Previously, we talked about and analyzed the first half of the first episode of Ultraman 1966. When we left off, our hero, Hayata, was lost after encountering the evil extraterrestrial threat, Bemular!

We recommend checking out PART 1 of this review before you find out how this episode ends here in PART 2.

All set? Then let's continue on!

The Special Science Search Party (SSSP) searches for Hayata throughout the entire night! The next day, Cap is understandably considering calling off the search. Akiko overhears this from HQ and...oh hey there’s a kid just walking around SSSP HQ now. It’s not clear what he’s doing there quite yet, and he’s in plainclothes, so maybe he’s family or friends with one of the other five?

Anyway, this kid’s name is Hoshino, and he’s also worried about Hayata, but totally convinced that he’s neither dead nor that anything could really kill him. Hoshino does not refer to Hayata with the same “tai’i” honorifics that the others do. Either he’s a bit of a brat or knows Hayata on a more personal level than the rest.

Cap actually agrees with Hoshino, saying “God would never abandon a good man like that.” If the divine imagery surrounding Ultraman hasn’t set in quite yet, it should be quite apparent now. Even still, Akiko is worried, and we get a shot that tracks back to the tape recorder, which has also been working tirelessly through the night, with a rather formidable reel of tape still left.

At the camp, Bemular finally begins to stir from within the lake. The water boils and churns as he ascends, revealing his true form. He’s a bit goofy-looking, but that seems to be the point. Bemular is a bit of a lunk head, and tends to bob his head up and down a lot.

The horns along his body remind me of a horned toad, or maybe a marine iguana. One of his eyes appears to be partially-shut, almost lazily, while the other is wide open.

The SSSP blast him with their pistols, which fire some kind of lightning beam. Even after crossing the streams, it doesn’t seem to really affect him all that much. He goes back underwater with relatively little fanfare, for a giant monster.

Back to HQ again! Akiko is thinking about giving up and stopping the tape recorder. Hoshino tells her that Cap hasn’t given them to permission to stop it.

There’s an interesting cut here where the cameraman violates the 90-degree rule. For those not already familiar with it, the 90-degree rule is one of those little tips for filmmaking and shot composition that helps at building a sense of continuity in both film and comics.

Essentially, you want to have the perspective or camera to be local to one side of the subject, and never move more than 90-degrees relative to them to prevent the subject from appearing reversed.

If character A appears on the left, and character B is on the right, they should always be that way so we know they’re in one place. When a filmmaker or comic artist breaks this rule, there’s usually a pretty good reason for it. In this episode it’s used so that we can get a shot of Akiko dramatically turning to face back to the radio and pan as she walks over to it.

Seem anticlimactic? It’s not. Guess who’s on the radio? It’s Hayata!

He greets her as “Akiko tai’i” and she likewise refers to him as “Hayata tai’i,” which seems like a stuffy way for a seemingly dead guy to call up on the radio, but the man is a professional. It’s also neat that they’re so close in rank. Perhaps the five of them are equals, and the only real difference in terms of hierarchy is their role in the team?

At any rate, Hayata wants her to bring in a submarine and drop it at a specific location, point Y. She agrees to do so with a chipper attitude. Hoshino wants to come with, but Akiko says Cap didn’t give him permission. He whines that Akiko was just crying a minute ago, and she laughs it off and just takes off like that.

Bemular hasn’t shown his big goonish face for quite some time. It’s assumed he’s just sleeping down there in the lake. Ide suggests that maybe Bemular favors the lake for some reason, but there’s not too much time to muse over that. Akiko is here with a submarine attached to a rocket jet.

Yeah, she’s carrying an entire submarine on the underside of a rocket-propelled jet. Ide seems a bit chuffed by this. I’m assuming he must’ve worked on these vehicles or designed the sub or something, cuz he starts giving her an attitude. Akiko says she’s brought the sub on Hayata’s request, and Ide tells her she’s just hearing ghosts.

After detaching from the VTOL, the sub raises its conning spire. It looks a bit like the Blue Marine from Star Fox 64, though there are a few critical differences in design. Maybe I’m just ignorant of submarine design conventions, but I’ve not known many submarines to be deployed via space-capable aircraft besides these VTOLs and the Great Fox.

Ide gives Akiko more guff and she chides him for it this time. It’s pretty clear by now that they’re equals here, seeing as how neither of them are chewed out by Cap, but maybe they have a modicum of respect for the guy and can manage themselves.

Hayata comes in riding a boat. It’s not clear where he commandeered a boat from on this lake, but I suppose one of the campers brought it along and was planning to fish out there or something.

This is Hayata’s triumphant return, and the gang are asking what he’s been up to. Hayata gives them the vague response that “he saved me” and quickly gives them a strategy to defeat Bemular. He’s going to hit it from underwater while they buzz the monster from the skies.

Akiko picks up the rest of the SSSP in the VTOL and we get a sequence of shots of Hayata in the sub. It seems the crew were really proud of these shots and miniatures here. To be fair, it is a pretty cool sub, and there’s some nice wire work at play to make the sub swoop around in the water in a entertaining manner. The way the light from the surfaces plays on the lake bed and the submarine is also a cool touch.

There’s a particular close shot of Hayata staring tensely head-on into the camera that gives him the appearance of a fighter pilot, albeit a really slow-moving one. The tension reaches its climax as he plows through a curtain of bubbles to reveal the tail of Bemular.

Hayata alerts Cap and we get a title drop for this episode from the boss-man himself. Hayata launches torpedoes. Bemular is hit directly in his hindquarters and lurches up from his slumber with a start. Before he can get his bearings, he takes a couple missiles to the face, which seem less effective.

He slowly slinks back underwater, as if he’s been awakened by an upstart child or perhaps his cat.

Hayata takes up a firing position and hits Bemular with another two torpedoes straight into his back. Again, Bemular gets up with a start, eats another pair of missiles, then gives the VTOL the stink eye and droops back into the lakebed. Hayata launches another couple torpedoes and Bemular blinks twice at them in a whimsical manner, as if he’s finally started to wake up.

He pops out and lets out a giant torrent of blue flame erupts from his mouth! For those unaware, this is a case of Ultraman being influenced by Godzilla and not the other way around. In this case it’s a good way to establish exactly how big of a threat our monster here is, without having him wander into town.

Anyhow, the SSSP manage to avoid Bemular’s attack by pulling into a hard bank. Bemular takes another dive and manages to give Hayata the drop, catching the submarine in his mouth. Guess he’s not just a big doofus after all, just a bit tired. He’d almost be sympathetic if Ultraman wasn’t so keen on ending him for whatever reason. I’m guessing Bemular was some kind of intergalactic criminal or vandal?

Akiko tells Cap to attack Bemular from behind, ostensibly so he’ll drop the submarine. This works quite well, but now Hayata has the monumental task of surviving a some forty-foot drop from a monster’s mouth while in a glorified steel drum. The shock of impact knocks him out, and that’s why it’s important to wear a helmet, I suppose.

Bemular isn’t done with him though. After he scares off the SSSP’s VTOL, he makes a motion like a hearty chuckle and sets the forest around the fallen sub on fire, before stomping his way up to it. The sudden raise in temperature jolts Hayata awake, and he struggles to free himself from the sub before he lifts the Beta Capsule to the air.

And this is where the real show starts, the actual de facto climax, the monster mash, the creature feature, the moment we’ve all been waiting for! Hayata transforms into Ultraman and…

His mask’s kinda funny in this shot. It didn’t seem this way when Ultraman was first introduced, so I guess they either had a different mask for the fighting scenes or maybe something happened to the first one. It has a rough, clay or plaster quality to it that’s not quite the smooth, metalloid surface it had before. It could just be the lighthing, ultimately.

Ah well, the narrator explains to us what’s just happened now, as Ultraman and Bemular square up. Ultraman LEAPS into battle, and this I feel is an especially significant detail that defines Ultraman, that his fights are fast and often brutal displays. Most, but certainly not all giant monster fights tend to be slower, slobberknocker slugfest-type of affairs, paced closer to sumo wrestling matches, with lots of time spent for each combatant to slow down and re-assess their current position between sudden, savage assaults.

To emphasize the scale and tension of these fights, the footage tends to be slowed down, with every action exaggerated to its maximum. This occurs in Ultraman as well – which we see when Bemular is downed rather soon, to receive repeated, devastating chops from our hero – but there are number of times where we’re shown near full-speed recordings of the actors, and it’s incredibly exciting.

It feels more like modern pro wrestling in tempo, with shorter, tighter breaks to pace out sudden, daring strikes and climactic grapples.

It’s hard not to feel a rush during Ultraman’s fights, there is a tremendous amount of energy in his stance, and the glorious sounds that he makes when he strikes his opponent sells every blow! Bemular also gets to show off that he’s no slouch once he’s not drowsing off, managing to counter Ultraman’s initial charge, pushing him back a fair ways, and crushing a lakeside house in the process.

Ultraman regains his footing and hurls the monster aside like a giant trash bag, then lunges on to him with a devastating cross chop. We cut back to the VTOL and Ide is cheering Ultraman on with repeated exclaimations of “BAM BAM BAM!” while shadowboxing.

It is impossible for me to restrain myself here. Every aspect of this scene is full of infectious energy! If I sound like I’m gushing too much over this show then you honestly need to see it yourself, if you feel nothing from all this, I don’t know what to tell you!

Bemular counters, and the two giants roll over each other in the lake. We cut back to Ide exclaiming in panic. Ultraman manages to break away from the grapple with a throaty shout. The two fighters size each other up briefly, and Ultraman rushes in with a headbutt into Bemular’s gut. Bemular tries to retreat, but Ultraman grabs him by the tail.

The light on Ultraman’s chest starts blinking, in a rhythm that suggests a warning.

We cut back to the VTOL and the pilot, Arashi, says he thinks Ultraman’s starting to tucker out. I haven’t said much about Arashi but then he’s not had a whole lot to say quite yet. There’s some odd gaps in the editing between cuts here where the screen flashes black for a second that kinda ruins the mood.

Despite being worn down, Ultraman still manages to avoid a counterattack from Bemular, fly up into the air, grab the monster from the back, and swing him around. He tackles Bemular again and beats him repeatedly, to the monster’s frantic cries.

Finally, he hefts the behemoth up over his head and chucks him back into the lake. Bemular sinks under one last time, where he assumes the blue sphere form from earlier. Before he can escape, Ultraman crosses his left arm over his right wrist and fires a beam of blue particles at him, which causes the monster to explode not unlike how Ultraman’s red sphere burst when he bestowed his life to Hayata.

Now victorious, we are shown the absolute lowest angle shot of Ultraman likely possible with any technology. I am exaggerating only somewhat. It’s a shot that you either smile at or sneer at for one or several of a small constellation of reasons, and I won’t simply settle for “it’s goofy” or “kitschy.” There’s just something about the decision to maximize the effect of the Citizen Kane-esque low angle shot to create the most colossal heroic victory pose yet recorded that is worthy of laud, I feel, even if the result is strange and perhaps even disturbing.

And with that, Ultraman flies off.

Ide emerges from the VTOL, and spots Hayata running towards them. He and the others call after him and he shouts back. Ide asks Hayata if he’s okay, and more importantly if he’s the “real” Hayata.

This leads to the single most heroic thing that has ever left Hayata’s mouth so far. “There’s no real or fake. There’s only one me.” What confidence! He says it with a goofy grin but still, what a guy!

I’m not sure whether this means that Hayata is really the guy fighting the monster with karate chops and laser beams or if he trades places with Ultraman when he uses the Beta Capsule, considering he asks about Bemular immediately afterwards. He could be playing naive, but he doesn’t really have a reason to in this situation. Everybody seems to understand that an alien helped him out, but as far as I can tell it’s a matter of “in what capacity.”

Ide doesn’t like the fact that this alien doesn’t have a name. Hayata suggests calling him “Ultraman” - him and Akiko take turns saying the name back and forth, probably to help hammer it into the audience’s head, as if the show’s title wasn’t enough - and asks Ide what he thinks of it. Ide says, comically, that he thinks it’s “ultra-nice!” I’d like to think he’s giving into peer pressure here, or else he’s being a bit of a wisecrack as usual.

Akiko wonders where Ultraman went off to, and Hayata explains that his ship is kaput and that he’s going to stay here to help Earth. Cap pats Hayata on the shoulder and tells him he’s a lucky man. Hayata gives him a wide smile and says “I’m invincible, Cap!”

This isn’t fair. He can’t have two lines like that in one scene. It’s just.

It’s not fair!

The camera zooms straight into the shooting star on Hayata’s helmet. Now! The shooting star is oriented straight up towards the sky above. It cuts to the SSSP leaving on their VTOL, which has that icon with the same orientation. They fly off, probably into the sunrise, and the episode ends.

So to wrap things up here, the SSSP’s logo, the shooting star, is an icon of hope for the future, to put it plainly. It’s a symbol of an international organization, and so represents a hope for world peace, but it also presents the possibility that even the terrors of deep space can be overcome, somehow.

/ "the shooting star, is an icon of hope for the future... [it] represents a hope for world peace, but it also presents the possibility that even the terrors of deep space can be overcome, somehow."

Every time the shooting star gets focus in a scene up it’s used as a way to reassure the audience, more or less. Sure, Ide sees it and thinks Hayata is dead, but we in the audience know better at that point. The same happens to a lesser extent with the tape recorder.

I’d like to also point out that every scene that features the tape recorder ends on a shot of it except for the scene when Hayata radios SSSP HQ for the first time since his accident. That scene begins with Hoshino and Akiko by the recorder, and ends with her at the radio, the reverse of when we were first introduced to her and Hayata! I don’t think there’s anything particularly deep to the tape recorder, I see it as just a way to create a satisfying symmetry to a narrative arc.

I refuse to end on that sentence. By my estimation, this episode is quite well-made, excepting a few hiccups in editing.

There’s a scene in the fight against Bemular where Ultraman’s chest light doesn’t work correctly, and the aforementioned sudden blank cuts are jarring, but most of the visual effects are well-executed, and the camerawork is top-notch. There’s a great sense of space on-set, and the lighting enhances every special effect.

Hoshino’s introduction is sudden and ham-fisted, and we don’t get a whole lot out of Arashi, character-wise, but the rest of the cast are well-realized and quite easy to like. Bemular’s characterization is a highlight here. It’s not hard to figure out what kind of monster he is based on his design, acting, and what little we hear about him from Ultraman.

Next time, we’ll be looking at a fairly popular episode, featuring one of the series’ more famous baddies!

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