Directed by Toshihiro Iijima. Written by Masahiro Yamada. Airdate July 31, 1966.
We now enter one of the less interesting stretches of Ultraman, an early slowdown that’s likely due to the rush to finish episodes and the stinginess of TBS and their sponsor partner when it came to budgets. I didn’t notice this quality lapse when I first watched the series; I was having too much fun with the basic monster formula. It wasn’t until the show started to really blast off that I looked back and thought, “Yeah, they had a bumpy patch after takeoff.”
“Science Patrol, Move Out” is the standard Ultraman episode. The basics are all here without much variation or ingredient swapping. It’s the easiest margarita recipe, and it’s even done with a pre-made margarita mix because the kaiju, Neronga, is repurposed from another costume. Here’s the recipe:
- The discovery of a giant monster (Hoshino goes down the well of a castle and discovers Neronga).
- The giant monster starts rampaging.
- The Science Patrol attempts to stop the monster, but faces obstacles (Neronga is invisible and threatens Tokyo’s power supply).
- After several failed attempts to defeat the monster, Hayata at last transforms into Ultraman when needed the most
- Ultraman battles the monster, taking out some buildings along the way, finally ending the kaiju with one of his finishing moves
- Hayata rejoins the team — nobody the wiser — and everyone looks at a beautiful sunset
So yes, a boilerplate episode. It’s still fun. It will entertain newcomers who haven’t already devoured numerous similar episodes or seen the interesting deviations and twists to the formula that make these shows so fascinating.
The cast is settling into their characters and showing how much interest they can infuse into an average story. Fuji and Hoshino continue to have good chemistry together, like a big sister and little brother pairing. Hoshino has a bigger part to play: he decides to get “revenge” on Neronga (I guess because he had to swim in a river to get out of the tunnel where he and Fuji were trapped) and steals Arashi’s spider-shot gun to do it. This adds some extra tension during the final confrontation. Later shows would address children who have grudges against kaiju, but do it with more pathos.
The fight between Ultraman and Neronga has the best staging of any kaiju battle yet in the show, as if the creative team understood the episode would lean heavily on getting the action and VFX right. Even the budget feels robust during the final clash, and Neronga’s destruction of a power plant has some beautiful pyrotechnics. With stunt performer Haruo Nakajima in the Nergona costume, you can count on fun choreography and a kaiju with some personality.
Neronga is one in a long line of early Ultra kaiju created by modifying the Baragon costume from Frankenstein vs. Baragon. The first Baragon-in-disguise was Pagos from the Ultra Q episode “The Rainbow’s Egg.” The costume would get further surgery to appear in future Ultraman episodes as Magular (“The Monster Anarchy Zone”) and Gabora (“Lightning Operation”). All this cosmetic work took a toll on poor Baragon, which may explain why the monster only made a token appearance in Toho’s kaiju demolition derby Destroy All Monsters two years later.
This episode serves as the loose basis for the first segment of the movie Shin Ultraman, where it works better.
Rating: Average
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