Another day, another installment of the animated classic, THE ULTRAMAN! Today’s episode features the most carnage I think I’ve ever seen in an Ultra series. It’s a quiet day in Japan until a tsunami appears on the horizon! The village in its way starts to evacuate to get out of its way. Some military trucks loaded with evacuees are traveling along when suddenly, a burning orb appears and proceeds to incinerate them all with tiny fireballs, sending the trucks over the edge of the road in flames and killing everyone on board.
Of course, the Science Defense Squad get word of it and sends team members out to investigate. Turns out that everyone was busy running so nobody got a good look at the flaming object so the team comes up with their own guesses as to what it was. Perhaps flaming rockets, suggests Harume. Hikari suggests rock that was ejected from an underwater volcano. Mutsumi suggests a monster, which prompts Harume to scoff and the others to tell her not to jump to conclusions.
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This was one of my least favorite parts of the Return of Ultraman and it annoys me to see it rear its ugly head here. The team in five episodes has fought about 12 monsters including duplicates and babies. Why is suggesting that a monster might be behind fiery destruction and tsunamis the most outlandish thing ever? Especially when she finds a book with the creature in question that existed a million years go.
Anyhow, the team takes the Super Maddock out to investigate another appearance at sea where ships were attacked. Rescue is underway but the helicopters don’t have the capacity to carry them all, so the captain orders Tobe to bring the Super Maddock in to pick them up. However, their attempt is thwarted when the fiery orb appears again and burns the ship and everyone aboard up, sending them into the drink. Then it is revealed the orb is actually Firebadon!
I actually like the design of Firebadon a lot. He’s got wings, which we haven’t seen on a creature so far and he kind of reminds me of the demons under Seattle from that Scooby Doo ep. Anyway, the team engages Firebadon who suddenly runs off. They give chase in the Super Maddock but the monster dives too deep and the ship can’t handle the pressure. Neither can Tobe, who gives up trying to pilot so the captain has to step in and bring them back to the surface. Harume then yells at Tobe for not making the Super Maddock able to take more pressure than the incredible amount it already took, which annoys me. The ship is already amazing and you’re mad because it didn’t handle an unforeseen circumstance that would require extra engineering? Fuck you, Harume.
The team goes back to base where Tobe strives to improve the Super Maddock after a pep talk from Pigmon and a bowl of grapes. (Trust me, it makes sense.) In addition to strengthening the hull, he also installs some bitching harpoons to use as a weapon since the creature dodged their lasers and missiles with ease, so of course the next step is a giant spear.
When Firebadon strikes again, the team flies into action. Will they be able to defeat the monster or will they be stuck in the deep, dark ocean?
This was a fun episode. We had flying fights, we had underwater fights, we got some harpoon stabbing, we had a bodycount of burned bodies that nobody acknowledges despite us all seeing. We had a fun monster design even though there wasn’t much motivation for it going on a rampage other than driving the need for the team to encounter it. I would like to have learned more about it but we were running pretty tight on time at the end so I can forgive it. The fight when Ultraman shows up was done pretty well too with some fluid moves and throat punching, which is everything I want from a battle, honestly. Just ask my DM. This has me looking forward to the next installment.
Until next time!
