HELLER AND HIS ARMY
Much like Ultraman Leo, The☆Ultraman would feature a main villain taking center stage in the last portion of the show’s run. While Heller looks like a fairly human villain, perhaps something that would be considered a bit boring after so many weird alien and monster designs in the show, there’s something that makes him stand out from the others like the Badel and Inved.
You see, Heller and his forces aren’t just any humanoid aliens, they’re from U40. Heller was once an Ultra who wanted to use the power of the Ultra Mind to conquer the universe. Convincing a good number of his people to join him, Heller begins a campaign of universal domination, taking over U40 and even sending his forces to Earth, as he knows of the connection between U40 and ours. While he’s not seen in his Ultra form at all, he’s our first bonafide evil Ultraman. He’s no robot or alien in disguise, but he is truly an Ultra who didn’t walk down the path of the light like the heroes. I’ll admit, when I first saw Heller in my various Japanese reference books, I was a bit disappointed that the final villain was just a human-looking alien, but when I learned Heller was from U40 and rejected his heroic legacy, he easily became one of my favorite villains in the series.
One notable member of Heller’s army is his general Royger, who serves as the leader of the Earth invasion forces. Having another villain under the command of the main one helps Heller’s forces feel more fleshed out than if it was just Heller leading the charge the entire time. He’s also by far one of the more ruthless villains seen in the franchise too, making him a perfect villain for the show’s endgame.
I also feel like I should comment on the Heller soldiers’ armor, which I at first mistook for robots. Finding out that they were former Ultras makes the scenes where they suicide bomb themselves during their initial assault in NYC very grisly.
Like any self-respecting evil villain, Heller even has his own pet, being a horned, saber-toothed space panther. There’s not much to him, but it helps flesh out Heller a bit more.
The☆Ultraman had been inspired by several popular science fiction films of the time, such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Star Wars, but one that had quite the influence on the program was the 1974 anime Space Battleship Yamato. The final arc of the show reflects this, with the heroes getting the U40 battleship, the Ultria and Heller’s forces themselves being reminiscent of the title starship and the antagonistic Gamilas. Lastly, Mamoru Uchiyama’s late 70’s The Ultraman manga (no relation aside from the title, but it did lead to the anime being produced) featured the evil alien Jackal, who led his troops to conquer M78, something I feel this final arc is a loose adaptation of.
While Heller has unsurprisingly, never appeared again, his legacy does live on in the program. There have been numerous evil Ultras throughout the Heisei era, including Ultraman Belial, the formerly heroic M78 Ultra, whom I feel owes quite a bit of inspiration to Heller. In addition, Ultraman Titas, one of the main heroes of 2019’s Ultraman Taiga, was revealed in one of the voice dramas to have been the son of one of Heller’s own troops, sent over by his father to U40 so that he wouldn’t be raised in such a hostile society. Titas’s own black and red coloration reflects his own connection to the Ultras who had rejected the values of U40 and initially made the poor guy hesitant to transform. Awwwwwwwww.
GUMONS
The first kaiju proper we see is Gumons, sent by Heller in order to prevent the Science Defense Guard from uncovering the Ultria in Antarctica. Gumons is a nice looking reptilian monster, bringing to mind Kemular from Ultraman as well as the mythological Tarrasque. I enjoy the mane of claws around his head, as well as the two, tiny, vestigial limbs at the front of his body. He feels like a classic sort of kaiju we would’ve seen in the earlier tokusatsu shows.
HELL CAT
One of the odder monsters in Heller’s arsenal is the aptly named Hell Cat. Looking like a regular kitten at first, Hell Cat is placed inside a rocket that was sent to Saturn. Draining the life force of the crew, the kitten is taken aboard space station EGG3, being mistaken for an innocent house cat.
All the while, Hell Cat stalks the station, draining the life force of anyone who encounters it, and almost succeeds in reenacting Psycho‘s shower scene with agent Mutsumi until Jonias intervenes.
I can’t comment too much on Hell Cat’s design since outside of gaining a set of spines and a mace-tail right before Jonias blows him up, he’s just mainly a large cat. That being said, the general concept of a monster disguised as a cute kitten that’s going around and leaving the mummified husks of it’s victims works incredibly well. The episode’s space station feels very much in line with Alien or It! Terror From Beyond Space, and allows us some great scenes of the cat stalking it’s victims as well as even a human-sized battle between it and Jonias.
FREDERICO AND OROLAN
Arriving on Earth, Orolan begins attacking immediately. While the monster’s ability to shapeshift due to his body’s flexible properties at first proves to be a challenge for Jonias, the Ultra is able to drive off the kaiju. I really like the look of Orolan, as his cartoony, bubblegum pink appearance easily makes him among the strangest of all the kaiju Jonias has fought.
Orolan is the pet of Frederico, an alien boy from the planet Opernicus. Royger had tricked Frederico that the Earth was seeking to conquer the universe and convinced him that he and Orolan needed to stop humanity before they conquered Opernicus. Mutsumi is able to convince Frederico that Royger decieved him.
Sadly, poor Orolan is transformed by Royger into a mindless beast, looking more akin to a stegosaur and losing his flexibility. While Frederico is able to alert Jonias to the creature’s new weakness so he can be put down, the kid dies in the process. The story of Orolan and Frederico truly shows the ruthlessness of Royger, and how cruel Heller’s forces can be when they’re trying to achieve their goal of galactic conquest. Most shows would shy away from a child biting it, but The☆Ultraman? It’s a show that doesn’t play around.
GIRO, GUILLOS AND FAKE JONIAS
Allies of Heller, the Giro aliens embark on a plan to defeat Jonias in exchange for one third of the Earth’s land once it’s conquered. The Giro are simple, humanoid aliens, but their wrinkled faces wouldn’t look out of place in the live-action stuff. I could honestly see these guys running around in Ultraseven or Return of Ultraman.
The Giros’ plan involves creating a robot copy of Jonias and having him battle their own monster, Guillos in order to gain the trust of the Science Defense Guard’s trust, before destroying them. It’s a fairly ingenious plot, especially since Hikari is the only one to catch on, but can’t reveal what he knows without risking his secret identity. Guillos himself is an oddball monster, a furry, clawed creature with the ability to have huge blades pop out of his body and spin around like a tornado. He certainly feels like something a child would’ve created in terms of design and abilities, but that’s a compliment in my book.
I can’t comment much on the Imitation Jonias since he looks just like our hero, only turning blue once he begins to be destroyed. However, one fun tidbit about the character is that for many years, several sources would label this particular robot with the name Ultraman X, the same name used for the 2015 Ultra hero. Obviously Tsuburaya has stopped referring to this particular character as X, but it’s funny that the name of an imitation got recycled for a bonafide hero decades later.
HATARI
I can’t comment too much on Hatari’s design since he’s another human-looking alien. That being said though, what makes Hatari fun is that he’s an intergalactic big game hunter. Hired by Royger, Hatari views Jonias as his greatest challenge. Unlike so many other sorts of characters of this type, Hatari’s a pretty affable and understanding guy, even befriending agent Mutsumi and helping Jonias after Heller’s troops take control of his ship and try to kill him. He’s a character I wish was introduced a bit earlier into the show, as I think he would’ve been a really fun addition to the recurring cast.
While Jonias battling Hatari’s battleship brings forth memories of Iron Rocks from Ultraseven, the ship here isn’t counted as a kaiju.
DOSTONY
We’ve got quite a lot of review here with ol’ Dostony. Dostony is at first, your regular, run of the mill robot space dinosaur. Serviceable, but nothing too special here.
However, when the monster is sent through a teleporter to Earth, Monchi accidentally gets fused with the monster while running around in it. Basically, think The Fly, but with kaiju. I kinda like the Monkey Dostony due to how odd the juxtaposition of the monkey head on the monster’s body, even if he looked like Curious George dressed up in battle armor.
Royger sends a second Dostony through, which is more mechanical. I kinda like his robotic trunk as it makes him look like a mosquito, but he just feels sorta generic.
The two Dostonys then fuse into one monster, which, with all it’s mismatched body parts makes him feel like a kaiju from Ultraman Ace. It’s a shame the episode doesn’t give us a nice, clean full-body shot of the monster and his features, since this is probably the most interesting Dostony design.
SCIEN, SPADER AND CAPERADON
Another alien race aligned with Heller, the Scien launch an attack on Earth by firing rockets containing kaiju to rampage on the surface. The Scien always struck me as looking like Star Trek‘s Vulcans in an odd getup. Strange, but I dig it. Unlike the Giro, we get no indication of why the Scien are working with the rogue U40 Ultras, so I guess they’re just huge jerks.
The monsters sent out in the rockets to Earth are the Caperadons. They’ve got some unique design elements such as the centaur-esque body, and the orange scales with the white, horned head makes them look like an inaccurate medieval reconstruction of an armadillo. Sadly, they’re sort of the episode’s throwaway monster, rather than the main one.
That honor would go to Spader, who’s sent to guard the Scien’s asteroid base when Jonias and the Ultria come a-knockin’. It’s a decent design, with combining insectoid and reptilian features together, but it doesn’t feel as grandiose as the Caperadons.
GOLDING AND THE ANDROID 201 UNIT
In what is his most diabolical plan yet, Heller replaces the 201 Unit of the Far East Zone with android duplicates and has them infiltrate the Science Defense Guard’s base, planting explosives all over. The androids themselves underneath their realistic human faces are quite unnerving looking with those human-like eyes staring out from the mess of machinery.
While the heroes are dealing with the androids, a kaiju, Golding is sent out. Golding’s nothing super special, but it’s the sort of design I could easily see showing up in Ultraman Leo, so I can’t help but like it. What’s fun about Golding is that he’s formed out of ice particles, allowing him to do some neat stuff like form a huge, whip-like tongue he uses for attacking!
GEDON
Arguably one of the strongest monsters in Heller’s arsenal, Gedon is an impressive robot monster filled to the brim with all sorts of missiles and lasers. In addition to it’s nightmarish strength and firepower, the machine is controlled by a saucer in Earth’s atmosphere, which is able to repair the machine whenever it is defeated, making him a nearly unstoppable target.
Gedon is arguably, one of the coolest robot monsters we’ve ever seen in the franchise, just because of how strong this guy is alone. Like, sure, he’s in the show’s endgame, but I could see this guy easily having his own two-part story or even being the final boss of the show. He just comes across as an unstoppable force, like he was the big gun Heller was sitting on to unleash.
The design itself is very nicely done too, giving Gedon a large tank tread instead of a pair of legs, which help with the robot’s intimidating, inhuman appearance. I’m really quite fond of his dome head too, which is just cool as hell and helps make the character super memorable.
HELLA UMAYA
Poor Hella Umaya isn’t as cool as Gedon above, but he’s a serviceable dinosaur kaiju. Acting as Royger’s guard dog at his base on Titan, he’s able to throw around Jonias like a rag-doll quite effectively until Jonias’s comrades Elek and Loto arrive to even the odds (though poor Hella Umaya is killed off screen). The design itself isn’t too bad, though with the general features of the design like the short snout, horns and flame-like mane of hair, he feels like a kaiju take on Bowser from Super Mario Bros.
MACDATER
Macdater is interesting as final bosses go. Rather than being Heller’s ultimate weapon ala Zetton, Jumbo King or Black End, Macdater is sent out to execute the captured Science Defense Guard members after their attempt to sabotage Heller’s base failed. Despite not being a new ultimate monster, Macdater is still super impressive, towering above even the Ultras, and is able to give Jonias a hard time until Elek and Loto help even the odds. Macdater’s a well designed kaiju as well, with hateful grimace, beady red eyes and mouth full of sharp, slobber covered teeth. The character’s large ears might seem a bit odd on a monster like this, but I think it adds to Macdater’s character and gives him a recognizable feature. He may not be the next Zetton, but he’s a good kaiju to cap off the first ever animated Ultra entry.
Easter's Kaiju Kompendium 