Directed by Hirochika Muraishi. Written by Masakazu Migita. Airdate March 1, 1997.
When it comes to giant monster media, I am a forgiving soul. You don’t have to do much to make me happy. Most Ultra show episodes manage to reach the minimum for the entertainment I crave. An episode like “The Rainbow Monsterland,” which is unremarkable in almost every way, tempts me to give it a passing rating of “Average” because it meets the minimum. There are giant monsters — two of them, one a welcome returnee — and they fight. Ultraman Tiga shows up to challenge the winner, while the GUTS members have their own adventure on the ground. This is what I’m looking for in an episode of this show, so I should be happy.
However, I have to be honest about my positive bias toward this genre and franchise so I’ll notice when I’m being too forgiving. “The Rainbow Monsterland” is simplistic and passes up easy opportunities to be more than what it is. When an episode depends so heavily on the final fight to carry it, a fight that goes on for far too long while containing little in it, it fails at its basic dramatic purpose. “The Rainbow Monsterland” is not a good episode, and I’m okay admitting that.
The premise: an annoying family is driving back from what sounds like a deeply mediocre vacation. They decide to drive under a rainbow arch, not thinking it odd that the rainbow is stationary. They arrive in a “strange realm” that looks just like the regular forest except for a few snow patches and several junked cars with skeletons inside, a warning that they’ve entered the Bermuda Triangle of mediocre family vacations. There are two kaiju wandering about, Gagi (returning from “The Abandoned Amusement Park,” no explanation offered) and newcomer Silvergon.
Fortunately, GUTS learns about the vanishing car thanks to an eyewitness we never see. The entire team mobilizes to investigate what sounds like an incredibly minor incident. They find their way into the rainbow realm to rescue the family and let Tiga go through the contractually obligated monster fight.
The family shows brief signs that they might provide an interesting dramatic center for the episode. The mother and two kids don’t respect the father at the start, harping at him for another dull vacation. Once they enter Rainbow Monsterland, the father starts to show wilderness resourcefulness and tells his family he once wanted to be an adventurer. Then the episode drops all of this when GUTS arrives and the monster business gets underway. The family ceases to matter at all.
GUTS doesn’t matter much either. They arrive and do their job and not much else. Rena and Daigo get a cute moment at the end, but otherwise the characters are in pure plot-function mode.
Ultraman Tiga battling Silvergon is a stock-standard fight, with well-worn moves and staging, stretched out for far too long. There’s one moment of interest: Silvergon tries to imitate some of Tiga’s signature moves to see if they do anything. They don’t, and it’s funny. This bit has nothing to do with anything else, but it gives the monster a touch of personality. Silvergon has continued as one of the show’s more popular monsters.
Maybe the awesomeness of “The Devil’s Judgment,” one of Tiga’s best episodes, skewed my perspective enough to make “The Rainbow Monsterland” feel extra small and unimpressive. It also makes me think I was too lenient with “Go! Monster Expedition Squad.” In fact, I went back and revised my rating system to add “Mediocre” as a rank (between “Poor” and “Average”), because “Go! Monster Expedition Squad” needed to go a notch lower but not all the way to the bottom.
It’s too bad. The premise of an unhappy family driving into a weird wonderland of monsters is like a daikaiju take on a Miyazaki movie. This is something I can see myself enjoying if it were done with greater imagination. But it wasn’t, so I didn’t.
Rating: Poor
Previous: The Devil’s Judgment
Next: I Saw Obiko!
The Ultra Project 