It is time for The Ultraman Episode 43: Monchi Became a Monster!
New disc, who dis? That’s right, we are up to the FINAL DISC of THE ULTRAMAN! And it leads off with a pretty good one.
The episode opens with scientists in a spaceship discovering a strange, gigantic floating object. What could it be? They have no idea but decided to bring it to Earth so the Science Defense Squad can take a look. After some investigation, the lead scientist figures it is a teleporter. It’s a huge breakthrough as they wouldn’t need transportation anywhere. I mean you probably still would but that is besides the point. However, Captain Gondo is suspicious of it as they don’t know where it came from and someone could teleport monsters in. The scientist convinces him to wait a few days so they can understand it enough to engineer one themselves.
Well, that turns out to be a few days too many as the machine activates! But who is controlling it? Well it turns out that it is Roigar and the Heller army and they have created a monster named Dostony that they are sending to destroy the Earth. Unfortunately, Monchi is running through the machine chasing a squirrel when the monster appears, combining Dostony and Monchi into a peaceful but giant creature.
The team is surprised and don’t realize it is Monchi at first, but Pig recognizes his friend so they put him in a giant cage for safekeeping until they can figure out what to do. Tobe theorizes they could use the machine to split the two by teleporting them again, but there are no controls on this side to do such a thing. That’s ok because Roigar has another monster, Dostony 2, that he plans on sending to retrieve the fused monster and separate out Monchi so the creature will regain its fighting spirit. Dostony 2 appears and fights Monchi-Dostony. After a fierce battle, D2 carries his foe into the teleporter and they disappear. On the other side, Monchi is restored to his little, normal self, but Dostony 1 and 2 have combined into some sort of Neo Dostony, with double the power. Roigar captures Monchi and sends the new monster back to Earth to fight.
Back on Earth, the SDS wants to destroy the teleporter but Pig is preventing them as they wouldn’t have a way to get Monchi back. The machine fires up once more and Neo Dostony comes out breathing fire and wrecking the day.
Meanwhile, across the universe, Monchi is being petted by Roigar but gets annoyed at the alien so he bites him and starts scampering around. In the fray, the teleporter controls are damaged by blaster fire, activating the machine. Monchi hops in and teleports back in time to see that things are not going well on Earth. But now that he is back, Hikari changes into Ultraman and fights the giant monster. It’s a rough fight but eventually he grabs its tail and ends up impaling it on the spike-like spires of the machine. Then he blasts it, destroying the creature and saving the day. Monchi is back to normal and everything is as it should be.
This was a fun episode. It’s sort of like THE FLY in that we get a teleporter mishap, but with Monchi instead of a human. And also a less gruesome ending. Though the episode certainly doesn’t shy away from the deaths in this one. People are burned up by flames and crushed by Dostony. I was surprised as usually that is offscreen or more implied. Nope, they just get straight up immolated this time around. I guess they’re not messing around this close to the end.
The monster designs were definitely unique. I can’t say I really like them but Monchi Dostony was probably the best of them. The others look like Zoanoid rejects and its hard to get a handle on them they are so alien. One is more of a bug-like thing and the other has a metal elephant trunk? And also Godzilla feet. It’s nice that it wasn’t goofy but it’s not really memorable either, if you get my drift.
Hopefully we’ll get a better monster in the next episode.
That’s all for this time. See you next time for the next installment, Ultra Fans!
