It’s hump day and time for The Ultraman Episode 13: The Resurrection of the Legend, which honestly sounds like an awesome name for a kung-fu movie or maybe a Dolemite flick.
We open on a bunch of researchers doing some, you know, research at Lake Ryujin in Tohoku, a village in the mountains. One of them is diving and comes up with a perfectly petrified fish. But it isn’t a sculpture or natural. Something has turned a living thing into stone and they want to know what did it.
Meanwhile, at the Science Defense Squad HQ, Marume is meeting with an old friend who happens to be one of the people who discovered the fish. He wants his good buddy to come up to the lake with him as he thinks it might have something to do with the legend of lake where there is supposed to be a dragon living beneath it that can turn people to stone. It likes to do this since it saw the plight of two lovers who were forced apart, with one dying in battle and the other drowning herself in the lake.
Marume agrees to go and is surprised when Hikari shows up as well. Apparently the friend needs a bunch of hands as he wants to perform a fete, which is a ceremony that is supposed to quell the anger of the dragon. His family has been in charge of it for a long time but ever since he’s joined the SDS, he has been slacking. Oops.
When they arrive at Lake Ryujin, the place is bustling with activity. Apparently word about the stone fish got out and everyone is there looking for it or to score more of their own. This proves to be a problem as the dragon strikes when nobody is looking (it literally passes behind some in a boat facing the other way like the world’s biggest ninja) and turns more people into stone–including said people on the boat. Marume and Hikari know this is a bit of a problem so they contact HQ and the Super Maddock with the rest of the team get sent out to investigate.
Side note: They keep referring to the people who were turned to stone as “stoned people” throughout the episode and I laughed way to hard every time they did.
Marume and his friend perform the ritual in hopes that the dragon will go back to sleep. Hikari heads underwater to check everything out where he finds that the water is ultra-conductive to sound which is why the dragon keeps waking up from all the noise. Which makes me wonder how more noise is supposed to put it to sleep but considering the friend says to play softly, perhaps it is more like a lullaby then instead of just a racket.
Some helicopters above looking to get a picture of the monster dash any hopes of solving this situation peacefully, as the noise wakes up the sleeping monster, Garadoras! It attacks with a sonic scream, turning Marume, his friend and his friend’s grandmother to stone. Can Ultraman save the day and defeat the monster and save his friend from being a statue? Or will he just take him for granite? You had better believe that Ultraman Joneus is going to give it his all or die trying.
This was a fun episode. I’m a sucker for a good legend, especially when a monster is tied into it. Make it a remote village too and I am all in. As far as legends go, this one worked a lot better for me than The Horror in the Old Castle. I was expecting more of a Nessie-like design or something dragon-ish, but the monster surprised me this time. It looked like a stegosaurus, a plesiosaur and a lamprey. Also, it has a hairy tail it can shoot fire out of. Also I was expecting a gaze attack like a gorgon to turn people into stone but the scream was a surprise. And sort of weird that people didn’t hear it turning others to stone if it made that much noise. It’s a bit of a mess but is decidedly monstrous and fun in the end.
We also get a new power for Joneus–the spin attack! This lets him reflect attacks back at creatures. I guess we technically got two as he can turn people back from stone as well. Also, Hikari has a fan at the coffee shop. There’s a waitress who keeps asking about him. Will she be important or is it just to make Marume jealous that people are more interested in Hikari than him?
Solid episode. If I were grading these, I’d give it a “B”, which stands for “Better than most of the episodes of The Return of Ultraman.”
See you next time, Ultra Fans!
