"Ultra Q" drama from.... 1966(!), episode fifteen of 28 recap

 

 Air Dates: January 2nd until July 3rd, 1966 though episode #28 didn't air until December 14th

Sundays at 7:00 pm on TBS, 28 total episodes that were 25+ minutes in length. Created by Eiji Tsuburaya, directed by his oldest son Hajime.

Subs by Tgwoe, screenshot dimensions 1436 x 1076(4:3). This classic series also has a color version but I prefer older shows/films in Black and White as that seems to give off a more creepy vibe which the subber also thought.

Ratings: **** Didn't find the ratings until the ninth episode but did update the first eight shows. This series had such high ratings but back in 1966 there were only a few regular stations and no cable. This drama ran opposite another sci-fi show called "W3" which was very popular and before this series began had an average rating of 23%. However "Ultra Q" was much more popular and the other show slipped below 10%!!!! The average rating  for these 28 episodes was 32.4%, the rating for this fifteenth episode was 28.5% and will update this section for each show. 

 In the middle are the main three characters, who they are will be revealed below. The man on the left end is Eiji Tsuburaya and he is the #1 special effects man/director of all time in Japan. He did all of the special effects for the classic TOHO films such as creating the costumes, sets, etc. and of course most reading this have seen the "Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan" and other movies. This TV series was the first of it's kind in Japan and Tsuburaya had created this series where he didn't want the focus to be on monsters but the story which was the format for the old American series "Outer Limits". But TOHO wanted his unique monsters and there will be a different one in each show, will update this top section now and again with more trivial tidbits. Tsuburaya had access to all of his old costumes so would often mix them up such as the head from a 1965 film, the body from a 1961 movie and so on.

 

**** This is a new feature that was added for the eleventh episode and will update it every other recap. This mini section will have the monsters/creatures that we have seen to date and you can see more of them as a bit further down are the links to all of the episodes. Will have two screenshots of the creature though not every show had one but the first episode had two. There's four screenshots below, the first pair are from the eighth show. There was no terrifying monster in that one but instead it was a massive Mole(!) which had grown to that size for it was fed a new substance called Honey Zellion. This 'monster' wasn't evil and it didn't want to cause harm to humans but because of it's size that was impossible. The Mole was defeated but was still living under the Earth and we may see a return of this creature as we have for two others. The next two are from episode nine which had the title of Baron Spider and was one of the more creepier shows to date. There were two spiders who were once human and had been living for almost a hundred years, both were killed by this show's 'heroes'.

In the tenth show the creature wasn't a monster again but a new life form from outer space. That's it in the top two screenshots below and it was kind of a goofy character who had even tried to dance! It did look like an ape and was trying to steer a train which was a failure and it ended with a young boy dying when the train crashed. To wrap these new creatures up are two screenshots from episode eleven. This creature wasn't one from Earth for a meteorite had fallen over a decade ago and a scientist shot the meteor back into space as it too was a new life form which he thought was too dangerous to research. But many years later it attached itself to a spaceship returning to Earth and though it looked like a huge rock it was named Balloonga for it floated. If any of these creatures interest you then check out those episodes and the links to them are right below.

 Main Cast: Though it appears this had nothing to do with the "Ultraman" franchise in a way it does as this series is considered to be it's forerunner. The first "Ultraman" series began a little bit after this show ended in it's same time slot and there's not enough time to talk about that show and it's movies which I do recommend. Hiroko Sakurai who plays the reporter Yuriko in this show is quite known for her "Ultraman" work as she was in the first series plus a few more after that along with being in many of the movies. Will do some editing and adding as we go along though not as much as other dramas, the top three are by far the main characters. There will be many monsters in this series, perhaps one per episode! Won't give any details about them at the top but will talk about them during the recap.

**** Not sure how to explain this and perhaps it doesn't need it. But when the show opens a narrator tells us what we are about to watch will be something extraordinary, is what we view real or just a part of our imagination? A screenshot of that is above and that's how the American series "Outer Limits" also opened and at the end the viewers were asked to think again with about what we viewed, to date this show hasn't done that. Every episode has it's own title, this episode's is.... 

Kanegon's Cocoon

Kenji Sahara as Jun Manjome.... Don't think any actor was in more of the classic TOHO monster films than Sahara was between 1954 to 1975 and also in four "Ultraman" series! Jun is a pilot for Hoshikawa Airlines, he can fly both planes and copters. Though a pilot Jun does dream of becoming a best selling sci-fi writer, he's also adept with guns and how that came to be is a mystery. Plus Jun is a master with cars and could have been a racer, one last thing is that Jun loves science which is how he and his mates are friends with Professor Ichinotani.

Yasuhiko Saijou as Ippei Togawa.... Jun's assistant at Hoshikawa Airlines but Ippei doesn't have any licenses yet but is close to getting one for flying helicopters. Bit of a goofball but seems to be much more intelligent than others think, Jun must see that too as he does trust Ippei fully. In episode fourteen did learn Hoshikawa Airlines was along the Tama River, that's 15 or so miles west of Tokyo.

Hiroko Sakurai as Yuriko Edogawa.... On the left below, will have a different pic in the future. 21 year old reporter for the Mainichi Shimbun(daily news) paper. Yuriko is the youngest at the newspaper but her editor Seki believes fully in her and sends Yuriko out on the harder stories such as the mysterious and unexplainable....

Ureo Egawa as Professor Ichinotani.... We finally met this older professor in the third episode. Know very little to date about him such as how did Jun and his mates come to be friends with this man who is ultra intelligent. Though him and the next character Seki are important to the drama each will only be in about half the episodes.

Yoshifumi Tajima as Seki.... Yuriko's editor at Mainichi Shimbun(daily news), older man who acts tough though is a softie and often gives Yuriko the stranger/mysterious cases. Not a huge role but an important one and in the second episode Seki was the Hero!

 There will be many guest characters in this series but may not include any of their names unless that part goes for two episodes or it's someone very famous. 

Previous recaps: There is no ongoing storyline but all of the shows have been entertaining so here are the links to all of the recaps done.

Episode one: Gomes .... Episode two: Goro and Goro .... Episode three: A Gift From Space

Episode four: Massive Flower .... Episode five: Pegulia .... Episode six: Grow Turtle!

Episode seven: SOS Mount Fuji .... Episode eight: Terror of the Sweet Honey

Episode nine: Baron Spider .... Episode ten: The Underground Super Express

Episode eleven: Balloonga .... Episode twelve: I Saw A Bird

Episode thirteen: Garadama .... Episode fourteen: Tokyo Ice Age

 There aren't many but a few videos of this show on YT, mostly short scenes. Added this video in for the eleventh show but it's a clip from episode fourteen which ended up being one of the best episodes. Any kind of video is hard to find so kept it here so you can see what the show is like to an extent and do highly recommend this drama, especially the Black and White version.

   

 

 

 The ratings for this drama were so high as it averaged 32.6% but back in the 1960's there weren't nearly as many channels. The last episode had a rating of 36.8% which was the third highest but it dropped down to 28.5% for this show which was the third lowest! Have no clue why it would drop so much though that rating is still very impressive. Today's show aired on April 10, 1966 so the only thing I can think of  for the lower rating is that it may have been going against the opening day games for many Baseball teams as seasons in Japan and America began a week or two later than they do these days. Will admit to being a big fan of the sport and the super duper Korean 2019 series "Stove League" I think is the only drama or film that I've reviewed about Baseball but have seen a few dramas and two movies in that vein. An underrated Japanese drama about the game is "Wonderful Life" from 2004 and I highly recommend that show. It's one of my all time faves yet don't think many other drama fans have viewed it.

 At times my mind can wander and it did above. Took a ten day break from this drama as not to get tired of it and hopefully can finish this series off by the end of the month. This episode was very different as none of the three main characters.... Jun, Ippei or Yuriko.... appeared in this episode and that's the only time it happened in the series. In a way this was kind of spoof or lighthearted episode as it started off on such a head scratching note and for a while was kind of goofy. Actually it was that way until the end but did turn out to be a fun show and while it didn't end with the narrator telling us any kind of message about what we viewers watched it was about how craving and getting money is often not a positive in life. No vicious monster in this episode but a boy of about 12-14 in age turned into that above goofy looking creature and let's get to this episode's action.

EDIT: Forgot to mention this possible key detail which is that in Japanese KANE means money, that's what the names of the main character and 'creature' are based upon.

 There's been many more younger boys in the last five or so episodes that seem to be aged 12-14 and swear it's the same group of boys that are featured. Perhaps because this aired on Sunday evenings at 7:00 pm so some of the shows could have targeted that age group. In that first screenshot above the boy in the center ended up being the focus of this show, his name was Kaneo. His best friend Takeji was handing Kaneo some odd object he found which resembled a cocoon, the boys were about to throw it away but there was some rattling from inside it and could it be some yen coins? Most of the action will take place at a construction site though we never saw what was being built but the terrain was empty save for some huge pipes. As the boys were examining the cocoon a bit closer this episode's 'fiend'(!) Nakamatsu paid the boys a visit on his bulldozer and this meanie hates little boys. Who have given the bulldozer the nickname of Daddy Walrus and with it Nakamatsu made mincemeat of the boy's possessions including that cocoon by driving over them.

 However Kaneo still heard some coins rattling around inside the crushed cocoon and early on we learned how much Kaneo loves money and was actually a bit too obsessive in making even more. Which is what Kaneo's father told the boy above and it doesn't take a history whiz to say who the father looked like. To make matters worse Kaneo's mother also had some choice words for her son and if he doesn't change his ways soon he just may become a monster called... KANEGON!!!! And his mother was right on the mark with that prediction and you can see the chain of events above. That small cocoon Kaneo brought home has now grown to a massive size, also growing were the amount of coins inside and Kaneo was fantasizing that there may be a million yen! When he looked inside Kaneo was sucked into the cocoon which seemed to then float up into the air, after it landed the cocoon hatched but no moth was born. Instead it was as Kaneo's mother said as he turned into the Kanegon creature, when you look at it hard to call it a monster! Kanegon aka Kaneo had been dumped many miles from home after falling from the cocoon, you can see above that he walked through the streets of his town back home which of course startled all so where were the police?

 Kaneo did arrive back home and of course scared his parents to no end but it was only a twenty second scene and we will see them again. At first Kaneo hadn't realized that he had transformed into a monster until going home and of course the problem soon became... how can he change back to being a human? That boy in the top screenshot above is Takeji who was Kaneo's best friend. Though his best friend Takeji still wanted to be paid by Kaneo for helping him revert back to being a human and the sum of 150 yen was agreed upon which may have been a lot in 1966. Naturally Kaneo had to go along with his friend's offer and the pair soon made the trip to their hangout which was that construction site and for once weren't noticed by the meanie bulldozer driver Nakamatsu who is above. The current status of Kaneo aka Kanegon the creature(!) is fairly simple, he needs to ingest money in order to survive. In that second screenshot above you can see a counter that was on Kanegon's body, will be switching back and forth with his name. That counter kept track of how much money is in the creature and if it hits zero Kaneo says he will die! 

 His friends helped out by pumping whatever coins they had into his mouth but like food in our systems it slowly disappears. In the case of Kanegon it went quickly for the boy just loved money and seemed no amount could satisfy him though he was just ~fourteen in age! The group of boys was large as there had to be a dozen of them but at that young age of course none had many coins and they wondered was there any way to save their friend? One thing they tried was seeing a Shaman and that woman is above, what a freaky person she was and the boys didn't believe her solution to he problem. Which was of tipping the bulldozer Daddy Walrus upside down but how could that possibly change Kanegon back into the boy Kaneo but in the end the Shaman was correct. What I thought was a neat incident is above in the third to last screenshot which was of Kanegon standing outside a bank and wasn't that a perfect place to get money?! He scared the daylights out of some guards bringing coins to a bank and as you can see Kanegon was devouring those coins as if it was his last meal! 

 Final segment and there's only about five minutes to go in the episode. The police soon arrived at the bank and Kanegon fled with some coins but not enough as not even such a huge feast as he ingested could satisfy him. Kaneo's parents were notified of what their son was going through and he hadn't been home for seemingly days but they would be of no help. Kaneo did hook back up with his mates who brought him back to that construction site which is the group's 'home base'. Of course the boys was cleaned out of coins and were at such a loss on how to cure Kaneo, some thought perhaps there was none and should they let him die?! Of course not but luckily arriving on the scene was Nakamatsu driving his Daddy Walrus bulldozer and by now the boys had finally at it with this bully! They tied so many cans and trash to the machine which infuriated Nakamatsu and the group fled the scene. But not Kanegon who until now had never noticed he had a Tail and began to panic for he thought it was a snake! So with his friends gone Kaneo pleaded with Nakamatsu to get the snake off him and naturally was rebuffed so Kanegon jumped on the bulldozer and above you can see what soon happened. 

 Nakamatsu zoomed away and in the process knocked Kanegon off the bulldozer. Shortly after that Nakamatsu hit the edge of a short cliff and the bulldozer tumbled down, the meanie wasn't too badly hurt as he had fallen out. But what took place was the saving grace for Kanegon as the Daddy Walrus bulldozer ended up upside down and if the Shaman was correct now Kanegon should revert back to Kaneo. Which did happen but first he floated away while still being the creature Kanegon, when he landed Kaneo was back to being a human! Of course he was overjoyed but I did wonder if that cured him of being so overly obsessive about money? Even if Kaneo is cured his family isn't as when he rushed back home what should he see but his parents.... transformed into a pair of Kanegons!!!! The episode ended on that note and while the narrator didn't talk about any message it had to be about not letting $$ money $$ control your life for as the creature Kanegon showed being too obsessive about it also means that you can seemingly never have enough. This of course was far from being the best show but it turned out better than I thought, the next post is for episode sixteen as the main cast made their return and it features a deadly monster seen earlier in the series.