TERRAGAIA
Angered at the quality of water at a local drinking fountain, Takeshi decides the entire city must pay and unleashes Terragaia upon the water system in town. Terragaia hacks into the system and manages to transform the water into deadly hydrochloric acid! Gridman is only able to defeat Terragaia after Ippei and Yuka design the Thunder Jet and Twin Driller to assist Gridman in combat. For such a terrifying plan, we’ve got a cool looking monster here, being a really cool beetle design with a brassy sorta look to him. I also love those vents alongside his abdomen!
Terragaia’s name is of course, derived from “Terra” and “Gaia”, the Rome and Greece goddesses of the Earth, fitting in with the burrowing beetle theme. Terragaia was originally meant to be a mole cricket, which while I am always down for a beetle kaiju, a mole cricket would be a fun animal to draw inspiration from.
METALLUS
A monster with a metallic body that can reflect Gridman’s beam attacks, Metallus is sent by Takeshi and Khan to put 100,000 yen on prepaid credit cards, creating a massive shopping spree. However, once these cards hit a balance of zero, they cause cash registers to explode! Much like the last few kaiju we’ve seen, Gridman needs a new support vehicle in the form of the God Tank to take down Metallus, showing us that Takeshi and Khan’s monsters are forcing our heroes to escalate the conflict further, and further to stop them.
Metallus, the culprit behind Takeshi’s “Shopping Game of the Terror” is a real fun creature, with a sleek, metallic body and some nice asymmetrical claws. He almost comes across as a Baltan-esque character without cribbing too much design wise from our favorite space ninja. The suit’s horns were originally made from fiber-reinforced plastic, but they injured the preformers, so new ones were made from softer materials.
Rather getting a mecha form, Metallus returns as Neo Metallus…which is essentially a mecha form. While not as sleek as the original, Neo Metallus is a nice looking design, and I like how they have this iteration a blue chest light as opposed to the red one the original had. Neo Metallus is created to take control of an excavator at a dig site, after the discovery of a tyrannosaurus pisses off Takeshi and Khan because they’re angry that this dinosaur is a “king” when the only king should be Khan, pretty wacky. Neo Metallus once again proves to be enough of a threat for Gridman to need a new ally to help him out: The powerful robotic Dynadragon!
MAGNEGAUSS
After a security salesman from Cat’s Eye Security breaks into his house disguised as a thief to try and convince Takeshi to buy a home security system, Takeshi and Khan create Magnegauss to sabotage every system Cat’s Eye has sold. Gridman is only able to take the monster down with the help of God Xenon, a robot created from the God Tank, Thunder Jet and Twin Driller combining.
Magnegauss here is a fine quadrupedal monster, and the darker skin, and mirrors on his tail make him feel very much in line with the Minus Energy kaiju from Ultraman 80. I’m also quite fond of the ribbed neck he’s got, which reminds one simultaneously of whales, along with Shin Godzilla oddly enough. As his name suggests, Magnegauss is armed with magnetic abilities, being able to create his own forcefield, and firing off magnetic blasts. I also really dig how the horns on his back are supposed to be reminiscent of a horseshoe magnet, which is a delightful touch.
GENERADON
Angered after being embarrassed by a gym instructor, Takeshi plans to get his revenge the only way he can: By sending a kaiju there to interfere with the high-tech equipment. Generadon himself is a massive kaiju, even compared to the monsters Gridman has battled previously, and only with Gridman combining with his support vehicles to become Thunder Gridman does he manage to vanquish Generadon.
I have to say, aside from yet another amusing Takeshi plot, I’m not super sold on Generadon. I feel like the design itself is too cumbersome, and has too much detail on it. Not to mention, the monster is constantly shaking itself around, making it hard to get a good look at the thing.
Generadon’s name of course comes generator, though one name originally bandied about for the character included Electon. The monster during the design process also gave the creature the ability to shoot his horns out like a whip.
Generadon would gain his own mecha form some 10 episodes later, and it’s neat enough I suppose, albeit it’s got the same sort of problems that the original had. Mecha Generadon was utilized in a fairly ingenious plan to lure Gridman into battle and to have Khan cut the power to the computer world in order to trap Gridman in limbo forever, so I’ll give him points for that at least.
DAZZLBA
After having a nightmare where Gridman has to rescue him, Takeshi gets the idea to trap people in a nightmare world by having the monster Dazzlba hack into electronic pillows that help people have a pleasant sleep. Dazzlba himself is a really nice looking kaiju, with an insectoid appearance, and some nice color contrast with the yellows-white-black color scheme. And, with those large whips and his hallucinogenic gas breath, Dazzlba makes for a really cool opponent for the Hyper Agent.
I feel like while they’re not technically kaiju, I should mention the evil clowns in the dream world Dazzlba creates, which are probably much scarier than the monster that created them.
PLANDON
After not having the courage to hand some flowers to Yuka, Takeshi decides that he’ll make the whole world hate flowers by using the monster Plandon to hijack an advanced greenhouse and alter the genes of the flowers there to spew poisonous pollen. Plandon himself is a very nice design, and he was a kaiju that stuck around with me when I first saw him in Syber Squad as a kid. I love how he appears to have veined leaves in place of limbs, as well that pink color scheme he has contrasting nicely with the Computer World environment. He’s a cool interpretation of a plant monster without leaning too hard into the plant motif.
VENORA
Angered by the amount of pollution in his city, Takeshi decides to punish humanity by creating Venora, a gas-spewing monster that is sent to sabotage the smoke treatment facilities of factories to massive amounts of air pollution. When Gridman goes to fight Venora, the monster’s gas proves to be overpowering for Gridman, forcing the hero into retreat. It seems that Khan may have at long last, defeated Gridman, until the hero combines with Dyna Dragon to form King Gridman and vanquish Venora.
The antagonist of the show’s first proper two part episode, Venora is a kaiju that right fully deserves that spot. Venora, based on looks alone, certainly looks very fitting for the first kaiju to defeat Gridman. His orange and brown, spike-covered body feels very intimidating, and I see a bit of Gomora there in his face, which is fitting, since Gomora was the first monster to carry a two-part story in the Ultraman shows. His gas is said to not only attack Gridman’s nervous system, but it also forces the hero to hallucinate his previous battles, which while an easy way to reuse footage, also helps the episode act as a good capstone to the show’s first half.
Venora’s name derives from venom, and was created from the Volcadon suit. The original design, seen above, is clearly closer to Volcadon, but boy do I love that color scheme! Man, seeing that in the show would’ve been really cool, especially if it was applied to the Venora we got!
BORANGA
Created after a toy tank shoots paint onto him by accident, Boranga has the ability to take control of remote controlled toys to wreak havoc. He’s a nice and simple beastie that Boranga. Named after parabolic antennae, Boranga and his army of remote controlled toy tanks and planes makes for an amusing villain scheme. The monster himself, while not one of my favorites, has a very pleasing design, and with those back spines, he almost looks like the little brother to Grand King. The suit was made from a modified Mecha Gilarus suit, with the tail of Venora. It ain’t too shabby, especially considering there was only a very rough design drawing to go off of.
EYEGANGAR
I have to say, fun name aside, Eyegangar’s probably my least favorite of the various Gridman kaiju. The suit itself is just Magnegauss’s, but with a brand new camera based attachment on his head, and so little changes are made to the suit, that I almost feel it could’ve just been Mecha Magnegauss instead of just being a new character (there were plans initially to make Eyegangar a plant-based monster, but it seems they went in a direction that’d save them some change). In addition, Takeshi’s plan involving the monster is incredibly skeevy, using him to teleport Yuka into the computer world through Takeshi’s camera so she can be subject to his various whims and fantasies. Ugh.
JUBAGON
Angered that a fortune telling machine’s advice on getting Yuka’s attention backfired on him, Takeshi and Khan send out the monster Jubagon to take over the machine and have it emit a ray that makes people act out their basest desires. Jubagon here’s one of the show’s cooler monsters, looking akin to a dragon, perfectly fitting the mystical theme with the fortune telling device.
Jubagon’s beam that makes people act out their selfish whims makes for some great hijinks during the episode, and even makes the battle between him and Gridman really exciting since Gridman gets hit by it and is briefly under Khan’s control! In addition, I have to make mention of Jubagon’s fireballs that are shot from his chest, since it’s apparently named the Breast Barbecue, which is perhaps one of the most ridiculous names for a monster attack.
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