EJ
Hello, and welcome back to Watch Club! I’m EJ Couloucoundis, editor-in-chief of Ultraman Connection, and we have a wild episode for you all today!
SL
Find me an Ultraseven episode that isn’t outlandishly surreal, terrifying or climactic at this point. Even though I definitely have my favorites, they’ve all got something wildly notable going on, which is why we’re doing this every week!
Er, I’m Sarah Last, content creator and staff writer at Ultraman Connection! What particular brand of “wild” do we have in store this week, EJ?
EJ
Well, this week, we get to “Escape Dimension X!” (That’s the episode title, to be clear)
And Dimension X is basically the Land of the Lost, so that’s pretty wild.
More importantly, though, this episode is wild because of its primary character – that being Amagi, the most rarely-featured member of the Ultra Guard, played by probably the single most important person to appear on-screen all series, Bin Furuya!
Sarah, I assume you know who Bin Furuya is, but shall we illuminate our lovely readers?
SL
We’ve mentioned this in an earlier Watch Club article, but Bin Furuya’s claim to fame before Ultraseven was his role as the suit actor behind Ultraman himself, in the original 1966 series! That’s right, the signature Spacium Beam pose, the dramatic pace of the punches, kicks and throws of Ultraman’s original fights, were Furuya’s doing! His athleticism and distinctive style remains a really iconic part of Ultraman’s character, even today.
His role as Amagi within the Ultra Guard in this show is… very different.
EJ
It sure is. We very rarely get to focus on Amagi as a character, but he occupies kind of a unique position within the series — his closest analogue in the original Ultraman would be Ide, but he’s got a very different personality. He’s a very low-key, taciturn character — until he finds himself in a scary situation like skydiving, in which case — as we see in the first scene here — he panics a bit!
SL
Good thing he’s got Soga with him, who’s the polar opposite personality-wise! Clearly, Amagi is just scared because he spends too much time in front of a computer being a nerd, and Soga takes the jump in a comparatively easy stride.
The two of them make a fun Odd Couple in this episode. Amagi specializes in data analysis and technology, we saw his work in the episode “Fly To Devil Mountain!” where he reverse-engineered alien technology to recover the trapped souls of many victims — including Dan Moroboshi himself. But Soga is more of a shoot-first-ask-questions-later sort of guy. It seems like he frequently flies by gut instinct, reacting to events passionately, rather than relying on careful understanding of all the details, which is Amagi’s whole job!
And just like in “Fly to Devil Mountain”, this episode emphasizes their roles as distinct — and distinguished — members of the Ultra Guard rather than solely focusing on Dan himself.
EJ
Bet they’re wishing they had Dan there, though — Amagi wakes up in a tree after their skydiving goes wrong, and is immediately beset by massive, thumb-sized ticks! This place is a deathtrap, something Amagi realizes when he finds Soga’s parachute and the warning message that this forest is not what it seems.
Also, the massive alien staring down at him from above! Amagi shoots it immediately, only for it to pull an Alien Baltan and do some sort of duplicating teleportation move right out of “Shoot the Invaders!” from the original Ultraman.
SL
It’s interesting, and extremely eerie, to note the fact that the only thing that has threatened Amagi so far is the weird blood-sucking bugs. The giant, mysterious Kaiju seems to be the least of his worries… for now.
EJ
Yeah, the alien seems to just be watching Amagi, and later Soga, suffer — it doesn’t seem like it can be harmed in this strange forest, after all.
Running away from the threat and hunting for Soga, Amagi quickly finds him, trapped in an acidic tar pit. YIKES. Thankfully, the Ultra Guard is always prepared, and Amagi has a rope to pull him free.
SL
Amagi might be a big nerd, but he’s still a member of the Ultra Guard, and can hold his own alongside the hotshot Soga. Similarly, the rest of the Ultra Guard is hard at work trying to figure out where the heck the two of them ended up! At first, they seem convinced that Soga and Amagi were blown off course from their intended landing site, but tensions mount as time passes, and they hear no word from the pair. Clearly something strange has happened, as things often are in this show.
Everyone gets a lucky break however, when a call from one of their communicators finally makes its way to the Ultra Guard’s headquarters. But even then, Amagi can only report that they’re in a strange, fog-covered forest. Without more information, it seems like the two of them are stuck, lost in the woods, and will be for quite a while before the Ultra Guard can rescue them.
There’s no big invasion plot, no city-scale destruction, explosions or other threats against the Earth that are apparent yet. But the tension of watching Amagi and Soga try to survive, while their friends and teammates do their best to find them without any information to rely on, drives a significant amount of narrative suspense to keep the audience engaged at this point!
EJ
Meanwhile, back in… reality? Earth? Back home, the Ultra Guard is getting awfully worried about their boys. They manage to get in touch via their communicator watches, which I was frankly surprised about — the alien couldn’t block out signals? There’s clearly something going on, though, since Dan doubles over in pain from an ultrasonic signal only he can hear.
SL
Things get even weirder when Amagi and Soga get a glimpse of the sky after the sun goes down, only instead of the moon, they see Earth above them! We’re not in Kansas anymore, clearly.
After Amagi relates this new bit of information, Director Manabe finally seems to have a clue as to what’s going on. He mentions an incident involving a “Pseudo-Space” or roving alternate dimension which traps people as prey! It’s also associated with a mysterious sound from an alien “Bell”, which paralyzes and disrupts the brainwaves of its victims — as Dan demonstrates in the background, still silently in pain while all this exposition is going on.
I’m sorry, I feel bad for him, but that’s just hilarious to notice on a rewatch, in addition to the fact that no one else in the headquarters seems to notice him obviously suffering through this conversation either.
EJ
Unfortunately, the Ultra Guard is under a time crunch here — Soga’s not doing great. I shuddered when the scene cut to Amagi watching over and caring for Soga, his gloves and pant legs covered in what appears to be dried blood. How bad are Soga’s injuries? Here’s hoping it’s just clay…
We don’t have time to check, however, as the two are menaced by a giant smoke-spitting spider-creature, Gumonga!
I know he’s a real threat to the two, but honestly, Gumonga is kind of adorable.
SL
There’s just something about a good old-fashioned marionette puppet with big eyes and lots of wiggly legs. It’d be a lot cuter if it wasn’t spitting toxic fumes and trying to kill Bin Furuya at the moment though. Still, the threat is clear. Between the Director’s dire warnings about the impossible feat of even finding the Pseudo-Space, and an increasingly clear understanding of the dangers both Amagi and Soga will have to face on their own, the race is on to save them from certain death in this strange and hostile forest.
EJ
Iunno, Sarah, they find it pretty quickly. Forest on top of a cloud? Pretty easy to spot. They really do make it just in time, though. Gumonga almost eats Amagi before Dan shoots it in the face and buys time for the rest to get away. That gets the Alien Bell’s attention. And to its credit, that Sonic attack nearly takes Dan out before he transforms into Seven.
SL
Once he does manage to shake off the migraine from Bell’s attack… Well, the two foes launch into a pitched running battle, but then also take to the skies in a dramatic and fast-paced flying battle, which stands out from most of the other fights we’ve seen before now! It’s still over fairly quickly once Seven pursues Bell, then shoots him down into the same acidic swamp which trapped Soga earlier in the episode.
Some episodes of Ultraseven are poignant and artistic, psychological dramas examining the horror of our frailty in the context of a seemingly hostile and uncaring universe. And then sometimes you just want an episode where Seven punches the crap out of a giant, murderous bug monster and throws it into a lake.
EJ
And those are equally valid!
Anyway this episode ends dark, with Seven drowning the Bell until he melts. Get him, Seven.
SL
It’s lucky that Dan Moroboshi just happens to escape the disappearing dimension in the nick of time on the Beta Hawk. Funny how that always seems to happen…
Captain Kiriyama closes out the episode by remarking that despite their advanced technology, Alien Bell was still a “devil” that used it to prey on others. Good thing the ingenuity and dedication of the Ultra Guard, together with Ultraseven’s strength, finally overcame its threat and prevented Bell from wreaking more havoc on Earth.
EJ
Next time on Watch Club, we take a look at an alien more despicable than most, and the desperate fight to keep him from destroying the Earth, in Ultraseven Episode 18, “Project Blue.” See you then!
