One of the most least looked-upon episodes in the franchise and for a rather obvious reason. The Boy Who Cried UFO follows no loud saucer-shooting and instead follows the slow tale of a lonely factory-worker named Saboru. He leads a bored, isolated existence and finds an everyday escape from life in late-night stargazing, with his telescope as his only friend. This is the show’s only character-study episode revolving around a one-off protagonist and it abandons the status quo to harness the show’s sci-fi elements in a wonderfully entrancing mixture.
The melancholic existentialism of Saboru is a lot gentler and more poetic than slightly more adult examples like Taxi Driver, where the protagonist constantly obsesses of killing hookers. Saboru is more of a man-child outcast who refuses to cope with the demands of adulthood. He’s half-asleep at his factory job from staying up early hours on his scope and grows sick of his neglectful life, increasingly wishing he could travel amongst the stars and find a new home that would suit him.
Now what makes you connect with Saboru is the episode’s slow, glamorous portrayal of his telescope life when we stare with him: merry classical music shower the scenes with his night life and bright colours symbolising stars glimmer the screen, adding a feeling of familiarity with Saboru’s thrilled child-like enthusiasm at night, only to be hazy and uncaring when brought back to day’s reality. This makes for a greatly unique psychological character study, for most centre around an unsatisfied person trying to seek purpose whilst Saboru already has purpose but one which is impossible to reach. This is what triggers the episode’s ultimate tragedy..
Saboru spots what he believes to be a ufo swarm during a stargaze, which’s suspenseful obscurity is greatly executed with just a couple of flashed glances through his scope. After panickily reporting to the Ultra Garrison, his case is surprisingly dismissed by our usual protagonists, who we’ve been viewing as professionals throughout the show’s run. This shines an excellent hole in our characters, who’ve noted passive false alarms throughout the show’s run, so this story nicely centres around a man with no evidence having to witness the imminent unnoticed catastrophe. It also shows an interesting contrast between a fluent passion and a straight-forward job: the Ultra Garrison are tasked with smoking out alien invaders for a living but Saboru lives with the stars. It’s by his simple life’s desire to find a star he can call his that he unintentionally found the ships while scaping across, while the Ultra Garrison’s narrow professional view led to them being the stargazers. The scene where Dan and Soga sit and speculate the colourful blurry stars during a patrol while harmonious classical music plays signifies their merry obliviousness.
One day, a young boy who finds Saboru daydreaming in a field takes an interest in his childish dreams of finding a star he can escape to from his friendless home, which goes to spark a growing friendship. Moments such as when the two sit skidding stones by a lake being greatly brought to life with the music and cinematography show this growing bond fantastically.
The theme of a lonely quiet man befriending a young boy, however, takes a large twist when the boy takes Saboru home to stargaze the ships, only to reveal himself to be a fleshy fish-like alien from Perolynga who lives on Earth. He claims Saboru was able to see his invading ships unlike the Ultra Garrison because he knows the starry sky with his life while the Ultra Garrison simply use technology and a filtered vision.
This scene where Perolynga sits to talk with Saboru is one of the most overlooked in the franchise and is on par, if not more iconic, than scenes such as Metron’s table discussion. Perolynga puts his arm around Saboru as a ‘friend’ and says how he can grant his wish of taking him to a new home like many others before, as well as recalling The Boy Who Cried Wolf to mockingly portray Saboru’s situation with the Ultra Garrison after making him call them one last time, only to get immedietly dismissed again. What makes this scene exceptional is how it’s a deceiving but empathetic alien connecting to a lonely human who never thought his far-fetched dream could ever become reality but is now facing a moral crisis whether to accept it or not. But what's really notable about Saboru here is his discovery of his one connection being a travesty being more of a weight to him than actually crossing paths with an alien, making him be seen as lonely as ever.
But once the Ultra Garrison finally identify the Perolynga ships after Perolynga deribletely feeds instructions through Sabura’s last phone call to them, the air duel with the Hawk jets and the alien ships is one of the most entrancing scenes ever conjured in sci-fi. While most of Ultraseven’s miniature air duels involve simple wireworks and mini pyro-work, Tsuburaya took a much more outside-the-box surrealism approach with blending the jet miniatures in with bright star effects and atmospheric underwater-fairytale-like background sounds to draw you into the glimmering void of space. It easily boasts some of the show’s most stunning dreamlike effects, with fizzing UFOs rapidly streaming in and out at different scales and the paint-conjured milky way effects being fantastically wrought and is unlike anything I’ve seen in classic sci-fi.
But when the ships are destroyed and Perolynga is no more, Saboru is thanked by the Garrison and seems to finally be accepted by his factory colleagues. But he knows it’s all meaningless praise, as he immediately retreats back to his place on the roof and, instead of using his scope, simply gazes out into the night sky now as lonely as ever. He had the chance to abandon adulthood and go to his place in the stars with Perolynga, which is now gone forever. From what we see, he’s likely wishing he had the courage to go with Perolynga. Or did reality of his fantasy’s absurdity finally come to him when Perolynga offered and he now accepts a normal average life? But we don’t get any indication to what he’s thinking but instead just his now rather unhappy view on the night sky, which is the great final mystery of the classic character study.
The last scene is rather morbidly in silence, as Saboru rides his bike alone through his working-class town. Still close-up shots emphasise the undesirable shabbiness of the streets and buildings, which signifies how he’s now succumbed to a life on Earth where he either grows up and moves on or revisits the pain of his fantasy becoming a reality and getting snatched from him as soon as it came. The Boy Who Cried UFO concludes on a rather ambiguous note of either dwelling on what could’ve been and continuing to hate life even more or finally accepting your situation and starting to live on with it. But Saboru’s continuous bike journey (given he suddenly decided to fall and lie down to daydream earlier) and the still shots of the neighbourhood indicate he’s now finally aware of his surroundings and pushing through.
The Boy Who Cried UFO is the definitive arthouse episode of Ultraseven. Not the most well-paced or executed but undoubtably has the most unique character perspectives and social commentary on the human condition, which are manipulated greatly through alien themes and surreal music and effects. Saburo is very easy to sympathise with due to how well the episode presents his dreamy stargazing with his drearily neglectful working-class life but also has that essential unknown mentality that makes character studies so deliciously ambiguous.
Saburo and Perolynga show likely one of the most unique bonds between a human and alien. The Perolynga are earth-invaders but seem to have an interest in lonely people who are sick of their lives and offer them to come live with them. Perolynga didn’t need Saboru for his plan and whether he truly wished him a better life or was deceiving his loneliness for a more sinister purpose is unknown and did need more explanation to be a bit more of a memorable antagonist and for us to get a better view on Saboru’s thoughts. But it’s his suspenseful build-up through an oblivious human’s view that makes the episode’s charm and his ambiguous friendliness makes him memorable either way, as well as his design being an artistic yet credible portrayal of a humanoid alien.
On another topic, the way the Ultra Garrison are mostly side-lined until the climax shows the true potential of an alien spectacle occurring through an average ‘nobody’, and the stargazer plot devices are greatly utilised to deliver a surreal small-scale adventure that leaves a different taste with each viewing. But the Boy Who Cried UFO’s fantastically serene cinematography and sound is what ultimately adds that needed punch of colour and escapism to our character’s melancholic tale. While far from the best, there are few episodes in any sci-fi, even Twilight Zone, that have as artsy and unique a tale of character study as Saboru and his alien friend.
As for why I had the sudden urge to write about this particular episode: Perolynga is set to a comeback to Saboru and the Ultra franchise soon in the currently-airing show Ultraman Taiga! Will the episode have the same existential and gently surreal feel as the original? Most likely not but to see the concepts of a long-forgotten classic is all a delight nonetheless!! Let's see how Saboru has spent his life before the long-overdue return of his bargainer...