Directed by Hajime Tsuburaya. Written by Shozo Uehara. Airdate Jan. 28, 1968.
The standard procedure for Ultra warriors who come to Earth is to merge with a human host, a precedent set in Ultraman and followed throughout most of the shows. Ultraseven is one of the exceptions (Ultraman Leo is another), where the Ultra warrior chooses to adopt a human form and remain 100% alien. But how does an Ultra who takes this route decide on their human “costume”? This episode addresses that question, making it an essential watch for the lore of the show.
As seen in flashback, when Ultraseven first arrived on Earth, he saved a young man named Jiro from a 200-meter fall off the side of a cliff where he was mountain climbing. Jiro had cut himself loose to prevent a friend of his from falling as well. Ultraseven so admired this act of selfless bravery that he chose to take Jiro’s shape (in other words, the appearance of actor Kohji Moritsugu) as his human disguise. Perhaps Seven thought it unlikely he would ever run into the humble miner again, or any of his friends or family.
“Underground Go! Go! Go!” doesn’t have anything especially dramatic to do with the reveal that Dan is using the guise of Jiro. It’s just used to motivate Dan during a rescue mission that otherwise wouldn’t have any reason to involve the Ultra Guard at all. A quake causes a mine roof to collapse, and one miner is still trapped. Why call the UG for this? They’re an alien-battling unit. But the other miners say something about the quake was suspicious: it’s not the first quake of its kind, and they claim to have seen an odd flash of light before the collapse. So maybe it was … aliens? This gives the flimsiest of excuses to get the entire Ultra Guard — yes, all the characters, Anne included — on the job rescuing Jiro from his rocky tomb. Only a few episodes ago, Captain Kiriyama objected to the Ultra Guard doing investigative work into high-profile assassinations, but now he has no objection to the organization taking on what appears to be routine rescue work.
By the way, the reason Jiro was trapped in the collapse was that he went back to get his mouse, Chukichi, who serves the same purpose as a canary for detecting toxic gases. That shows you how good-hearted a fellow he is and what discerning taste Seven has in picking humans to emulate.
Of course, there is science-fiction chicanery going on in this mine collapse business. The Ultra Guard discovers an underground base manned by deadly robots that make turkey-gobbling sounds. But for most of the runtime, this is a rescue operation episode that puts the Magma Riser, the UG’s groovy drill vehicle, to use and places the members in old-fashioned jeopardy.
Although I wish there was more exploration of Dan and Jiro together, such as Jiro finding out that someone else has used his form and learning the reason, the episode works as a change-up from space-focused alien plots and gives us a straightforward underground rescue operation. We get to watch the entire Ultra Guard acting together on a single operation, working as equals. I love seeing Anne participating in the action and not stuck back at HQ manning communications as often happens with women characters in ‘60s SF shows. She doesn’t get Uhura’d. Seven stays in human size when he transforms, and the change in style in the action is refreshing, even if the robots are just a bit clunky with the silliest sound effect possible.
The coda is the strangest part. The narrator ponders the purpose of the underground city. Maybe it was an alien base helping to prep for an invasion. That makes the most sense considering how many times aliens try similar tactics on this show. But perhaps the base was a “cultural city” of an ancient Earth race. An intriguing thought … which is spoken by the narrator as the Ultra Guard blows the cultural city into rock dust. It’s hilariously nihilistic to think about the UG casually wiping out another race’s history to save one trapped miner. Put a pin in that one: we’ll get to “Ambassador of the Nonmalt” eventually.
Rating: Good
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