Way back in like 2015, I thought it would be a great idea to watch every episode of the 1960’s tokusatsu anti-classic, Johnny Sokko and his Flying Robot. I would do a snarky little write-up afterwards and then post it on my Tumblr, Explosiontown~! I wholeheartedly believed, stars in my eyes, that I’d complete all 26 episodes of JohnSok. I didn’t, incidentally; I made it 4.5 episodes before I got distracted by other projects, responsibilities, priorities. And life came at me fast!
I moved to a different state. I changed jobs three times. I wrote listicles about pro wrestling, became managing editor for a dearly-departed dark lifestyle magazine, I crafted a sprawling Dungeons & Dragons campaign and recorded a year’s worth of podcast episodes.
I lived through a five-year relationship that included both wild highs and all-time lows. A fascist got elected president. Tumblr removed all the tiddies. And now, I’m two months into a global pandemic with no end in sight. I’ve logged hundreds of hours on a PS4 hunting simulator, and I don’t even like hunting. I’m adrift, about as much as I can be adrift, barring the use of a literal raft. But who’s that in the distance? Who’s that child soldier in the coveralls? Who’s that enormous automaton with the impenetrable iron pannies? Why, it’s Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot, offering a life preserver in these storm-wreaked seas.
Direct action is a tragic joke — like a clown suffering explosive diarrhea in the middle just as 15 of his closest friends have piled into the car — but indirect, symbolic action? Why, that’s never been more popular! And that’s why I’m going to try, in the year of our Lord two thousand and twenty, to complete the JohnSok project I started during the Obama administration. Will I recapture some of the wide-eyed wonder I had back then? Will Johnny ever lose a wink of sleep over the many, many men he’s killed? I guess we’ll find out? Question mark?
So last time we visited Johnny, he and his Robot were battling a giant hand with a jetpack (in an episode I watched at a Jake’s Wayback Burger; a truly bizarre crystalline memory). Prior to that, our heroes had also dispatched Gargoyle Vine, AKA Plantpants; Ligon-Tyrox, the impossibly shitty dreadlock mummy Godzilla so nice they named him twice; Nucleon, a “magic globe” that was just an aquatic mine that rolled at your ankles; and Dracolon, who is still not a butt vampire despite the name. Who’s on the docket today, you might ask?
Well, it’s Dragon: The Ninja Monster. He’s no Ninja: The Dragon Monster, but we’ll take what we can get.
Before we get into this adventure proper, I would like to point out that this episode, like all episodes, was written by a Reuben Guberman, produced by a Salvatore Billiteri, and directed by a Manuel San Fernando, presumably because a priest, minister and rabbi were unavailable.
This episode concerns rising tensions between Solinia and the Albion Republic, exacerbated when a Solinian jet and a Albionese submarine are eaten by Dragon: The Ninja Monster. Naturally, they blame each other, bringing the whole world closer to nuclear devastation. Dragon: The Ninja Monster is a Cold War chessmaster.
We get tons of shots of hysterical white people hollering into hotline phones with flags in the background, and honestly a kaiju version of Dr. Strangelove is an inspired idea. I hope this ends with Giant Robot putting on a cowboy hat and riding an atom bomb into Dragon: The Ninja Monster’s face.
Everyone’s favorite space squid Emperor Guillotine is behind this game of brinksmanship, and for a surprisingly shrewd reason: he knows that Unicorn will hold a summit with all its leadership to brainstorm a detente strategy, and then all he has to do is bomb that meeting. Yes, we’re doing kaiju plus Dr. Strangelove plus goddamn Valkyrie. It’s a real galaxy brain move from a guy whose usual begins and ends with “send a monster to kick shit over.”
Speaking of, if the episode concept is great, the (Ninja) monster of the week is pretty uninspired. He’s just a tall iguana-looking thing with wings that just look like leathery beach towels hanging from his underarms. He’s a Ninja Monster because he can disappear into puffs of smoke, swallow missiles and puke them back up, you know, by-the numbers ninja stuff.
Despite the brilliance of Guillotine’s plan, it all falls apart when some Gargoyle gangsters get caught trying to sneak into the summit. “I think I heard a shot just now,” Johnny says, because he hears gunfire every time he closes his eyes and smells Cordite on every gentle breeze. Robot gets summoned, the bomb gets disposed of, and Dragon puts up one of the most pathetic fights of the series thus far.
He pulls his smoke puff trick a couple times, but Robot eventually gets his metal mitts on him and rassles him without mercy. Dragon panics and tried to flee, but gets shot out of the sky and falls what appears to be several thousand feet to his apparent death. Robot throws the body into the ocean, where it explodes (!), revealing the intact (!!) sub and jet that sparked this international incident. The Unicorn Chief proudly tells Johnny, “Now there won’t be a war!” Johnny nods. Preventing war isn’t his bag, but sometimes one has to sheathe is one’s sword for lack of argument.
All in all, this was a pretty weak episode. Guillotine’s plan was (relatively) clever, but there’s not much to recommend Dragon: The Boring Monster. The most interesting thing about him is that, because this series was originally broadcast stateside in 1969, this is way before most Americans would 100% know what a ninja is. Until, like, 1980, most Americans’ framer reference would be either this or You Only Live Twice, where they wear turtlenecks and use rifles.
Wait, holy shit, YOLT was about SPECTRE engineering an international incident by sabotaging both American and Soviet satellites. Was this episode a remake of that?! This series is such a bag of cats.
Anyway, Dragon: The Ninja Monster wasn’t great but I hope the series just gets more Deadliest Warrior as it wears on. Give me Robot tussling with Hoplon: The Spartan Monster and getting booted into a well or give me death.