Zone Fighter Episode 23 – Dai Kyoujuu Bakugon-no Himitsu

aka 大恐獣バクゴンの秘密 aka Secret of Bakugon: The Giant Terror-Beast! aka Secret of the Great Terror-Beast Bakugon

1973
Written by Masaru Takesue
Directed by Ishiro Honda

Come and get it, you Bouillabaseball playing mofo!

The Secret Garoga Plot in Secret of Bakugon: The Giant Terror-Beast! is so stupid that it makes the craziest Cobra plots from GI Joe look sane and rational. The Garoga plot to make several children believe that a junk yard is really a secret garden, thus they’ll get some ruined clothes and light scrapes. This means they’ll all have to get tetanus shots, thus depleting the worldwide supply, destroying humanity! The long-term plan might be some ridiculous plot to mind control the entire population of the planet, but no one really seems focused on that. They even have smaller tests before the elaborate children delusion, which rules out that this was just a test phase. This is the REAL DEAL plan!

The plot is so ridiculously lame that it sinks the entire episode, and even a cool monster design like Bakugon cannot save it. Bakugon is like an ALF/anteater hybrid that shoots flames out of his nose and has a metal backpack full of fuel for said flames. It is cool to see a monster that’s obviously a mammal, far too many are variations of dinosaurs or other lizards, or even more human monsters. Bakugon has fur, we need more fuzzy kaiju. Plus he’d make a great rug in front of the fireplace!

There is a great philosophical crisis because the main evil Garoga splits himself from disguised as one human female to disguised as a human female and a small boy. Essentially being in two places at once and being two people. The question is if the Garoga became two Garoga, or if it was able to control both bodies simultaneously without adverse effects and keeping them doing separate projects but still under the same mind. Becuase if the Garoga became two Garoga, this is some serious business. It could be real, because we’ve seen Garoga merge and form terror-beasts before. So why couldn’t a Garoga split into two by mitosis? Or are the Garoga all under one mind? Though that doesn’t seem to jive with how the Garoga act in every other episode, so it’s highly unlikely. What we get is another great Garoga mystery that will never be solved.

A mysterious lady in all black (so obviously Garoga it hurts) is causing delusions in people – a family is on a road trip when it’s suddenly revealed they’re driving on the train tracks! And that somehow causes all of them to fall out of their car when dad slams on the breaks! Uh….. HUH?? Also some guy hallucinates that he’s water skiing while he’s really in a field, and is laughed at, but still, the whole family fell out of their car. How does that work? I’m so confused…


Mysterious Lady calls to Garoga base to report their hallucinogenic gas is now working. Didn’t I call that she was Garoga? I’m so smart.

The Garoga send down a Terror-Beast Missile with Bakugon in it. Akira sees the blip on the Zone Radar as the rocket is launched, and soon the Zones are heading over to check it out. The terror-beast capsule lands in a junkyard, and the Mysterious Lady in Black uses the impact to do evil things to a mother and son that are at the junkyard. Both faint because of the rocket crash. (I’m not sure how that works, either, but let’s just go with it before I type 3000 words on this) and the Mysterious Lady in Black takes the place of both of them. Yes, she split herself into two beings.

Hikaru has arrived at the landing site, and is attacked by three Garoga goons. He turns into Zone Fighter and slaughters them.

RANDOM NEW ZONE FIGHTER POWER – Zone tosses a dude in the lake, then shoots a proton beam from his helmet that SETS THE LAKE ON FIRE! Zone fighter can burn water! He’s like Flame Jesus.

Zone then leaves, having found nothing but murder.

Akira is playing baseball with a group of kid his age, all of which are wearing shorts and most of which are very very filthy. Some of them are terrible terrible actors that you don’t need to speak Japanese or have subtitles to figure out. A weird kid who is the Garoga junkyard kid comes to try to convince them all to play in his junkyard, which has a secret garden like that book, The Secret Garden. This works despite two of the kids blowing their lines.

The kids all go to the garden, which is full of free snacks from the Creepy Mom who is also a Garoga in disguise. Someone has smeared Vasoline all around the edges of the camera just in case you were fooled to think this wasn’t a horrible delusion and all these kids won’t need therapy until the day they die. At one point one of the girls present gives Akira a rose. He’s been chosen as the next Bachelor!

Akira comes home with the rose, his clothes are all tore up and he’s bleeding from an open wound on the arm, all of which he didn’t notice until his shocked family points out to him. Grandpa Zone uses special Zone Glasses to look at the rose, and it’s revealed to be a bunch of barbed wire!

They are sure the Gargoa are behind this, convincing kids there is a secret magical garden so they’ll all get light scrapes and have to get tetanus shots! Those diabolical Garoga, Earth might as well surrender to their insidious plan now and spare the pain!

Akira takes them to the junkyard garden, then he tries to convince all the other kids it’s really a junkyard. They all look at him like he’s stupid, but also like he says stuff like that occasionally enough they know he’s weird. What kind of weird social structure do these kids have? Plus Akira never hangs out with the same kids, he has new friends each week. Obviously he can’t keep friends. Because he sucks. The kids break his Zone Glasses and then chant and throw rocks at him until Hikaru and Hotaru drag him away. Hey, maybe the kids just thought the Zone Glasses were Google Glass, and this is a totally justified reaction!

Zone Dad develops an antidote to the hallucinogen. Zone Fighter drives around in the Mighty Liner and is attacked by Garoga in the Garoga Car I, which means we get another cool long car battle sequence where lots of cannon blasts are fired at the Mighty Liner and explosions and both cars are models for a good chunk of the action scene.

Zone Fighter flies Mighty Liner up to the air and blows up Garoga Car, killing the Red and normal Garoga drivers inside. Zone heads to the junkyard. There, the Garoga-disguised mother is threatening to knife her son. As both of them are the Garoga, this is like threatening to cut off your own arm. Is this that Donnie Yen movie??? Zone sprays them with the antidote, and they both turn back into the Mysterious Lady in Black. Which is sort of weird, why don’t they turn all the way into the Garoga form? She does that herself, turning into another Red Garoga and teleporting away.

Zone Fighter sprays the whole area with the antidote and finds the real mom and son. But just then, out pops Bakugon!

Bakugon’s like a big furry ALF with horns and a backpack. He shoots flames from his big nose, which is hilarious. Zone Fighter lets himself get roasted for a while before growing big to fight Bakugon. I would say this is because he’s trying to distract the terror-beast as the other Zones lead the children away from the junkyard, but he’s done this in several episodes, so he may just be stupid.

Bakugon starts using hypnosis or something and Zone Fighter begins freaking out, seeing multiple Bakugons and attacking where Bakugon isn’t and Bakugon disappearing. Bakugon begins beating the stuffing out of Zone Fighter. Zone Angel and Zone Junior in Smokey try firing a new energy pill at Zone Fighter, but Bakugon blocks it and more fighting happens. Zone Fighter somehow does well despite having no energy and almost wins, then gets his energy boost and goes in for the kill. Zone does his flying loop-de-loop and rams Bakugon, then shoots him with his wrist guns until Bakugon dies and explodes.

What we learned is the whole energy thing with Zone Fighter is a lie and just there to add dramatic impact. But even that doesn’t work when the director has better things to do than make the show dramatic! Yes, I just slammed Ishiro Honda, deal with it.

The Zone Family bulldozes the junkyard to build a real garden, but as the mom and son live at the junkyard, they are now homeless during construction. Thanks a lot, Zone Fighter!

Rated 4/10 (opening rings, evil nonevil kid, flying to bomb, how the guy in the suit sees)

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