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Ryusei Ningen Zon 12
episode 12 / Zone Fighter - The Terror Beast Base: Invade the Earth!
Zone Fighter - Terror Beast HQ: Invade the Earth!
Japan 1973
produced by Kimihiko Eto, Shunji Takahasi, Yoshio Nishikawa, Tomoyuki Tanaka (executive) for Mannen-Sha, Toho/NTV (= Nippon Television Network)
directed by Ishiro Honda
starring Kazuya Aoyama, Kazumi Kitahara, Takashi Sato, Shoji Nakayama, Sachiko Kozuki, Shiro Amakusa, Hideaki Ohara, Munemaru Koda (voice), Kiyoshi Kobayashi (voice)
written by Norio Komata, created by Tomoyuki Tanaka, music by Goh Misawa, special effects by Kichio Tabuchi
TV-series Zone Fighter
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Gold Garoga (voiced by Munemaru Koda) is frustrated about how little
progress the Garoga have made taking over earth, and it's all of course
thanks to Zone Fighter (Kazuya Aoyama), who has thwarted all their plans
and destroyed all their terror beasts. But Red Garoga has a novel idea, he
sends several terror beast missiles to earth which immediately burrow
themselves deep beneath the surface, there forming a terror beast base.
And one of the missiles contained an egg, too, containing this week's
terror beast. But to make the terror beast hatch, the Garoga need to turn
into chicken thieves (literally), as the egg needs chicken to feed on. Now
friend of the Zone family Takeru's (Hideaki Ohara) friend Yoko raises
chicklets for some institute or other, so naturally she's kidnapped by the
Garoga and her chicklets stolen. This though has been witnessed by Hotaru
(Kazumi Kitahara), and even though she's jealous of Yoko, having designs
on Takeru herself, she turns into Zone Angel to come to the rescue - but
is instead captured herself. The two girls are of course the perfect bait
for Zone Fighter, and they lure him to the area where the latest terror
beast will hatch, and of course once there he has to fight several Garoga
before the hatching. Now this hatching doesn't go entirely according to
plan as it creates some seismic activity which damages the terror beast
base and gives Zone Angel and Yoko an opportunity to flee. Meanwhile the
chicken-like terror beast Barakidon makes it to the surface, and it's one
mean terror beast that gives Zone Fighter, of course grown to giant size,
a run for his money. Enter Zone Junior in the Zone family's spaceship
Smoky, who not only picks up the two girls but also finds out Barakidon's
weakness, it feeds on the light of the moon. So Smoky just clouds the
moon, and with Barakidon confused, Zone Fighter wins the upper hand,
giving the terror beast a good beating before blowing it up. The
story of this episode is of course same old same old, even if from a
nostalgic and camp point of view that's already kind of charming. But what
really makes or breaks Zone Fighter episodes is the quality
of their respective terror beasts - and frankly, Barakidon sure is a hoot,
as having a monster inspired by a chicken and not going all comedy is a
bold move. That all said, don't expect too much from this episode, apart
from the terror beast of course you've definitely seen it all before.
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