It is time for The Ultraman Episode 45: Pig Becomes a Walking Bomb!
The episode opens with Earth Defense Forces headed on a plane to the Far East Zone base when it is beset by a storm and disappears from radar! HQ is concerned but then the ship reappears and lands and it seems all it as it should be, though they can’t figure out what exactly happened.
Tobe and Marume are looking for the captain of the EDF soldiers when they see some of them pushing a strange cart. The men direct the two SDS members to a room but the visiting captain isn’t there. Tobe is a bit suspicious at that and wonders why they would be misdirected.
The HQ is rocked by an explosion that took out the generator as Tobe and Marume make their report. Upon investigation, they find a strange box that looks a lot like the one the soldiers were pushing in another vital room. Tobe figures out it is a bomb and they get someone to defuse it. They realize the soldiers are behind it and go to find them. A shootout ensues where they find that the strangers are actually robots! Captain Gondo has a hunch that when the plane disappeared for a moment, all of the men were replaced with robots, so they have to hunt them down before the entire base is destroyed by this sabotage.
Another bomb is discovered and Tobe handles it while Marume runs after the robots. Pig and Monchi are then waylaid by the robotic captain and his men and Pig is stuffed with a bomb and Monchi is shoved inside for good measure. Not cool, robots. But also not unexpected as it is the title of the episode.
Captain Gondo has everyone searching for bombs and when they realize that the Ultria, their battleship, is the last target, the team scrambles to find the last bombs. One is discovered being pushed by robots and defused. But that leaves one still walking around.
Meanwhile, the clouds that the plane disappeared in come to life and converge to form a giant ice monster named Golding! It attacks the city and Captain Gondo and the team are ordered so go fight it and leave the searching for the bombs to the real EDF soldiers. They leave, not realizing that there is one last bomb aboard in Pig.
Hikari sees the robotic captain and chases him off of the Ultria where the two fight. The robot gets the upper hand and spills the beans about Pig being the last bomb that will destroy the SDS’s greatest weapon. Also that this was all a plan by Heller. However, all of that monologuing gives Hikari enough time to turn into Ultraman and wreck his shit. Then he flies to help the Ultria, which has engaged Golding and isn’t doing well.
Ultraman frees the battleship from the monster’s grasp and then shrinks down to run inside and snag the bomb from Pig, freeing Monchi in the process. Then our hero runs out with the bomb, gets the monster to open his mouth and chucks the bomb in. As you might expect, the monster isn’t pleased by that but it doesn’t matter for long as it blows up and the day is saved!
This was a pretty cool episode. I like the intrigue of imposters setting bombs about the place, especially robots that look pretty cool when their faces fall off. It creates a nice sense of paranoia when you don’t know who is real and who isn’t (except for the fact that all the robots wear the same gear). Plus it lets all of the characters shine as they go about their investigations. If I had a quibble, it would be that they spill the beans about Pig in the title. It would have been better to just have it implied so that it becomes a real shock when you find out later.
The monster is a decent design. Kind of like an icy, humanoid lizard thing with no mouth. Or maybe just a gaping mouth. It honestly reminded me of the titular monsters in Attack of the Eye Creatures, which is a terrible sci-fi film I watched as a kid on WPIX. It actually predates this ep by a few years so could it be an inspiration? Those creatures were cool looking so maybe!
That’s all for this time. See you next time for the next installment, Ultra Fans!
