Review: Ultraman Episode 12 - Cry of the Mummy

 

Ultraman Episode #12

Cry of the Mummy

Original Air Date: October 2nd, 1966

Directed by: Hajime Tsuburaya

Screenplay by: Keisuke Fujikawa

Review by: Toku Tom Fool

Yes, this episode does have a mummy. This mummy is over 7000 years old and he was enjoying his sleep until Professor Iwamoto woke him up so he could learn the secrets of cave paintings or something. This is one ugly mummy too. I think they were going for an ape look. Arashi asked if humans looked like that 7000 years ago and I don't think we did. We probably looked similar to how we do now. Maybe the translation missed a zero. Anyway, the mummy gets woken up when electrocuted. 

This mummy doesn't waste any time killing people. He's strangling cops and eye lasering scientists and I must say it's pretty great. Our friends at the SSSP are called in to help deal with the mummy. There is some good banter between Ide and Arashi on how the mummy escaped. This episode has a lot of good character moments for our team. When the team arrives where the mummy is, Professor Iwamoto asks them to not kill the mummy so they can continue studying it. Arashi makes a joke about how he isn't trigger happy with his Spider Shot. We'll see how the mummy feels about that Spider Shot in a couple minutes. 

The SSSP has help from some dead meat soldiers. The mummy enjoys eye lasering those people to death before Arashi has to step in with his Spider Shot. Arashi did not fire on this mummy until Muramatsu gave the order so he wasn't trigger happy. The mummy might disagree as the Spider Shot killed him. I'm just saying Arashi had to do what was necessary because that mummy was killing people left and right. Anyway, the mummy's death summoned a dragon named Dodongo. 


Dodongo is on a warpath destroying buildings so the SSSP has to track it down in their plane. The five team members have a good discussion about the link between the mummy and Dodongo. Character moments are so nice. As Captain Muramatsu points out, Dodongo has the same eye laser attack the mummy had to further prove the link between the two. Arashi devises a plan to shoot Dodongo's eyes so it can't destroy more buildings with the eye lasers. Before they land, Ide gives Arashi a Barrier Machine which he invented to put up a shield around someone that luckily keeps you safe from eye lasers. It works pretty well as Arashi is protected and he uses his Spider Shot to take out one of Dodongo's eyes. Unfortunately for Arashi, the Barrier Machine doesn't protect you from when a rock is hit by the eye laser so he gets knocked out. Ide takes the Spider Shot and he gets Dodongo's other eye. 

Muramatsu sends Hayata to try to attack the monster from the other side and he just straight up turns into Ultraman as soon as he gets over there. Because this is a four legged dragon monster, Ultraman can't help himself but to try and ride it like a horse. It looks ridiculous. Ultraman and slaps Dodongo's butt to get him going. Dodongo throws him off but Ultraman gets it into a headlock. I was hoping Ultraman would rip the head off Dodongo but Dodongo again throws him to the ground. Ultraman decides to use the Spacium Ray to finish off Dodongo and it works. 

Ultraman flies off and for the first time we find out how Hayata gets returned back to Earth. Ultraman fires a ring from his hand and Hayata shows back up on a mountain. I was blown away by this moment because I never thought we would get something like that. Professor Iwamoto finds the SSSP and he's sad that the monsters are dead because he didn't get to complete his research about the caves. I mean the cave painting at the beginning did show Dodongo so I feel like he got his answers. Iwamoto does understand that maybe he shouldn't have messed with the mummy and let him sleep to avoid all the causalities. Finally, Ide looks up at the mountain where Hayata is and he suspects that maybe he is Ultraman. You're right, Ide! 


 

This episode was more like it. I enjoyed the story with the mummy. I'm a fan of old Universal Horror films so I love all the classic monsters. I admittedly don't really like the look of this mummy because you can see the line between his mask and body too easily but it did have some sweet eye laser moves. Dodongo is the better looking monster of the episode. Probably not the easiest suit to control as it took two suit actors which led to a silly fight with Ultraman. 

The best parts of this episode were the character moments. I feel like every one of the main five got something to do that advanced their character even if it was just small dialogue exchanges like Fuji had about the mummy at the end. I really liked seeing Ide being a good inventor and Arashi getting to show off his Spider Shot. Good callback to earlier episodes where Arashi gets owned by a monster again. Ide's continuing suspicions of Hayata being Ultraman has me excited about where that could go. As for Captain Muramatsu, he showed off excellent leadership abilities in this episode and I appreciated it. 

Will episode 13 be a lucky episode of Ultraman? It's titled "Oil S.O.S." and I'm just imagining a monster destroying some oil tanks. I hope it is as good as this episode. Follow me on Twitter @TokuTomFoolery where I live tweet every episode.



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