Zone Fighter Episode 2: The Greatest TV Episode Ever?

After years of waiting to finally get Zone Fighter into my eyeballs, it was disappointing to say the least when the first episode turned out to be so underwhelming. I'll even admit that after watching it, I was worried I wouldn't be getting much entertainment out of this show.

Well, episode 2 quelled all of those fears. If the rest of the series is as colorfully bonkers as this episode was, this could be one of my favorite tokusatsu shows of the 1970s. Now, let's jump in to:

ZONE FIGHTER

EPISODE 2: "ATTACK! DESTRO-KING"

Written and directed by Jun Fukuda
Episode Air-Date: April 9, 1973

The Garoga are so evil that even their missiles have mean faces on them

Angered by his minions' failure to defeat the Zone Family, Garoga Commander Gold sends five more of his soldiers to the Earth to kill them. Their spaceship is spotted by a photographer and his younger brother, Jiro, who accidentally take photos of the ship as it's descending while they are taking photos of a bullet train. As they're investigating the crash site, a man in sunglasses throws a small transmitter into their car. Jiro tells his older brother that they can go to his friend's house to have the photos developed. As it turns out, his friend is Akira Sakimori. They head over with the mysterious man following them.

Wait. I know that kid...

Oh man...

After the photos are developed, Yoichiro and Tsukiko determine the craft to be a Garoga ship. When Jiro joins Akira to play with an RC boat in a nearby pond, they are watched by two of the Garoga agents. They intercept the radio signals to the RC boat, and command it to launch at Akira Maximum Overdrive style. However, the boat hits Jiro IN THE FACE instead, severely damaging his eye. 

I gotta admit, I had my doubts about the 3D Titanic conversion but Cameron proved me wrong again.

Jiro is then taken to the hospital by some strangers. Concerned, Yoichiro calls Hikaru while he's in the middle of practicing on a race course (because of course Hikaru is a race car driver). Hikaru drives over but not before he is stopped in a routine traffic stop. However, the police at the stop are actually Garoga agents who discreetly plant a time bomb on Hikaru's car. Wanting to watch Hikaru blow up, they pursue him.

Zone Fighter: pioneer of talking on the phone while driving.

However, Hikaru is forced to make a sudden stop after almost hitting an elderly woman just wandering around the countryside. The time bomb falls off. However, thanks to some serendipitous timing, the Garoga agents drive over the time bomb the second it goes off, blowing them up instead. Angered by his minions' outstanding incompetence, Gold sends a Terror-Beast Missile to Earth to finish the job.

 

 

 

*chef's kiss* Perfection.

Meanwhile, upon learning that Jiro will need to have a cornea transplant, Akira volunteers to donate his. Yoichiro reassures Jiro's older brother that Akira's corneas will recover within a week thanks to his alien physiology (though he doesn't tell him that part). When Akira and Jiro go into surgery, it is revealed that the doctors are all Garoga assassins. Before they have a chance to kill Akira, the mysterious man with sunglasses bursts in and saves the two boys. Hikaru and Hotaru arrive moments later. They fight off the Garoga soldiers and Hikaru, Hotaru and Akira give chase. The Sakimori family's new ally rescues the actual doctors who can carry out Jiro's surgery.

Maybe he shouldn't have been wearing sunglasses indoors if he didn't want to get punched in the jaw.

During the car chase, the Garoga men transform their car into an alien vehicle. The three Zone family members retaliate and their car transforms and flies after them. Before they are able to apprehend the assassins, the Terror-Beast Missile arrives, unleashing the two-headed monster Destro-King and allowing the Garoga soldiers to escape.

Hikaru transforms into Zone Fighter while Zone Angel and Zone Junior stand by. Zone Fighter and Destro-King duke it out with Destro-King maintaining the upper hand. Even Zone Fighter's Meteor Missile Might fails. When Fighter's energy begins to deplete, Angel and Junior fly at Destro-King. They shoot a combined deadly laser attack that beheads one of Destro-King's heads before recharging Fighter's energy. Re-energized, Zone Fighter throws Destro-King until it explodes.

The next day, after Jiro's surgery proves successful, Hikaru bonds with their new ally, Takeru Jou. A train and astronomy enthusiast himself, he had witnessed the first spaceship that landed on Earth and has been tracing Garoga activity since. He vows to help the Sakimori family in their battle against the Garoga Empire as the one person they can trust with their secret identity.

There are worse reasons to become the sworn enemy of an evil intergalactic empire I suppose.

THOUGHTS AND IMPRESSIONS

What an absolutely crazy episode. If episode 1 lacked any of Fukuda's usual energy, it is here in episode 2 in spades. The editing is tighter though still sometimes incoherent, the choreography is smoother, and Fukuda's blocking is a lot better. There's even a similar shot to the phone call from the last episode, and it looks much better this time around.

But there are a few key things we need to discuss here. First off, the Garoga time bomb backfire has got to be one of my favorite moments in a tokusatsu series ever. The moment the time bomb fell off the car, my heart started beating faster. "No way, this is too wild," I was thinking. And sure enough, the moment they drove over it and blew up, I burst out laughing. Not at the show but with it, because there is no way they weren't aware of how goofy that whole scenario was.

Another thing I'd like to note is the Takeru twist. Honestly, it was pretty well executed. I was watching the episode expecting him to be a Garoga soldier but they managed to subvert my expectations quite well. I'm not sure what I think about Takeru as a character yet since he seems to be just an ordinary citizen who happened to become intrigued by the Garoga (I was seriously expecting him to be an Interpol agent a la Godzilla Vs. Mechagodzilla). But he's sticking around, so we'll see how this normal human interacts with the Zone family.

Seriously though, I can't reiterate enough how fun this episode was. It was well paced with some great twists throughout like Angel and Junior taking flight and incapacitating Destro-King with such ease (though I have to wonder what the point of their ship Smokey is). Also, holy shit that boat gag was pretty brutal. You see blood pouring out of the kid's face too, even if it is only for a second. Fukuda just had a thing for launching toy vehicles into faces I guess.

 

A Seatopian agent smiles beyond the grave as Roku-san finally meets a similar fate

The fight at the end of the episode isn't all that great though. Destro-King's design is... well...

Let's just say Toho has done a better job making multi-headed monsters look more convincing. Also, the fight ends rather anticlimactically. After having his energy recharged, Fighter literally just throws Destro-King a bunch until he just sort of explodes. It's a super weird finish. Does this mean his throw is more powerful than his Meteor Missile Might?

Gripes about the monster battle aside, this was just such a fun episode. In some ways, I wish this had been the pilot instead because I believe it does a better job establishing the Garoga as villains and introducing cool abilities the Zone family possesses. We don't see Raita unleash the Great Thunderbolt this episode (in fact, Raita is barely in it at all), but we still see the Zone family's cool flying car and how the Zone siblings team up in battle. Can't wait to see what's in store for the next installment if this keeps up.

NEXT EPISODE:

"STRIKE! GAROGA'S UNDERGROUND BASE"