Wow. On to one of the most recognised episodes already, hm? While it may hold none of the full-fat themes of socio-political problems and other ills of the human condition which Ultraseven is renowned for, The Secret Of The Lake spins some juicy new elements for the show that serves as an enjoyably mysterious, almost dream-like episode full of meaty suitmation and one of the best utilised locations in the show that fluidly unfolds the plot.
After getting reports of an unidentified object, Dan and Soga are dispatched to the Kiso mountains. After a little search, they’re almost immediately exposed to the invaders’ obscure and unsettling methods: after encountering a strange girl harassing a fisherman, the duo come across a hidden spacecraft to which they seemingly find the same girl hiding within it, who claims she randomly stumbled upon the thing and got curious. After realising she couldn’t possibly have reached the ship before them, Dan grows aware of a strange connection between these two seemingly identical girls and the spaceship. But after getting jumped and having his Ultra Eye stolen, the tension starts to twist as the Pitt aliens unleash their guardian monster upon knowing Ultraseven is disabled.
Fundamentally, this episode is a rather shallow evil-alien fest and once the monster is revealed halfway through the tension grows rather blunt, but the first half is undoubtably one of the most memorable parts of the show for me due to the intensely unusual and unnerving alien tactics. For one, the Pitt’s build-up is intentionally confusing, as we first see the first girl stealing a disgruntled fisherman’s catch and then unnervingly tries to tell the odd cucumber-sized thing off for nearly getting caught.
While this naturally makes you think the happy-go-lucky girl is undoubtably the disguised alien keeping a pet monster, when Dan and Soga discover an identical girl playing around in the crashed UFO, the episode cleverly manipulates you into an obscure uneasiness. And once the fully-matured pet monster of theirs is secretly revealed, the Ultra Garrison suddenly find themselves in an intense situation with only these strange twins as leads. This rapid pacing creates a spiral of uncertainty that easily works due to having absolutely no attempts at characterisation to blur the pacing other than to move the plot forward, giving the episode more space to breath (though we do see some more of Dan’s analytic resourcefulness).
What’s furtherly clever is how we mostly see the girls putting on a typically innocent act throughout the episode and it’s only until near the end when the first one is actually seen controlling Eleking and the second cleverly escapes captivation of the UG base that we see them in their true, primitive nature. It cleverly leaves a breadcrumb trail instead of cramming the loaf down your throat by only focusing on the Ultra Garrison’s detective perspectives throughout the first two-thirds to get you more invested.
The only early scene that breaks this rule is when Dan and Soga get knocked out by gas in the ship and we get a glimpse of one of the Pitt aliens’ true self through an eerie misty view as she steals Dan’s Ultra Eye, which makes for a slick close-and-personal moment of alien confrontation rather than Dan randomly finding his Eye got nicked when he wasn’t looking, ensuring the episode has more solid sci-fi grips and makes the mystery all the more delicious.
But let’s move onto a couple of external factors that makes this episode quite memorable. The rich riverside environment with forest-floured mountains adds a harmonious feeling throughout with the background water trickle heard mostly throughout the episode adding an oddly calming feel. The mystery of the Pitts feels all the more dream-like with the lush forests and grand mountains, especially in the shot where Dan and Soga discover the Pitt ship, as well as the miniature sets with Eleking’s roaming matching the excellent scale and trancing feel of the real location seamlessly.
But while there’s certainly quite a lot of enjoyment to this episode, if you ask any fan what they think the highlight of it is, there’s a 7 out of 7 chance they’ll stop at Eleking. While I’m anyone but someone who watches Ultraseven just for the monsters, I can’t deny Eleking is this episode’s ultimate saving grace. I say this because he’s a perfect mixture of design and powers that conjoin together better than almost any other ultraman kaiju. For one, his design is one of the most original and inventive, yet slick and timeless ones from Tsuburaya. He clearly has some inspiration from an electric eel (such as his tail’s electric shock powers) but only a few basic references: everything else is designed awesomely surreally.
Something else worth noting is how we actually see him start off as a tadpole, showing an unusually tight bond between the aliens and their pet, physically raising it from baby to adult is something not usually seen in the franchise and adds some nice diversity.
But what makes him all the more memorable is by looking into the backstory of just how hilariously frustrating it was to work with his suit being made almost totally from rubber foam! Akira Tsuburaya, who recently started worked on-set, stated an extra-deep pool had to be dug for the scene where he erupts from the lake and the crew had to make the empty suit rise up, which resulted in countless ruined takes due to the foam suit’s tendency to float, resulting it bobbing up in laughably unrealistic ways. This little eye-opener makes you appreciate Eleking and the practical ingenuity of golden age Japanese sci-fi all the more. Showing restriction is the Tsuburayas’ mother of creativity and the little imperfections can sometimes add more charm and shows that if you play it safe, you die, with the crew actually managing to credibly equip rotating antennae and a tricky tail prop to such a fragile suit.
Speaking of Eleking, this episode is also renowned for the introduction of another capsule monster: the buffalo-like Miclas. While this can simply be overlooked as something to make Eleking appear more kick-ass, the sheer brutality of the suitmation and tactical cinematography makes it pretty entertaining and I can appreciate it more with it mostly being tackled in knee-deep water (the absolute eternal hell for suit actors), making it a short and sweet kaiju brawl.
While there is also a final duel with Seven and Eleking (yes, Dan DOES get his Ultra Eye back after a simply shocking display of sexist bigotry!), it’s too short to be considered remarkable, but given it was the first fight ever filmed for the show I have to give it some slack, not to mention having to date of the goriest and most brutal executions in tokusatsu.
The main reason I like this episode is, however, also the reason it’s not one of my person favourites: it strictly dedicates itself to new styles of suitmation, environments and some suspense, which is why I haven’t really said anything the episode fails in because it succeeds in the few things it attempts. A pretty shallow entrée, overall, and doesn’t swim into the show’s heavier themes of suspense and instead embraces its core values of kaiju galore and spills some alien build-up suspense around them.
But due to the constant switching between the Pitt aliens and the Ultra Garrison’s tackling of Eleking, the suspense sort of dies down and by the time the Pitts show their true forms, we’ve almost lost focus due to them having no chance left, which is a shame really because the way they’re revealed is immensely eerie and the effects used to capture their transformation as well as the way they immediately go from giggly and childish to mute and expressionless is greatly executed. If the captured girl revealed herself when escaping the UG base, that would’ve amped up the tension to a more considerable, complex level. But if that happened, we wouldn’t have gotten perhaps one of the creepiest lines in the franchise to date when they talk about trying to invade again in their twin disguises: ‘We’ll have this lovely earth all to ourselves! As you know, men can never resist pretty little girls like us!’
82/100