Directed by Toshihiro Iijima. Written by Keisuke Fujikawa. Airdate August 14, 1966.
Rewatching “The Secret of the Miroganda” made me acutely aware of the budget fight Tsuburaya Productions was locked into during the early production of Ultraman. TBS may have given an enthusiastic greenlight to the show, but they were hesitant about the hefty price tag per episode, which was often more than double the cost of an episode of Ultra Q. The network forced the creative team at Tsuburaya Pro to cut costs at every opportunity. The situation improved once episodes started to air and the show became a popular sensation, but the early sacrifices the creative team had to make often poke through. “Miroganda,” only the second episode shot, has some of the most obvious.
The major problem is the episode’s monster, Greenmons (a contraction of “Green” and “Monster”). Giant plant kaiju are popular Ultra monsters: Ultra Q pulled one out fast with “Mammoth Flower,” and Ultraseven followed suit with “The Green Terror.” Ultraman’s first veggie-beast is the irradiated form of a rare flower, the titular Miroganda, and it’s jonesing to murder all the members of the expedition that discovered it on an island atoll. It’s unclear why or how it’s tracking down the expedition members — something to do with them drinking from the Miroganda’s water source — but I can overlook that.
What I can’t overlook is that Greenmons is arguably the worst Ultraman monster design. It’s basically a lettuce costume, a green sack pulled over stunt performer Haruyoshi Nakamura’s head. Any long shot of Greenmons looks extremely sad. Keeping it mostly in close-ups during the early part of the episode, when it’s human-sized and ambushing its victims, was a smart choice. When it first attacks Arashi in broad daylight, it starts to look ludicrous.
Then we get to the final fight with Ultraman in the city, which is a rare case where I can’t do my normal suspension of disbelief. It’s too obvious the fight is taking place on a soundstage. In several shots, you can see the corner of the stage in the painted sky backdrop. The special effects crew was clearly shooting on a time crunch and just had to accept some subpar material.
And yet, this is a decent episode. Not a classic, or even that good, but I can see how much work the Tsuburaya team was investing to produce a quality show despite time and budget limitations. We have a good murder mystery that starts with two atmospheric death scenes that are a touch horrifying. Getting asphyxiated by a giant plant is a viscerally disturbing idea. The mood feels closer to an Ultra Q episode, and Greenmons would’ve felt more at home on that show, where it would photograph better in black and white. (The episode has a flashback shot in B&W as a further nod toward Ultra Q.)
There’s a decent amount of enjoyment on hand. We have a fun guest star turn from Akiko Wakabayashi (who appeared in Ultra Q’s “Baron Spider” and would soon play a Bond girl in You Only Live Twice) as the final target of the killer prehistoric plant; the Science Patrol creates a sense of genuine alarm in their investigations and during the confrontations with Greenmons; and Ide has a goofy comedy moment when Arashi accidentally punches him in the jaw. Again, I will never complain about Ide’s antics. Even the climactic fight is a good time, staged as best as it can be considering how lame Greenmons is.
Everything was set for Ultraman to launch into high gear once TBS stopped being stingy. We’re only a few episodes away from arriving at the first genuine classics of the show, when you can feel everything coming together. So eat your lettuce, the dessert is coming.
Rating: Average
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