Reviewing Monsters - Final Fantasy VII, Part 7

I proooobably should've stopped last segment after the monsters found in Wutai and Mideel, and started this segment on both the monsters outside and inside the Temple of the Ancients, huh? Anyway, I took... longer than I probably should to go through the Temple of the Ancients (which is a bitch to figure out; in a good way), and then did a whole lot of running around to grind up some of the limit breaks. Particularly the ones for a lot of the newer party members who I simply haven't quite used. Turns out that, well, a lot of the limit breaks are locked behind how many enemies you've killed.

I feel like maybe it's because I did a fair bit of detouring and took longer than I probably should doing the Cosmo Canyon and Wutai storylines, the pacing for the primary Shinra/Sephiroth/Cloud storyline felt like it was kinda abrupt? And I know we all complain about modern games being a bit too hand-holdy, but I sure would've gotten a lot of trouble figuring out that the Keystone was in one specific area of the Gold Saucer and where the Temple of the Ancients is placed in the overworld.

The exposition dialogue also needs work, but that's mostly a product of its time because of the year that this game was localized and the limitations of the hardware in general. Still, I'm having a lot of fun! And that's from someone who has actually been spoiled about a lot of the big twists in the game, including Cait Sith's huge moment at this point (which does honestly come out of nowhere) and what's about to happen to Aerith soon in the game. It's also a real long game, isn't it? I know that the remake barely scratches the first half of the CD, but man, they do pack a lot of content into this game. 

Toxic Frog & Ancient Dragon

The Kelzmelzer and Under lizard from outside the temple also show up inside of the temple proper, but the rest of enemies are an interesting mixture of new ones and repaint enemies! As usual, we'll be grouping the repaints and covering them quickly. Toxic Frog is a purple version of "Touch Me" from one of the overworld areas, and, just like Touch Me, the Toxic Frog is able to turn your party members into frogs.

The Ancient Dragon is a green version of the 'Ark Dragon' from Mythril Mine. It's already one of my favourite monster concepts in this game due to being a mantis dragon, so I'm certainly happy to see a stronger version of it show up. Two of them show up, specifically, if you screw up in a clock-themed room, and they hang out around a giant mural of a T-rex. Neat! 

Doorbull

With a name that, in the original Japanese version, a pun on double (daburu) and bull (buru), this guy's pun-name really isn't going to be something that survives the translation, particularly since it's not particularly two bulls and more like a giant panther with a demon dude jutting out of it like a weird Nuckelavee-style monster or something. Not particularly thematic for the Temple of the Ancients, I feel, which had a more 'true inheritors of the planet' vibe instead of this guy, which feels more at home in a more 'hell' themed dungeon. Still, a pretty alright design. 

Jemnezmy & Snow

Jemnezmy is a bizarre one. All the monsters in the Temple of the Ancients have all been animals, or simply just plain weird like the Doorbull. But then you've got Jemnezmy, who's just a blonde lady in a swimsuit. She always spawns with Toxic Frogs, and Jemnezmy's behaviour will change depending on the gender of your party members. She'll cast 'Fascination', a spell that confuses male party members, but against females (or others that are turned into frogs by her buddies) she'll use the icy "Cold Breath". And for no real reason, she also has an insane weakness to Poison spells, something that I had no idea about until reading the wiki. She's also able to cast the 'Toad' spell.

So I guess she's sort of like a combination of Circe (turns people into animals) and something like the Sirens? Very bizarre, and the location you find her in is also pretty bizarre. She could have been a pretty simple, repetitive trope of being a seductress, but I do like the bit of random context clues that really make Jemnezmy be so bizarre. 

We'll cover the other monsters of the Glacier later on, but one of them is a repaint of Jemnezmy and actually acts as sort of a mini-boss! She uses exclusively ice spells, and you actually meet her seemingly as a traveler in a cave that gets mad if you touch her after touching a hot springs, revealing herself to be a Snow. While Jemnezmy is a bit more ambiguous, Snow here is clearly meant to be some sort of a Yuki-onna. Cool! 

8 Eye / Hecteyes

Only encountered in a very specific room in the Temple of the Ancients, 8 Eye (a.k.a. Hecteyes, his Japanese name and the name of a recurring monster in the franchise) has way more than 8 eyes. I like this. I like that it's just literally a giant chunk of flesh with a bunch of eyes on it. This one looks a lot more uncomfortable-looking than a lot of the other, cooler-looking Hecteyes in the franchise, though. This guy just looks so lumpy and misshapen! He's also a huge pain in the ass to fight, with his attacks either doing massive health-percentage damage, countering your magic spells by burning your MP or countering your physical spells by casting debuffs on you. I like eyeball monsters, but I kinda wished that the Hecteyes had a bigger presence in the Temple of the Ancients. 

Red Dragon

Lots of revelations and monologues in the Temple of the Ancients, and at one point you fight a mini-boss. After all the bizarreness of the monsters in this temple it's actually a bit distracting to fight just the most vanilla dragon ever. Red Dragon is just a red repaint of the Dragon we fight in Mt. Nibel, and it breathes fire. Neat, but actually kinda boring and doesn't even offer much of a challenge. 

Demons Gate

This guy, on the other hand, is far more entertaining. The actual final boss of the Temple of the Ancients, Demons Gate (or is it meant to be Demon's Gate?) emerges from the wall above the exit of the temple in an overworld cutscene. Only Gi Nattak ever got something like that! Apparently a homage to the Demon Wall enemies in previous games, Demons Gate is very cool. It's just a flat surface, like a portal or a segment of the wall that has just detached, while this massive Xenomorph-demon-dragon-man fusion just partially emerges out of it. Demons Gate isn't actually attached to the architecture behind it, and while it certainly could simply be PS1 graphical limitations, I like the idea that the flat, shadowy portal is just simply part of this creature's anatomy, or if it's just partially summoned and has to lug around the weird flat surface around.

A pretty cool demon boss, too, even if it is admittedly pretty evocative of Alien. I do like the ridges and the ribcage-like details, and the fact that he's partially emerging from a flat surface does add a lot of personality to this thing. A very, very cool boss fight, and one that I will certainly remember a lot more than "just a generic fire dragon" up above! 

Vlakorados

I actually met the residents of "Icicle Area" on the north continent, shortly after getting the Tiny Bronco so that I can claim the Kjata materia. Icicle Area has a giant dinosaur kaiju skeleton as a town! But there's a severe lack of actual dinosaur enemies there, except for this guy.  

This motherfucker, I have a lot to say about. 33,333 health, when all its contemporaries in the same area have barely more than 1,500? Absolutely annoying to bring down if you happen to not bring your 'Demi' spells! Its Japanese name is actually Brachioraidos, a recurring dinosaur-themed enemy. FFVII's version is far, far more like a spiky theropod with a particularly developed rear end compared to a brachio-anything, though. And it's just a huge, huge health bar that is a gigantic pain to murder. It sure is a giant dinosaur monster, I like how it looks but I have PTSD just copying that picture from the Wiki.

Trickplay, Malldancer & Boundfat

One of the creatures that show up in Icicle Area and the subsequent series of areas that's the Lost Woods Sleeping Forest, Coral Valley and Forgotten Capital. This guy is a stronger version of the Mu, called "Trickplay". Not much to say here, it's basically the same thing. I like the underground squirrel, I just don't necessarily have anything to say about him. Honestly, the areas in the whole northern continent feels like it's far more interesting than a lot of the monsters you encounter there initially. 

We've got two 'repaint' enemies from way earlier in the game, both showing up in the Corel Forest. Judging by the surroundings, though, which are giant marine coral, it's probably meant to be Coral Forest (Correl is a different part of the game!), so it makes a bit more sense for these quasi-aquatic creatures to show up. The Malldancer (whose name is just bizarre and doesn't make sense) is a repaint of the weird Chuse Tanks from Midgar's subway, while the spiky goblin-ogre Boundfat is a repaint of the Hedgehog Pie from Aerith's church. Neither one really leaves much for me to say that I haven't said about them before... but the Malldancer does attack by summoning a storm of leaves. Did the Chuse Tanks do that too? Why is a floating seahorse monster able to control leaves? The mind boggles. 

Hungry

This is a bizarre but cute one! I think he's a ghost? He's coloured like a ghost, has a tail and has a somewhat ghostly head-antennae. He's got cute legs and hands, though, and two bizarre eyes that just pop out of his eyes like little drills. I think they might be meant to resemble a slug's eyestalks? Or maybe those are just two bee abdomen sticking out of his eyes or something. And, of course, his head just hinges open like goddamn Pac-Man. The gimmick here with Hungry is that it will try to cast 'Mini', a spell that turns your characters small, and then subsequently eat you, removing that shrunken character from battle. Bizarre and very flavourful, if you'll pardon the pun! 

Jenova-LIFE

The final boss of the first disc, and after a sequence of cutscenes that anyone who knows anything about Final Fantasy VII knows all about -- it's The Big Moment (tm), one that you most certainly already know about, and it happens after a series of revelations and potentially time-consuming dungeon puzzles. And then after The Big Spoiler Moment happens, Sephiroth leaves off a little orb that transforms into Jenova LIFE. It's literally just a repaint of Jenova Birth from earlier, although the impact of this fight is an interesting one considering that it plays a certain very significant theme in lieu of the usual boss fight. Jenova LIFE herself is actually relatively simple -- a ton of HP and a ton of area attacks, but honestly either I over-leveled a bit in the Temple of the Ancients (I had to backtrack a lot because the layout was confusing) or Jenova LIFE just simply doesn't have enough tricks to deal enough damage. She deals primarily water-based attacks and reflects some damaging magic, but after figuring that out she's actually a much simpler boss fight. 

Mobius Final Fantasy, in its card arts, at least tried to make Jenova LIFE and Jenova Birth look different; the anatomy is retained but the shape of the wings and the way that tail-like tentacle coils around her body does admittedly make Jenova LIFE look more like some elder god sealed deep beneath the ocean. Honestly, a lot of people note that maybe this fight isn't necessary and breaks the pacing of the story, and I 100% agree. Still, I kind of get what the designers were going for; they wanted "Disc One" to end with a final boss. It's just that the end of Disc One and the beginning of Disc Two are so heavily tied together in story beats that instead Jenova LIFE feels as much a distraction as the damn archaeology mini-game.

Acrophies

Insert disc two to explore more of the dungeon! And as you enter the (very short) Coral Valley Cave with many of the similar vaguely aquatic-themed enemies from earlier, you'll meet this bizarre motherfucker. I love this guy! Even more so than the actual Chimera enemy or the Kimara Bug, Acrophies does look like some sort hideous combination of various sea creatures. It looks like a giant coral reef with an anemone growing out of the side, a purple starfish stuck on it, a giant snake (or is it an eel) jutting out of one end and a random assortment of crab limbs on the other; and a bizarre bug-face, Acrophies looks like it's either some sort of fusion of aquatic creatures... or maybe these guys are a colony organism? Similar things have happened in real life, although certainly not to the extent of Acrophies. Apparently its name is drawn from Acropora, a genus of polyp corals. The whole Forgotten City and Coral Valley Area does look like our characters are walking around an entire city made up of giant marine coral, so it is very much appropriate to have a creature like this running around. I guess the Ancients just really like marine life?

Grimguard

Not everything in Coral Valley Cave are aquatic-themed, and these guys show up! Grimguards are... I'm not sure what they are! The Ancients that actually show up and are vaguely helpful look like generic old men, so are these... golems? Magical familiars? Whatever they are, they kind of look like Dobby the elf from Harry Potter. It's hard to see if they're actually creatures of flesh or some sort of golem, puppet or doll. Especially since they're guarding this location that's clearly been sealed deep behind a mystical coral city surrounded by a make-you-lost forest in an icy continent. They sure have a cute expression, a fun little elf-ear and the most adorable little club. The Grimguard actually does have a gimmick, that shield rotates a bit between a 'physical defense' and 'magical defense' form like some of the enemies from the Nibel Shinra Mansion. Pretty neat! Such a shame that Coral Valley Cave is so short...

Bandersnatch, Frozen Nail & Ice Golem

...because the next area, the pretty long Icicle Area and Glacier Area, are all kind of very samey. It's all snow, and a huge theme is just how easily you get lost and how so many screens look similar. I get it, it's pretty close to what real hiking into snowy mountains is like, but man, I did not enjoy this leg of the game, and the obnoxious snowboard minigame and the 'fatigue' mechanics really didn't help either. 

The most common enemies in the very easy-to-get-lost mountain area are these two, the Bandersnatch and the Frozen Nail. Bandersnatch is apparently a name Final Fantasy likes to reuse, but this is just literally a wolf with no real abilities to speak of. Frozen Nail is cool, it's a repaint of the Kelzmelzer... which we just saw not too long ago in the Temple of the Ancients, so as much as I enjoyed the model, it does feel somewhat repetitive. 

Not much to say about the Ice Golem either, although I do want to note that this guy is tiny. Like, around half the size of Cloud's model. And unlike the other two 'repaint' enemies here, at least it's been a while since we've seen the regular Golem, and that one was a pretty rare encounter. 

Shred

Not all the enemies in the Great Glacier are repaints, but the ones that have a high appearance rate seems to be the wolf and the bug. "Shred" here is an interesting one, though, and not a creature I'd expect to see in an icy region. It's a bizarre lizard-man with fins for lower legs and a long tapering tail that makes it look like it would belong more in an underwater area, like it's a more traditional D&D Sahuagin or something. Was it meant to appear in the vaguely underwater-themed Coral Area instead of the ice one? Honestly, the Coral Area and the Forgotten City felt like it was such a breeze to get through considering the long slog that the Temple of the Ancients and now the Icicle Area are, I wouldn't be surprised if some of the monsters that were designed there were shuffled off elsewhere. 

Jumping

Ha, the bunny enemy is called 'Jumping'. This is actually a pretty cool rabbit fantasy monster, it's standing upright with clearly exaggerated features, but you don't go full-on Bugs Bunny or... well, Fran, if we're going to use an example from Final Fantasy. It's got more humanoid hands, but I love just how rodent-like that face still is, and how bunny-like the legs are. And of course it's holding a carrot like a god damn shiv. A wonderfully charming enemy. 

Magnade

Another thing that made the Great Glacier so frustrating to go through other than combining all the 'let's make this area a fucker to navigate' tropes that this game has is that all the enemies are just... they're just boring but they spawn so often, and not even the more interesting guys like Magnade here offer anything unique. No new skills to steal, no unique drops, not even any sort of mechanics. It's just "this thing does physical attacks". Magnade is a minotaur man. He looks pretty cool, but I just can't muster any enthusiasm about him. 

Lessaloploth

Apparently meant to be "Lesser Ropross" in homage to a mecha from the manga Babel II, I actually do like the translation's "Lessaloploth", which does make it sound like some sort of scientific genus or something. How many dragon models does a game need? Quite a bit, apparently. Lessaloploth shares its scorpion-tailed 'wyvern' model with the Rapps mini-boss that we fought a while back in Wutai. It's kinda cool, but like the Magnade this enemy doesn't really offer much in terms of memorability. 

And that's about it for the Great Glacier. I'm sorry, I really enjoyed the story moments of this whole sequence. The Sephiroth, Aerith and Cait Sith stuff are great, but the middle-segment exploration of the Temple of the Ancients with the puzzles was a bit irritating; the archaeology bit to reach the Forgotten Capital was frustratingly dumb; that whole Forgotten City/Capital stuff could've actually used a bit more buildup; Jenova-Life kinda ruined the pacing a bit; and then I just got utterly frustrated at everything past Icicle Inn. Oh well, eventually broke down and got a guide. 

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Bahamut

Beating up the Red Dragon in the Temple of the Ancients nets you the Bahamut materia. He sure is a platinum dragon, and I honestly wonder why they didn't use Bahamut's model as the boss fight,m or at least a repainted version of him. As my Digimon reviews have clued you guys in, these sort of 'vaguely-humanoid dragon' enemies aren't really my thing, but I can still very much appreciate just how cool they are. Original FFVII goes for a pretty simple dragon with a slightly more humanoid pose and extra claws on the tip of the wings. A bit more boring, perhaps, but very cool. Remake Bahamut goes for a far more humanoid figure, looking more like a human with dragon parts grafted onto him. Both are pretty cool, I have to say, although I'm going to have to also say that I sort of get a bit more appreciation for FFXIII's weird Transformer Bahamut. 

Alexander

It's still really bizarre that among the borrowed deity names like Bahamut, Leviathan, Odin or Shiva, we've got Alexander the Great. Always as a giant castle-robot that deals holy damage. And here we are, FFVII's incarnation of Alexander, showing in the most common appearance that Alexanders show up as -- half of a giant robotic body with two pillar-like arms that seem to fuse to the ground, and details that indicate that this is a giant palace or fortress with spires and awnings and stuff. It's honestly pretty damn great, and looks just so bizarre next to the otherwise pretty organic-looking summons of this franchise. The graphics are a limitation, perhaps, but the fact that you actually have to go a bit out of your way to get him (it's the aforementioned obscure Snow quest) and the fact that he's a god damn giant holy robot makes him extra-awesome. 

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Anyway, see you guys next time!

Tokusatsu Monster Review: Ultraman Gaia, Part 2

Part two of my coverage of Ultraman Gaia monsters! Not much to say that I haven't said in part one; we're basically going through all the monsters in rough episodic order for Ultraman Gaia. We covered the first 26 episodes in the first part, and I talk a bit about the show itself there, and here I cover the back half of the show. It's been really fun talking about these kaiju! Oddly, I don't think I've ever watched another Ultraman show ever unless you count the Netflix Ultraman cartoon which I think mostly just reinvented characters from the very first TV series. Anyway, on with the monsters!

Meemos / Crisis Ghost

Design-wise, this one is... not that interesting? It's just a giant humanoid silver man with a bunch of... what do you even call those things on his shoulders and legs? Horns? Spines? Sails? They're like little spikes that jut around and then loop back. Or two bony spurs that meet at their tips. Those do give Meemos a pretty interesting silhouette, if nothing else. And he's got pointy boots! I always appreciate a good pointy-booted design.

The episode that "Metal Organism" Meemos appears in is a lot more interesting, because it starts off as a sentient computer virus called Crisis Ghost, who, in typical sci-fi fashion, infects a supercomputer and takes control of it, eventually merging with the remains of the two "Metal Organism" aliens, Apatee and Alguros. Alguros mimicked Ultraman Agul, so Meemos here ends up mimicking Ultraman Gaia... though pre-power-up Ultraman Gaia. I did vividly remember the episode, but I felt like Meemos made a larger impression as a computer virus instead of as a fused metal organism kaiju thing. 

Enzan

Tenkai appeared very early on in the series, so I had thought that the mysterious hurricane-generating eldritch device was merely a one-off enemy... until "Nature Control Machine" Enzan shows up! Where Tenkai represents atmospheric cleansing, Enzan was a volcanic being that was meant to, and I quote, 'melt the ice caps and prevent the new inhabitants of Earth from suffering an ice age', in an attempt to  repopulate the Earth. Gee, Enzan, no worries about that, we humanity are doing a swell job melting the ice caps ourselves.

Enzan first appeared in an inhuman shape, looking almost like part of some massive, alien ruin... but unlike its predecessor Tenkai, Enzan actualyl has a humanoid figure! And for a volcanic being, Enzan's full design is bizarrely very bug-like. Sure, it's still got those runes and the texture of some sort of circuitry around its body, but it's got those two gigantic pincers jutting out of its head like some sort of stag beetle monster. Heck, it's basically Pinsir from Pokemon, isn't it? Except instead of a mutant stag beetle, this is some sort of living ancient machine sent by advanced god-like aliens to terraform the Earth. 

Rukulion

In one of the most infamously trippy episodes in Ultraman Gaia, "Guardian Beast" Rukulion, where the whole episode mostly has Ultraman Gaia fight a giant kaiju... and never really defeat him, because Rukulion and the guest star of the week, a random old man, are both like, tied to some mystical floating city that appears and later just picks up both Rukulion and the old man and disappears. There's probably some more depth than my truncated summary, but it's still a bizarre standalone episode in a series that has mostly been about fighting either alien monsters or creatures from deep beneath the Earth. Rukulion himself is honestly a pretty cool one, all things considered, for one of these bipedal Gojira body-shape kaiju. The head is what really makes it pop, with a singular prominent red eyeball as the only feature. I like the weird ribcage-like ridges on its chest and neck/chin, and I like its weird stubby arms. 

Gokigumon

"Space Monster" (ain't they all?) Gokigumon is... a giant cockroach! While Gaia has had a lot of weirder monsters in its repertoire, Gokigumon felt refreshingly like a B-movie monster. It's just a giant space cockroach that towers over buildings, that arrives on Earth and lays eggs in a random skyscraper. It fights by spitting webs at Gaia. Design-wise Gokigumon still follows the same old kaiju body plan, but I really do like that they made its torso and abdomen taper off into an engorged 'tail', and its legs look like bloated maggots. The bug head and cockroach wings (which expand!) are pretty standard as far as bug monsters go, but I really love those arms which just end in a mass of very mean-looking jagged spikes. It's not my favourite monster in Gaia by a long shot, but it says something about just how weird Ultraman Gaia's bestiary is when the giant building-sized roachzilla is just run-of-the-mill for me. 

Gan-Q Code No. 02

Gan-Q, being one of the most popular monster designs, shows back up in a sequel episode! And he first shows up in that form you see on the left, where he's literally noted as a walking corpse. Did they leave the actual Gan-Q suit out in the sun or something? It really looked nasty. I have no idea how an eyeball monster would decay, but I guess this would look like it?

The episode that deals with Gan-Q No. 02 reveals that Gan-Q is... the ghost of an ancient sorcerer called Kijuro Mato. Which is fucking weird, mind you, and felt kind of out of place... but on the other hand, so is Gan-Q. Eventually Gan-Q resurrects himself in a brand-new body. It's essentially a 'repaint', but in a pretty clever idea, Gan-Q's second form is wrapped up with those red tendrils that I am very sure is meant to represent engorged blood vessels, something that people associate very much with an irritated eye. Very cool idea to expand upon this eyeball monster from a conceptual standpoint!

Aeroviper

"Spacetime Monster" Aeroviper looks pretty simple. It's a bipedal reptile dinosaur, but with wings! Wings that are attached to his arms, so he can pose like Batman holding his cape! Design-wise Aeroviper isn't really all that interesting, and I actually forgot about him! I did remember the episode he shows up in, though, which involves our protagonist Gamu getting warped into an apocalyptic future where everything is filled with sand and ruins. Because Aeroviper turns out to be able to travel through time! That alone was kind of novel enough as an enemy concept, but I feel like Aeroviper's design was a bit too mundane-looking as far as these Kaiju go. Comparing him to how weirdly unnatural something like the C.O.V. looked, I feel like they didn't put that much effort into Aeroviper's visual design. 

Syazac

Another bipedal-reptile-esque monster, "Legendary Mystical Beast" Syazac's little gimmick is that it's got a whole ton of porcupine spikes running down its head down its tail. Oh, and two giant bulbs on its cheeks, like one of those weird goldfishes. After many extraterrestrial threats, the Syazac is finally one that is another example of something that's native to Earth, this time being a primordial ancient being worshipped by people in Canada. It can manipulate weather to some extent, and despite looking kind of goofy, I remembered the Syazac actually posing a fair amount of threat to good ol' Ultraman. 

The story for the Syazac is a pretty solid one as well -- it's actually harmless and actually likes the humans as long as they don't bother them. Ultraman Gaia is stuck between a branch of GUARD that is very happy to nuke Syazac all to hell, and is forced to fight Syazac when she very understandably retaliates against the GUARD agents. Turns out the Syazac is a mommy, too, with a whole swarm of baby Syazacs, and the humans eventually realize that they have no business killing this creature.

Wolf Fire

"Cyborg Beastman" Wolf Fire is a repaint of the earlier "Wolf Gas" monster, but with a bunch of spiky red details on his hair and chest. It's another member of the Wolf Gas race, only these are cybernetically transformed by other aliens (presumably the Radical Destruction Bringer?) into their minions. There's a plot of the Wolf Fires going around abducting people to turn into more cyborgs, but otherwise I kind of find this monster design and the episode they debuted in to be underwhelming. 

Algona

"Ancient Monster" Algona is a monster born out of an ancient egg that hatched mid-transit. It's the most simple origin story you could give to one of these kaijus, and as far as design goes, Algona is rather simple as well -- it looks like a weird-looking dinosaur with a bunch of extra features. A sail on its spine, and a bunch of horns on its head and lower chin. Weird, but if you told me that this is an actual dinosaur I've never heard of before, I wouldn't be surprised. A perfectly average kaiju monster. 

X-Savarga

X-Savarga is read as 'Cross Savarga', and his title is Space Ninja Beast. Hell yeah, you know you're in for a fun time when a monster is called a Space Ninja Beast. See, if he's just a giant ninja man, he'd be boring. But this guy is a bird-headed dragon guy with a tentacle beard, a cape-like wing, a drill for a hand. He technically still falls under the 'well, it's just a regular Godzilla with some details changed' that many of the kaiju in the second half of Gaia fall into, but the face that he's a Space Ninja makes him extra-fun. He can make shadow clones! He can stomp the ground to flip up a giant chunk of the Earth to parody those 'tatami flip' things in ninja movies! He can shoot out mini-versions of himself to swarm Ultraman! He's a ninja!

Queen Mezard

After Mezard and Psycho Mezard, we finally get the leader and the source of all the previous Mezards, the Queen herself shows up in all her unholy glory. And... and, okay, I do love the Mezards to bits, but I can't help but feel like the Queen is perhaps the most... underwhelming? But that might just be because the episodes with the Psycho Mezards had some really spooky horror themes as they stalk innocents. Queen Mezard still does her illusions and poses as dead people to try and guilt-trip our heroes, but that's nowhere as creepy as the carousel thing that her young did. Queenie's design is basically similar enough to the second Psycho Mezard, complete with the grinning fat human face on her belly, but she swapped the 'sad turtle' skull for a more threatening multi-eyed draconic one. Oh, and she's got new whip-arms, bringing it back to the whole jellyfish theme. Pretty cool, although if we're being honest I still like the Psycho Mezard design so much more visually. 

Tigris

"Crust Underground Monster" Alboom-Tigris here is an interesting one, meant to be a giant, guardian-like saber-tooth tiger. It's got a bunch of neat, statue-like wings, and two drill-horns. I think it's meant to specifically be a kaiju version of the Byakko, the White Tiger of the Four Symbols, since they are monsters from Earth that protect the Earth? The Mizunoeno-ryu is obviously the Azure Dragon and the Zonnel is a pretty neat Black Tortoise, but the wiki kind of loses me with Syazac as the Vermilion Bird. (Also it's kind of obvious that they're trying very hard to disguise that it's a guy in the suit on his knees. It doesn't work quite as well; and this is why most tokusatsu monsters are bipedal)

Anyway, Tigris! It's his backstory that's more interesting than anything, because his whole episode is just one, one long extended moment of suffering as Tigris, slumbering deep within the earth, is mortally wounded by a weapons testing. Spewing not-blood as it rampaged, the military basically kept attacking Tigris as everyone else sees just how terrible it is since Tigris is essentially just a wounded animal, and the episode ends with a pretty depressing scene -- Tigris dies, succumbing to his wounds. That's it. Despite being set up as a guardian deity in the same vein as the Mizunoeno-ryu, not one but two other Tigrises show up in the final episodes. Both of them die in the process. Poor Tigris!

Tsuchikera

The "Mud Phantom" Tsuchikera isn't a particularly exciting monster on paper. It's got a pretty memorable face, and as a swamp monster, he's got a serviceable design. A giant hunchback and a face that's located closer to the chest more than anything, I did like the idea that this dude is just a swamp who stood up, with so much detritus and random fallen trees embedded in his flesh. 

That would've been the extent of my commentary, if the episode starring Tsuchikera isn't so memorable for how sad it is. See, Tsuchikera isn't some alien invader, or some ancient prehistoric species, or even the ghost of an ancient evil sorcerer or whatever. No, Tsuchikera was a man called Kondo. 'Was' being the operative term here, because Kondo was a scientist that worked in a war and refused to utilize an artificial bacteria as a weapon of war. A confrontation with soldiers trying to confiscate the bacteria caused Kondo to be fused with the bacteria and transform into this mud-monster... and he later fled to a swamp. Kondo's friend Hirano would bring Kondo's daughter (who he adopted) to play in the swamp, so even in his monstrous state Kondo could at least watch his daughter from afar... until the girl died in an air raid, leaving Kondo-Tsuchikera's only solace being a music box that he associates with her. And in the present day? Turns out that the battle with Tigris ended up polluting the swamp and causing Tsuchikera to grow even more violent and crazy. Ultimately Ultraman Gaia uses an ability called "Gaia Healing", which IIRC was a random ability used only in this episode... but since the episode itself was already utterly depressing all throughout, I guess this small solace at the end is okay. Anyway, surprisingly sad for what's otherwise a giant angry swamp monster!

Pazgeek

Oooh, I like this one. "Large Air Demon" Pazgeek looks so weird! Pazgeek doesn't really have any intricate backstory beyond being just a giant alien monster, but design-wise he feels alien in the way that the C.O.V. felt, only dialed up to eleven. I love that its 'face' is just this giant spike with a row of blue eyes. Is that fleshy bit on his 'chest' actually a huge, frowning mouth? I like the somewhat rocky texture on his bulbous chicken legs, and I love his two giant pincer claws. This guy is just weird, and his ability is to create weird warp rings in space that allows it to travel from place to place quickly. A pretty neat weirdo!

Sigma Zuigul

The "Space Capture Mechabeast" Sigma Zuigul is sure a weirdo! He actually has a pretty standard humanoid body shape (the 'arms' of the suit actor isn't obviously visible in this image), but the 'head' is replaced by three giant metallic rings that loop around and rejoin in the spine. It's a bit more obvious when seen from the side. Sigma Zuigul has a little cross-shaped rune on its chest, which he uses to hold the host of Ultraman Gaia hostage. One wonders why Zuigul doesn't just, y'know, step on Gamu, but I guess he is a "Space Capture Mechabeast", not a "Space Executioner Mechabeast". Not the most memorable monster, but at least he's pretty weird looking. I can appreciate the effort, at least. 

Satanbizor / Bizorm

"Huge Deformed Beast" Satanbizor is a member of a race of beings known as 'Spirit Parasites', and is part of a multi-part episode that sort of explains the overarching plot of the series, where it's basically told that the mysterious Radical Destruction Bringer is the one responsible for sending all the aliens to Earth. Satanbizor here shows up in dreams to a traitorous member of humanity, using him as a conduit to torment our hero with nightmares. Ultimately, Satanbizor and the traitorous Klaus Eckhart transforms into the "Parasitic Spirit Beast" Bizorm. The transformation is pretty neatly spooky as well, as Klaus absorbs all the nearby lesser Spirit Parasites.  

Design-wise, I really do like Satanbizor -- he's got a humanoid body plan, but his feet look like weird platform shoes, and the whole body has this Alien-esque organic ridges. And, of course, his entire head and torso is just one vertical glowing yellow laser line -- which becomes Bizorm's face later on. It's not anything particularly revolutionary for one of these Tokusatsu monsters to have a non-standard face, but it's pretty neat. I definitely like Satanbizor more than Bizorm, though. 

Izac

(No, not the Gundam SEED character.) "Altes Tiger Monster" Izac is the result of Jurassic Park gone wrong. A bunch of scientists try to clone a fictional extinct tiger species called the Altes Tiger, and thanks to some vague wormhole radiation, the clone transforms into a giant building-sized tiger kaiju that stands on his hind legs. It's an all right giant tiger-man, I suppose, and I do like how it looks a lot more stockier than most feline Tokusatsu monsters. He's all right. I don't find his design or his episode memorable at all. 

Super C.O.V. & Super Pazuzu

At one episode, the Radical Destruction Bringer sends super versions of the M91 galaxy aliens that our heroes have fought before, the C.O.V. and the Pazuzu. I do like both of them (C.O.V. more than Pazuzu), so seeing them back with repainted suits is neat. Not too much to say here, I'm just including them here for completion's sake. 

Blitz Blots

What a goofy design! "Destruction Devil" Blitz Blots even has a weird name. This is probably one of the kaiju designs in this show that looks a bit too obviously like just some dude in a baggy suit... and, of course, his episode has Blitz Blots overpower two Ultramen, a Tigris and the XIG military teams. Honestly, he's just a weird eyeless bird-man who I mostly remember for just how goofy-looking he is. He's got a neat weird asymmetrical black-and-white pattern, I guess, which makes him a bit more visually interesting than he otherwise would be? 

 

Shinyorku

We're almost done! The third and final "Natural Control Machine" Shinyorku, literally 'Deep Green', is the final one of the ancient terraforming machines to show up. Like his predecessors Tenkai and Enzan, Shinryoku's aesthetic seems to look like some sort of ancient ruin or golem, though like Enzan, Shinryoku has a bit of a more humanoid look to him, with obvious arms and legs. I still love that its 'face' is just a glowing orb over two stylized kanji. It also first appeared just as a giant pillar before splitting open, which is always something I found to be kind of cool.

Shinryoku is meant to replant the Earth's forests after Tenkai and Enzan have cleaned the atmosphere and the ground, and it's kind of interesting that a villainous monster is shown basically spreading the forests to consume civilization. Apparently, the Radical Destruction Bringer has transported the three Natural Control Machines from Earth's far future, using them to terraform the planet several hundred centuries earlier than they were meant to. It's kind of neat. 

Mokian

"Supermassive Monopole Organism" Mokian is a giant asteroid! That's no moon, that's a kaiju! 

Way too large for Ultraman Gaia to deal with normally, I did like that Mokian is basically a giant, fleshy asteroid-sized organic ship with random spikes dotting its body, and a massive maw with an eyeball inside. How does that even work? We've seen another organic ship earlier in the show with the Varsite, but Mokian does feel a lot more... eldritch, so to speak. It feels more like a giant monster that just happens to be utilized as a vehicle by the ones piloting it, and Mokian was so large that the eventual way that our heroes defeat it is by ramming it with the Aerial Base -- the actual base that our heroes have been operating out of for the entire series. As a giant evil meteor, Mokian's pretty cool. 

Shinigami / Zebub

Shinigami (Japanese for 'death god') is the minion of the Radical Destruction Bringer that piloted the Mokian, and he's got a pretty interesting design. Sitting cross-legged like an evil sorcerer, Shinigami's flesh is like... it's sort of filled with spirals and weird swirly flesh? Some Uzumaki vibes here. Shinigami basically acts as a herald of the Radical Destruction Bringer, hijacking news networks and blowing up cities, before finally transforming into his true form of "Destruction Devil" Zebub... Zebub's just a giant bug-headed man, though, and I felt like it was kind of underwhelming for how unsettling Shinigami was in his first form. This show doesn't really have recurring villains like most later Tokusatsu shows, so having one that's actually pretty chatty and felt kind of important even if he lasted only a couple of episodes felt kind of special. 

Dobishi / Kaiser Dobishi

And the three-parter finale heralded by the Shinigami involves these guys! The "Destructive Magic Worm" Dobishi are these weird giant bug-bat monsters, and they look pretty cool for a swarm of space alien bugs. I do like that their heads look like some sort of weird fish or reptile. The Wiki notes that apparently the Dobishi were based on horseshoe crabs, which is pretty interesting! A massive swarm of these guys attack the Earth, which leads to not only the Ultramen and the humans fighting, but basically every single one of the Earth-native kaiju we've seen in previous episodes showing up to fight them as well. 

The individual Dobishi can swarm together into giant kaijus called "Destruction Demon Bug" Kaiser Dobishi, and I love how weird this guy is. There is absolutely nothing buggy about this form, and it doesn't really look like the regular Dobishi. I do like that its head is just this gigantic crescent that just points upwards, and the rest of it is just a random amalgamation of features on a humanoid body. Yes, sure, it's got two arms and two legs, but I love that it's got a giant bone hook for one hand; eyeballs on its knees; a huge eyeball on where its head would be; a ribcage-maw on its chest, and... and I'm not even sure what's going on between the central eyeball and the chest-mouth -- it's like the weird ridges a second, smiling mouth. It's pretty demonic-looking, I like it. And you think that the chest-teeth things are going to bite Ultraman, but instead it opens up and an Alien chestburster eel-tendril will lash out to bite the Kaiser Dobishi's prey. Okay! The Kaiser Dobishis actually manage to kill a Tigris and a Geel in the process, and almost killed a Zonnel. I did really like what these episodes ended up showing, with so many other monsters from previous episodes showing up to fight the Kaiser Dobishi in their respective territories. 

Zogu

The final villain and one of the most powerful agents of the Radical Destruction Bringer is the giant CGI angel Zogu. First showing up a s a giant metallic angel lady , Zogu masquerades as an ally against the giant Dobishi swarms, before revealing her true form as a four-legged giant Godzilla-esque monster. I kind of found her to be a bit underwhelming as the final enemy of the show, but I guess it's pretty visually impressive is nothing else? Not the biggest fan of this one especially with how weird Gaia's monster menagerie had been with the Mezards, Lezite, the nature-machines, Gan-Q and all that, but I suppose a dragon-centaur monster is all right? One thing that this image doesn't show properly is that Zogu is a kaiju-among-kaiju, towering over Ultraman Gaia, Ultraman Agul and Mizunoeno-ryu the way they would tower over humans. I did like the pattern on her wings, and the fact that the humanoid form's wing-helmet things on the side of her head gets translated to the monstrous form. But otherwise... Zogu isn't exactly boring, not in the way that I sort of gloss over some of the monsters on this page like Algona, but as the final villain I've always found Zogu to be slightly underwhelming. 

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Overall, this is kind of fun. The early episodes of Ultraman Gaia in particular have really felt like they had so much creativity among them, and this show really will always have a special place in my heart for basically introducing me to the Kaiju genre and having so many weird selection of monsters among its repertoire. It did kind of admittedly slow down a bit near the end, but I did really enjoy sitting down and talking about this show's monster designs. I'm browsing through the tokusatsu monsters of the many Kamen Rider shows, and am basically looking for ones where there's enough variety for me to talk about, and ones where I wouldn't just go on huge rambling rants on either the antagonistic characters themselves. We'll see.