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Ryusei Ningen Zon 4
episode 4 / Zone Fighter - Invasion! Garoga's Grand Army: Godzilla Appears
Japan 1973
produced by Kimihiko Eto, Shunji Takahasi, Yoshio Nishikawa, Tomoyuki Tanaka (executive) for Mannen-Sha, Toho/NTV (= Nippon Television Network)
directed by Ishiro Honda
starring Kazuya Aoyama, Kazumi Kitahara, Takashi Sato, Shoji Nakayama, Sachiko Kozuki, Shiro Amakusa, Hideaki Ohara, Munemaru Koda (voice), Kiyoshi Kobayashi (voice)
written by Shozo Uehara, created by Tomoyuki Tanaka, music by Goh Misawa, special effects by Koichi Kawakita
TV-series Zone Fighter, Godzilla
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Another Garoga missile hits earth, but when the Zone family check out
the impact site, they don't find another terror beast but an old friend
from their home planet Peaceland, Saicho. They take him in and give him a
job at their shop creating toys, but the family distrusts him - all but
Hotaru (Kazumi Kitahara), who promptly falls in love with him. However,
the rest of the family is soon proven right as the toys Saicho has built,
mostly tanks and fighter jets, soon attack Hotaru, and while the family
can soon defeat the toys, Hikaru (Kazuya Aoyama) is injured, which of
course also carries over into his other identity, Zone Fighter. And soon
enough, terror beast Wargilgar starts to lay Tokyo to waste, and while
Hikaru as Zone Fighter manages to put on a valiant fight despite his
injured arm, all seems to be lost when Saicho, who has since been unmasked
as a Garoga, sends in a second terror beast, Spyler. That's when Hotaru
and her little brother Akira (Kenji Sato) remember they can call Godzilla
for help - which they do, and in a tag team match, Wargilgar and Spyler
are no match for Zone Fighter and Godzilla. A somewhat historic
episode, because while his (slightly altered) suit has already been used
in series like Ultra
Q and Ultraman,
this is the first official appearance of Godzilla
on the small screen - and it's even directed by Ishiro Honda, director of
the original Godzilla. Of course,
this episode is a far cry from that movie, but fits right in with the
direction the film series has taken since - after all, in 1973's Godzilla
vs Megalon, Godzilla teamed up with a giant robot to fight (among
others) the chicken-like monster Gigan
(which would actually appear later on in the series, too). That all
said, the question remains of course, how well does this episode hold up
in comparison? Not too badly, actually, as for one tag-teaming monsters
are always fun to watch, and there are some nice fight scenes in here as
well as well-staged scenes of destruction. And the scene in which Hotaru
is attacked by toy tanks and toy planes is almost inspired. Furthermore,
the terror beasts look enjoyably silly. So basically, not high brow TV by
a long shot, but there's still plenty to like for a kaiju fan.
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