Zone Fighter Episode 05 – Kingugidora-wo Mukaeutsu!
aka Blast King Ghidorah at Point Blank! aka Attack King Ghidorah!
1973
Directed by Jun Fukuda
Written by Juro Shimamoto and Akira Ishikari
King Ghidorah???? Now we’re getting somewhere! Zone Fighter has been on an upward swing, what with Godzilla showing up before, and now the beginning of a two-part epic with King Ghidorah now. But just because famous Toho monsters show up doesn’t mean things are any good. So let’s get our Zone on and check it out! Remember, we don’t need no stinking subtitles! Those of you who need a catch up on the Zone Fighter phenomenon are invited to visit the splash page.
Are the Garogas getting yelled at by a Dalek??? No, wait, that’s just some random machinery and Baron Garoga is yelling at them. Lame. I demand Daleks! They fire a missile…and it explodes into King Ghidorah!
Some scientists are doing SCIENCE! when suddenly Takeru Jou bursts in ranting like a raving lunatic! Oddly enough, they don’t listen to crazy mofos who burst into the lab screaming and kick him out.
Jets attempt to attack King Ghidorah but explode before they reach him for reasons I don’t know at this time. Takeru Jou goes to the Zone family to explain (where he should have went in the first place!) and the director of this episode is all about extreme closeups as people talk. The fashions in this Zone Fighter are more 1970s than ever before, with Hikaru wearing and orange collared shirt, darker orange pants and a blue plaid flannel jacket. Sister Hotaru wears what looks like some hippie dress with in white with a flower pattern, and Akira has a goofy blue shirts with checkered collar and trim and powder blue shortpants, because we can’t be without shortpants ever!
Garoga dudes have captured the scientists Takeru Jou was talking to earlier and forced them into motorcycle helmets with antennas on them. I have no idea. Torture helmets? This is why Zone Fighter keeps winning, Garogas, because your plans are dumb!
Speaking of dumb, the Garogas drop more helmets from the ceiling on the Zone Family, but the whole family manages to not have the helmets fall directly onto their heads. Takeru Jou is too stupid to not have things fall onto and cover his head, and gets motorcycle helmet tortured or whatever the helmets do.
The mighty Zone Family RUNS!
They fight a bit individually, then finally the undercover Garogas and Zones both transform and fight some more. They punch some more, then the Zones all pull out guns and shoot the Garogas, who take fire then flee. Now we know the guns work…USE THEM ALL THE FREAKING TIME!!!! Build bigger and better guns. Shoot anyone you see with webbed hands. Especially at the circus sideshow!
The next plan from the Garogas is to leave a shiny crystal rock in the middle of nowhere, and of course it is instantly picked up by Takeru Jou who just happened to be driving his station wagon in the middle of nowhere. Takeru Jou can’t help himself and must pick up shiny objects, thus he grabs the space rock and takes it to his car.
The Zone Family is like “He brings us like 30 things a day he finds by the side of the road, but this one actually is evil!” At least his isn’t bringing in dead raccoons again.
The Zones drive around for a bit with the rock until they run into Garogas, and it’s fight time at the abandoned lot! They fight off the Garogas, who almost, almost get Zone Junior. Almost. Maybe next time. Maybe.
FYI, to turn back into normal humans, the Zone Family says “Zone Back!”
The second they turn back into humans, King Ghidorah then steals the crystal rock by a tractor beam. It floats in the air towards him, growing in size to a big sphere. Ted smoke comes out and soon the sun is sort of blocked like it’s a cloudy day. Those bastards! Baron Garoga taunts them, then it gets all windy because……..cloudy day! It’s always windy on a cloudy day…
The Zones turn back into Zones, Zones Angel and Junior get in Smokey while Zone Fighter cuts to the chase and grows all big. Zone Fighter and the largely immobile miniature of King Ghidorah they are using for the flight sequences zoom at each other a few times. Zone Fighter even does the breaking in midair so King Ghidorah flies past him bit, but instead of then shooting at King Ghidorah, he does nothing so the entire maneuver is wasted. No wonder Peaceland was destroyed so easily.
They finally land and begin to fight…but, one shot in and suddenly Zone’s energy is flashing red! Get a better battery, dude! Energizer! Duracell! Eveready!
King Ghidorah flaps his wings a lot and blows Zone Fighter away. Grandpa Zone then pulls some levers and makes his cloud weapon appear and shoot blue/green lightning at King Ghidorah, which works and hurts him. That also gets rid of the fog and suddenly Zone Fighter is back to full power…wait a minute, he’s SOLAR POWERED now? Then why does he keep having to get recharged, he should be automatically recharging the entire battle every week! Unless he fights at night, which he has never done before ever!
Zone fights like a man possessed and beats up King Ghidorah! At this point King Ghidorah’s reputation is so low that even random tv heroes are beating him up. Even though chronologically Destroy All Monsters takes place later, King Ghidorah just gets weaker and weaker in each appearance.
Zone Fighter switches his head laser to blue/green mode, and then lures King Ghidorah into space…
Tsuzuku!
NOOOOO!!!! Not tsuzuku again!!!! Flashbacks to Godzilla Island all over the place…
No one lives happily ever after until next week, because we got us a cliffhanger!!!
It was cool to see King Ghidorah in action, and Toho was smart enough to drag out the show for the ratings and the drama. I’ll give credit where credit is due.
Rated 7/10 (Dr. Science, Professor Science, open X, jet attack!, ceiling helmet, jet jump!, blue green magic)
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