Director: Toshihiro Iilima
Year: 1966
Country: Japan
Alternate Titles: (Alternate DVD Title: Treasure of the Miloganda/Secret of Miroganda) (ミロガンダの秘密 Miroganda no Himitsu?)
Genre: Tokusatsu TV
Plot:
After a series of strange accidents, the Science Patrol finds the culprits to have been involved in a special research trip to a remote island that came in contact with a strange radioactive substance which mutated a local flower into the guilty party, and are forced to rely upon Ultraman to finish the job.
Story:
For the most part, the story here is far more impressive for a TV than expected. The first half mixes together a nice murder mystery with the disappearances of the scientists coming together alongside the scientific inquiries being made which is quite a novel concept for the series. With the team needing to understand the strange readings they capture in regards to the strange substances at the scenes of the individuals that is later revealed to be featured participants of the fateful expedition. This is a nice callback to the earlier show in the legacy of the series which would have similar setup and then later delve into being a monster feature which this one does.
The later half of the episode is the standard monster feature where it turns into the creature on the loose with plenty of fun to be had there. The creature manages to be a bit of a downfall after the previously fun first-half, being a pretty standard tale of a mutated being on the loose that requires the Science Patrol to swing into action to stop it and once it becomes gigantic it's now Ultraman's responsibility to stop it. This is all fun but it's really not as interesting as the slightly more creative setup. The backstory detailing the creation of the monster and it's connection to the trip told through flashback offer some merit to these scenes but it's not nearly as impressive as the other section.
On the whole, we don't have much in the way of special effects here, which is all the better because what we get here isn't that impressive. That is mostly due to the utterly atrocious costume for Greenmons, which is rather disappointing. The basic design, a mushroom-topped, one-armed venus fly-trap plant that basically looks like a garbage bag is covered in green slime as it's baggy and completely inconsistent with its shape. There's very about it that looks cool or frightening, and it really only has one move in it's fight which is to open the enormous flap around the top which consists of a mouth and spray an acid-like substance that incapacitates it's victim.
While there's not much to say about the creature, that's not the case with the rest of the special effects. The fact that the first half here carries some ingenuity with the storyline also carries over into the ability of the special effects team to dive into the enjoyable attacks by the human-sized creature to start with. The opening attack, which carries a fine horror atmosphere detailing the attack done in a shadow-attack against the wall of the tunnel. That's continued in the second sequence where the green slime slides under the door and materializes into a full-on creature. With a later sequence showing the Science Patrol taking it on in human-sized form that inspires numerous Super Sentai shows to come, there's a lot more variety spread throughout here.
There's very little about this that's worth repeating. The majority of the focus here is on investigating the incidents so it's not about getting to know the team at all. Ito gets a nice comic relief moment, but that's about all we get since there's not much room for it anything else.
There are two other factors worth mentioning here. The main storyline here, not only with the fun concept of them investigating the mysterious substances but we also get the fun of the different types of different visual tricks are able to be employed to help this one out even more. Again, the opening is shot as though to mimic a creature feature attack from that time-period where the graphic nature of the attack is hidden through being created through a shadow attack on a wall. It's insanely inventive in this type of show and looks even better with the impressive idea of doing the flashback in black-and-white with the flower being shown in color. This is a fun idea and realized nicely, making for some nice photography here.
Elsewhere, it's main fight at the end is a bit of a disappointment. The fight between Ultraman and Greenmons is incredibly brief and doesn't really have any type of traditional brawling which is what's supposed to make these types of shows fun as it consists of a dropkick, some squaring off in a Mexican standoff before Greenmons throws it's mist and Ultraman turns right around to blast it to pieces with the Specium Ray. This is quite an underwhelming effort devoid of the type of action we usually get and really seems to capture what a depressing entry Greenmons really is as a monster since it's fight is as good as it's design is.
Overview: ***/5
As this was quite intriguing up until the finale, this ends up being quite the fun if somewhat disappointing entry especially with the fine run of shows up until now. There's still enough to like here like always but it's not the typical work here which leaves this an overall watchable if flawed effort.
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