It is time for The Ultraman Episode 41: The Day Ultraman Fought Against Ultraman!
Ahhh, the tale as old as time. Ultraman fighting against a fake Ultraman. I’m honestly surprised it took us so long to get to that point in the series. Let’s dive in.
The episode opens with the city being attacked by a strange, genie/cat looking thing that can breathe fire and pop whirling blades from its chest that allow it to basically become a whirlwind. From the sky, Ultraman flies in and fights the creature, chasing it off but not destroying it. Marume and Tobe are flying in to investigate the creature when the get word the monster has already left and are to report back to base.
Back as the Science Defense Squad HQ, they are surprised to hear Ultraman fought the creature off from Pig. Hikari, who is secretly Ultraman, is also pretty shocked to hear Ultraman showed up considering he wasn’t on the scene to change into him. He figures it must have been Elec or Noto, two of his Ultra Brothers, passing by to lend help.
The creature appears again, and Hikari, Marume and Tobe take off in Badei fighters to intercept it. The fierce winds that the creature generates prove to make their attack impossible and Hikari is downed. He is about to turn into Ultraman Joneus when he sees Ultraman fly in from the sky and chase off the monster. The Captain and Mutsumi in the battleship Ultria show up in time to witness it as well and they go back to base, with Hikari really confused as he knows the Ultraman was a spitting image of Joneus and not one of the other Ultras.
Meanwhile, in the Japanese Alps, the Alien Gilo are chatting with Roigar on their communication screen. They have infiltrated the Earth with the monster and are preparing to take over. Surely with a fake Ultraman and a giant monster they will be victorious. Thus, they want ⅓ of the land of Earth for their own people. Roigar agrees and the aliens feel it is time to destroy humanity!
The monster Gilos is on the attack again, this time doing some serious damage to the city. The SDS fly in Ultria to the scene and try to fight the monster but their guns are not match for it. Ultraman shows up to chase the creature off once more. Ultraman waves to them but Hikari tells them it is a fake Ultraman. He is proven right when fake Ultraman attacks! Hikari flies out in a Badei to try and drive him off but gets knocked down by the monster, which has returned. He turns into Ultraman but will he be able to fight off a clone of himself an a vicious monster?
Of course he can. He’s Ultraman!
Decent episode that is relatively light on the story. Most of it involves the mystery of the second Ultraman but the only person who knows there shouldn’t be another one is Hikari and he mainly ruminates on it while people ask him what is the matter and then he doesn’t tell them a damn thing. Fortunately, it is heavy on some fights which makes up for it, even if most of them are the fake Ultraman landing a flew blows before it and the monster both fly off to do it again. I’m not quite sure why the aliens needed the fake Ultraman with the extra monster as the deception didn’t really do much. They should have just used two monsters. Unless the goal was to disable the Ultria, which is failed at miserably.
I feel like Heller isn’t really bringing his A-game for hirelings.
We do get a new Ultraman power where he generates electricity to shock the monster for some reason before blasting it. I guess to stun it? It doesn’t really matter as Joneus never really seems to be behind the 8-ball for once and has it all under control.
Anyhow.
That’s all for this installment. See you next time for the next installment, Ultra Fans!
