Hello and welcome, Ultraman Connection readers! We’re taking another look back at the various stories and the heroes of the Ultraman franchise, but we don’t have to go back very far in our trip down memory lane this week.
Although to be honest, even though it’s only been a month since the final episode of Ultraman Blazar aired, it feels like a much longer absence without new episodes to look forward to! In our previous look back on the series, there were many things that we mentioned which stood out in the show: its sense of spectacle and mystery, developing conspiracies which reached over the events of the show and challenged our heroes to save the day in ways beyond just defeating individual monsters.
It’s those heroes, the characters of the SKaRD defense team, which I really miss the most – including Ultraman Blazar himself, but there’s another addition to the team who I didn’t get a chance to mention in the previous article. After all, SKaRD was founded specifically to operate the Earth Garon, it was a terrible oversight on my part to not talk about the giant robot!
I was particularly glad that this week’s episode of Ultraman New Generation Stars picked episode 3 from the show, “The Name is Earth Garon”, to represent the Ultraman Blazar series as a whole. Even though it was the third episode of the show, this is the point where we first saw the team come together as a team. Each of the team members' own unique talents contributed to their unique mission – including Earthy!
Honestly, I wish there were more episodes like this in the show’s run, which simply throw the SKaRD team into bizarre circumstances against a Monster-of-the-Week, and then allow the audience to watch what happens next.
Alongside the rest of the SKaRD team, the Earth Garon itself made an impressive debut against the giant bug Kaiju Taganular. Seeing it launch for the first time was another highlight of this episode. Those launch sequences continued to be a highlight as the show continued as well. It lends such a tremendous sense of scale whenever the mecha is mobilized against a threat. Take into account its numerous weapons upgrades and even a jetpack added to Earthy’s arsenal later on, and those launches almost become a sight as impressive as Ultraman Blazar’s arrival on the battlefield in each of its appearances.
It’s also funny, looking back on this early point in the show, to see how this incident was initially treated as just a set of bizarre circumstances against a random Kaiju. Later on in Blazar, the SKaRD team, and the audience, discover that the battle against Taganular played a critical role in the larger conflict against the “Space Kaiju”. The climax of its battle against Blazar, where it lets off a titanic blast of energy straight into the sky, was played almost as a joke in this episode. But we eventually discover that the beam had a purpose, to try and destroy the next “wave” of the Space Kaiju attacks before it could reach Earth.
That discovery catapulted Taganular to fan-favorite status by the end of Ultraman Blazar, and even now I believe it’s one of the most popular original Kaiju from the show. Will we get to see it in other Ultraman series in the future? Who knows, maybe ten years from now, we’ll have an entire episode of an anthology series like this dedicated just to everyone’s favorite ugly-cute bug buddy.
Okay, it’s probably still not Anri’s favorite buddy, but you get the point.
All of these characters, from the human members of SKaRD, to Ultraman Blazar himself, the Earth Garon, and even the Kaiju who often served as opponents in the show, all contributed to making this such a memorable series in the franchise. I can’t wait to catch up with all of them (even the Kaiju) in Ultraman Blazar the Movie: Tokyo Kaiju Showdown. For more news related to Ultraman Blazar, and all the movies, shows and giant robots from the Ultraman franchise, stay tuned right here to Ultraman Connection in the meantime!
