Directed by Samaji Nonagase. Written by Masahiro Yamada. Airdate August 21, 1966.
The first episode to focus on young Hoshino, the boy who wants to join the SSSP one day. Hoshino and his friends Chiro and Nobuku get swept up in a Hardy Boys-style story investigating smugglers along the wharf. Notorious smuggler “Diamond-Kick” (great name) has hidden his newest diamond shipment among bags of cacao beans, and the young detectives end up kidnapped when they start poking around the warehouses. It sounds like the kind of adventure tale a child might come up with. A child might also add a giant monster who comes up onto the wharf to throw everything into chaos. A monster who loves chocolate.
Speaking of which … Welcome back, Peter! You don’t know who Peter is? He’s the possibly telepathic lizard from one of the last Ultra Q episodes, “Blazing Glory.” Peter is repackaged with fins taken from Ragon, another Ultra Q monster who got a makeover for Ultraman, to transform him into a new kaiju: Guesra, defender of cocoa beans!
As a repurposed suit, Guesra works decently. The design makes Guesra resemble one of H. P. Lovecraft’s “Deep Ones,” much more than Ragon, an actual Deep One in all but name. Peter already had a memorable design, so Guesra was off to a good start as far as recycled costumes go.
Guesra’s backstory, as a crewmember of a cacao ship (Kan Yanagiya) explains to Hoshino and friends, is that it’s a species of small lizard from Brazil that feeds on cacao beans, often hiding in shipments. How did this one get so large? Hayata’s explanation is a doozy: “There’s a lot of stuff in Tokyo Bay.” Arashi calls this out with one word: “Stuff?” With so much concern over pollution in Japan at the time, this is about all the explanation anyone needed. It still got a laugh out of me. There’s just a lot of … stuff … in Tokyo Bay that makes giant monsters. Sure, I’ll go with it.
There’s not much more to say: this concludes a block of solid if unremarkable episodes. “The Coast Guard Command” is an enjoyable half hour with a kids vs. criminals hook and the appeal of a juvenile detective story, a decent monster, and a good battle to cap it off. There’s enough spice in the story around the special effects to keep it interesting. I genuinely like Hoshino, enough to wish he stayed around longer in the show. We haven’t hit any of the great episodes yet, but the work of the cast and crew has taken on an effortless feel.
Rating: Average
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