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 one day join the Science Special Search Party. 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 that 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.” For his appearance here, Peter has been repackaged with fins taken from Ragon, another Ultra Q monster who got a makeover for Ultraman. The result is 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 explains to Hoshino and his 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 offers an explanation, and it’s a doozy: “There’s a lot of stuff in Tokyo Bay.” Arashi calls this out with one word: “Stuff?” With so much concern about pollution in Japan at the time, this was really 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. We haven’t hit any of the great episodes, but the work of the cast and crew has taken on an effortless feel, showing they’re ready for the jump in quality. “The Coast Guard Command” is an enjoyable half-hour adventure with a kids-versus-criminals hook, the appeal of a juvenile detective story, a decent monster, and a good final battle to cap it off. There’s enough spice in the story around the special effects to keep it interesting. Plus, I genuinely like Hoshino enough to wish he stayed around longer in the show.
This episode was essentially remade decades later in the second episode of Ultraman Taiga, “Tregear.”
Rating: Average
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