episode, which introduces what is probably his most iconic foe, Eleking. Dan and Furuhashi go to investigate an alien saucer that is spotted by a lake. While speaking to a fisherman, they find a strange girl swimming who steals the fish the man caught right off his line and lets it go. They follow her and find the saucer instead. When they go inside, it seems the girl is already there, and that sets off warning bells in Dan’s head. It’s a tad late as sleeping gas is pumped into the room, knocking all three out and something strange reaches down and steals the Ultra Eye from Dan. Will he be able to get it back so he can turn into Ultraseven and save the day? And who is this strange girl, anyway?
It’s wild to me that Eleking is introduced so early in the series. He feels like he should be much more of a threat, like Zetton for Ultraman (which the horn design reminds me of). Instead, Eleking is a monster of the week and not really a very threatening one at that. The only time he’s a danger is when Dan doesn’t have the Ultra Eye and can’t transform to save himself. Instead, he uses capsule monster Miclas to fight it and does surprisingly well. It’s only when Eleking uses the tail shocks that he gains the upper hand. When Ultraseven fights him, he ends up dispatching the monster rather easily as the shocks don’t do anything to him. Then he uses the Eye Slugger to just decimate Eleking, slicing off his head and his tail for good measure.
He could have just done the head but had to add insult to injury!
To be fair, that is sort of Ultraseven’s MO and what you expect to happen when your finishing move is chucking a sharp blade at people. Not that Ultraman shied away from that either, but he was more of a limb-ripper. Ultraseven? Straight-up slasher territory.
It’s solid episode and the creature alone would be a good reason to put it on a “Best Of” anthology. But we also get intrigue as we try to figure out what is up with these creepy girls and the strange shape Dan saw before he was knocked out. This also marks the first time an alien knows who the secret identity of Ultraseven is well-before they actually fight. That happens a few time in the series and makes sense that aliens would know who the other alien on the planet is. And what better way to cripple him than to take the thing that lets him transform? Also the aliens sabotage the Ultra Garrison, so not only are they taking down the giant defender of Earth, but also the humans that might pose a threat. Granted, I’m not sure how much of a threat two aliens are going to be but we can probably assume they were more of a vanguard or scouts in advance of a full on invasion.
Or maybe the two girls really did just want the planet to themselves.
I did like that they figured out human men like “cute girls” from the whole mission. It is a good disguise. Nobody expects a cute girl to do them in until they’re knocking them out with sleeping gas and summoning a kaiju to destroy everything. Then hopefully you’ve learned your lesson. At least until the next time.
That’s all for this episode. See ya later, Ultra Fans!
