GHWP Live Tweet Oct. 9, 2015 - Spectreman

     I studied way too much Sonny Chiba material for Tuesday night. I hope everyone had fun with it. Also, as of writing this blog entry, some very exciting news came down that everyone's favorite giant turtle Gamera has a proposed 50th anniversary film on the table with a very nice 4-minute proof of concept trailer online. In it, yet another swarm of Gyaos descends ravenously upon the city, and only one young boy survives to see the flying creatures turned to ash by the friend of all children. Ten years later, a new monster bursts forth from beneath the city, attacking with destructive bubbles...

I can't be the only one who was thinking it.

     Anyway, with the Halloween season thrust upon us (a season that has been a double-edged sword of joy and sadness for me with the second anniversary of my mother's death falling on the 29th), Spectreman takes us on the road to the final five episodes with a proper supernatural evil story... with an alien twist, of course.

Episode Selections:
57 - Resurrection of Great Satan - The Witch
58 - Goruda The Phantom Monster 

 Dr. Gori and Karas discover that an alien cult known as the Mephistans from planet Mephista has arrived on Earth looking for something. Some 200 years ago, their demonic witch queen Mephista (yes, I did confirm that the dub called both the planet and the queen by the same name) was exiled from their home planet, leaving the cult of followers aimless and wandering.

And lacking in fashion advisory.

     Dr. Gori is delighted to find out that the witch queen's tomb is located on Earth, but he finds it empty. The Mephistans converge on the tomb cave, making a fool of Karas before Dr. Gori finally convinces the high-pitched cultists that they can be allies in the search for the queen. Meanwhile, at Pollution G-Men headquarters, George is monitoring the control panels alone, and he discovers a peculiar signal that appears and disappears so quickly that he decides to investigate it alone rather than to convince his colleagues that it was ever there in the first place (for all of his 100% deadly accurate "hunches" these past 56 episodes, he sure has to do a lot of convincing). George follows the signal to a large house in the country, where he quickly stumbles upon someone else's breaking-and-entering interrupting George's own breaking-and-entering. The young man claims to be an artist and that his girlfriend Lisa is locked in a room with barred windows on the top story of the house. George can't stop himself from getting involved when he discovers that Lisa is chained to her own bed, and he helps the young man free her from her prison home. George quickly finds himself on the wrong end of a police chase for a kidnapping charge, and he drives the young lovers straight to Pollution G-Men HQ to consult with his friends about where the fugitives could hide out for a few days.
     While George helps the young couple hide from the police, the rest of the G-Men investigate Lisa's home, and they discover that her father and captor is, in fact, not her blood relative. He confesses that he discovered her one day in a cave, and... I'll give you three guess where this is headed. Lisa conveniently prevents George from hearing the truth on his radio receiver when a painful headache assaults her with ancient memories, but the truth makes little difference when the Mephistans attack moments later. While George is distracted, Lisa is spirited back to the cave to reacquire her royal garb and staff. Lisa's true alien identity-- Queen Mephista-- returns to the conscious world to lead her followers in the conquest of Earth, and she uses her evil magic to summon the poison-fanged monster Saladin. Saladin was known as ゴルダ (Goruda) in the Japanese version, hence the episode title, but this was one of many times that the English dub altered a monster's name in the final product. On the same note, the titles of these episodes have been fairly literal translations of the titles in Japanese. A more accurate (or at least sensible) English translation of episode 57's title likely would be "Resurrection of the Great Satanic Witch." I know I'm just a little late offering these alternative English language episode titles, but better late than never.

     The venomous phantom monster Saladin seems unstoppable, and Dr. Gori has betrayal in mind for his alliance with Mephista as her plans seem fit to succeed. I don't want to spoil the surprising twist this story takes with some of our main characters, but almost anything can happen with only a few episodes left before the finale. Tune in to the #GHWP hashtag on Twitter at 1AM Friday night, October 9, 2015, to find out what happens.

    And on Tuesday's GHWP Movie and a Show, Oct. 13, we keep the tokusatsu train running with a salute to Ultraman, whose 50th anniversary is also on the way in 2016. First, we'll look at the first episode of the original Ultraman, and then we'll follow it up with the 2004 "new millennium" take on the hero with Ultraman The Next. The schedule is subject to change, so keep an eye out for blog write-ups on these upcoming live tweet events.