By Joe Gibson
Introduction
Every Halloween season, I
watch a specific episode of Johnny Sokko And His Flying Robot/Giant Robo
1967-1968. I find it to be the perfect package of everything the show provides
with an added Halloween festivity. I mean that, of course, in terms of tone and
subject matter: this episode, Drakulon, Creature of Doom, released 03/25/1968
as the penultimate episode of the entire show, with the actual Halloween season
occurring between the airing dates of episodes three and four. This episode
introduces space vampire and definite Guillotine subcontractor (and likely fellow
Gargoylian) Drakulon as he turns an entire town into vampires. Being the second
to last episode, this premise necessitates high stakes and intrigue. Arguably,
this is Johnny and Jerry’s greatest challenge up to this point in the series,
and it is now time for us to explore exactly why.
The Cold Open
At the start of the episode,
a frantic woman in a white dress emerges onto the road unexpectedly,
interrupting a UNICORN agent’s patrol. This particular image is fairly common
to horror scenarios, and, without knowing too much of its origin, the use of
the trope is still worth recognizing. The UNICORN agent attempts to console her
and interject rationality to her claims that the entire town is at risk of
death, and his costume is just as important for different reasons. By this
point, episode 25, in the show, we have witnessed many UNICORN agents dying in
all sorts of horrific ways. While their brightly colored uniform is iconic to
set our main cast apart, Johnny, Jerry and Azuma all regularly wear suits as
well, so the UNICORN outfit is tantamount to the Star Trek Red Shirt. Since
this agent is none of those three or Mitsuko or Mari, the tropes of Johnny
Sokko condemn him to an early grave.
The woman leads him into the
town, where a whole host of people remain on the floor, stiff and unmoving. The
sudden camera zooms and merely decent dubbing duel over an atmospheric or goofy
tone, but the agent examines the remains, turning his back to the woman and
then returning to her for more information. She claims she woke up and found
them all like this, and he trusts her as she clings to him when a door creaks.
Investigating the door, he
enters a Gothic old dark house (I hope you understand why I call this the
Halloween episode of the show), complete with cobwebs, miscellaneous set
decorations, a secret passageway and, incidentally, a blue-faced vampire attempting
his best Hungarian accent (I still find it more convincing than Gary Oldman’s
Bela Lugosi accent in Coppola’s Dracula). The vampire has shaggy white hair and
is dressed in a rather crude tunic. When the agent fires on the vampire, it has
no effect, and the woman enters the house too. Determined to save the woman,
the agent tells her to leave, and she cackles as she reveals herself to be
another vampire with a slightly less blue face (most likely suggesting she was
once human and not Gargoylian). The woman feasts on the man, returns him to his
car for a young bicyclist to find, and our cold open is over.
This vignette introduces
some key concepts we should keep an eye on for the rest of the twenty minutes.
The vampires are not sensual, but repulsive (in the case of the older gentleman
Drakulon) or deceptively sympathetic (the woman in white), the house has tricks
up its sleeve with secret passageways and decorations, and, of course, there is
not just one or two vampires but implicitly an entire undead town and maybe
even a vampirized UNICORN agent.
The Town
After an autopsy during
which Johnny and Jerry are in UNICORN garb, Azuma sends Johnny and Jerry to
investigate the scene of the crime in plain clothes to see if it is the work of
the Gargoyle Gang. Interestingly, Azuma’s objection to vampires as the cause of
death is that it is 20th century Japan (“in this time and place?”),
which could suggest some form of vampire is native to this Earth. More likely,
it is a poorly chose expression or dub error, since Azuma assumes it is the
work of Gargoyle anyways.
We get a brief interaction
between Jerry and Johnny in the car of reassuring each other before they exit
the car and begin talking to one of the main corpses focused on in the cold
open, a man with glasses. The show is now engaging some level of dramatic irony
for the tension, since we know he is a vampire, but the characters do not. He
denies hearing of anything, and the shot lingers on his vampire neck mark. The
woman in white now is wearing green and approaches Johnny and Jerry, seemingly
to attempt a different play than last night to lure these agents to Drakulon.
She refers to the vampire as her “daddy,” and says he heard a car around the
time Johnny asks about. Of course, Johnny and Jerry respectively each gave a
different time of occurrence to the woman and the bespectacled man (3:00 A.M.
vs midnight). Though it does not pay off outside of the two being a bit more on
their guard when entering Drakulon’s old dark house, it is nice to see that they
do not make it easy for Gargoyle agents to confuse them.
I have been relaying the
plot, but for the next scene to hit as hard, I should spell out the “oh crap”
moment that I glossed over. It has been daytime the whole time Johnny and Jerry
have been in this town, and two vampires have been walking around just fine.
One of the few safety nets of vampire fiction is explicitly gone, so when
Drakulon, in human guise laughs himself into blue form to attack our leads,
escape is not as simple as breaking the windows in. Actually, we will see it
takes quite a bit to kill our Drakulon.
The rotating wall secret
passageway reveals the vampire woman, and the two back our heroes into a
corner, where they correctly guess Drakulon’s Gargoyle leanings and the
vampires taunt them. Both vampires express desperation to taste the blood
either through a breathy pant (Drakulon) or a petulant statement of wanting the
blood (his bride/daughter), but Drakulon reins himself in for a suave delivery.
Now, it is important to
ascertain why this old dark house is even here if Drakulon is from space. I
would argue the main reason is just for the Gothic atmosphere, as this episode
isn’t even done milking this location for all the horror imagery it can
provide, but if there has to be an in universe reason, this is one of the most
elaborate plans of Guillotine for very little reason. It makes sense to keep
his lieutenants secret from UNICORN; it keeps UNICORN on their toes, and we see
how effective it can be in their little cold war to switch between
subcontracting with Spider to Dr. Botanus to Fangar to Dr. Snake to Dr. Hydra
to Metron to Terrorman, etc. But building lodging for Drakulon in a far off
town raises all sorts of logistical questions. It is possible he truly fed on
them one by one offscreen over the course of the show, but we get nothing more
in this episode to flesh that out.
Drakulon himself resembles
Dracula in more ways than just the name and accent. He first appears to Johnny
and Jerry as a very slow, calculating but very weird old man, like the dynamic
Dracula has with Harker in the early chapters of that book. The racial
component of Harker’s discomfort with Dracula comes in with Drakulon turning
out to be an inhuman of the Gargoyles (pinning down what the average Gargoylian
should look like is difficult, but the Gargoyle Gang is, at the very least, a
cultural identity). And, like Dracula, Drakulon first appears as this
disgusting and unkempt old man but reveals surprising vitality as the story
progresses. I called attention to the costumes of the major characters before
this, and Drakulon is no exception since he will drop the shabby clothes and
sport a full noble warrior getup during his battle with the robot at the end.
We will get there soon.
A subtle moment for Jerry’s
humanity creeps in as he refers to the fallen UNICORN agent as his friend and
fires on Drakulon; Jerry is a simple creature, intensely loyal and brave but a
little stupid. Jerry actually manages to push off Drakulon during a minor
wrestling match but walks right into the vampire horde trying to warn them.
Jerry fights to his utmost to protect Johnny from all these vampires that are
moving so slowly and groaning like zombies. Once they get to shelter inside the
house, the vampire horde pounds on the windows. Johnny phones for help, and
Mari answers, but the vampirized UNICORN agent is in place to kidnap her, as
the vampires start to break through the window.
The next “oh crap” moment
happens when Jerry tells Johnny to call the robot, but it turns out the
wristwatch came off in the tussle with the vampires. This is feasible given the
distance they had to cover, the sweat that would be on his arm in that trench
coat and the grabbiness of the vampires. With the vampires in the house, Jerry
removes his coat and fights off the horde, leading to Jerry’s best moment in
this entire series: Jerry tells Johnny to get the watch and sics the entire
vampire horde on himself, referencing how he used to do the hundred yard dash.
Dancing around casually like an idiot, Jerry faces the highest danger in this
entire show just to buy Johnny some time, as the entire vampire horde chases
him.
Drakulon confronts Johnny at
the staircase with the watch on it, revealing the kidnapped Mari, threatening
to turn her into a vampire if he calls the robot. From a writing standpoint,
this is good, since it communicates that Drakulon is not as mindless and stupid
as his minions and was working on his own plan while ordering them to chase the
agents down. From a plot standpoint, this is bad since now the vampires have
captured Johnny, Mari and Jerry, who runs back over once he sees that Johnny is
near the wristwatch, bless his soul.
Drakulon’s daughter/bride is
eager to drink their blood, but Drakulon stops her to launch into the next
phase of his plan: making Johnny order the Giant Robot to obey Drakulon and
destroy the UNICORN headquarters in Japan. If Johnny refuses, the UNICORN
vampire will kill Mari, and, rather amusingly, the way the vampire chooses to
administer this threat is by holding a gun to her head as if his teeth were not
already the threat Drakulon had made. That and the Jerry chase scene from
earlier tempt me to appoint this a horror-comedy, but in any case, there is no
tonal issue because the humor is in character for a brain-dead monster and
Jerry’s unique personality respectively.
Johnny has only five seconds
to decide, and, as one of his best character moments in this show, he manages
to outsmart Drakulon to win the day. Claiming to test the mechanism, Johnny
speaks backwards to tell the robot not to obey the order and then relays
Drakulon’s order. Jerry calls Johnny a traitor, because he is also misled by
this. It is one of Jerry’s dumb moments, but we really should think of this
from his perspective. He just risked his life to save Johnny after losing one
of his other friends. Moreover, I would argue that Johnny is almost the reason
for Jerry’s intense loyalty to UNICORN.
Obviously, Jerry is one of
their best agents and was before the show began, but, in episode one, Jerry was
rather irritated with Azuma, and the partnership with Johnny gave Jerry
something to enjoy and protect. Their partnership also nets him at least twenty
high-profile cases closed in this show to where Johnny and Jerry are the
dependable agents to send out on these cases, the ones that survive everything
Gargoyle throws at them, and, for a moment, it seems like Johnny is throwing
that all away. If you think I am reading too far into Johnny’s role in Jerry’s
loyalty to UNICORN, that is fair, but I will also remind you of UNICORN
defector Hunter from an earlier episode who left due to disdain for Azuma and
did not have a Johnny-like influence to temper his tempestuousness.
With Johnny, Jerry and Mari
all tied up in coffins, the camera pans across the faces of the dead around
them, and regardless of your views on the quality of this show, the idea behind
this shot and the execution would not be out of place in a real horror movie.
The dynamic cinematography style of a kaiju of the week show lends itself well
to peril, and, as I hope to have demonstrated, this episode was uniquely
focused on implementing horror imagery into its shots.
As Drakulon grips Johnny and
pants like a dog, the Giant Robot arrives, and Jerry springs into action to
free Johnny from his bonds, either quick to realize what Johnny actually was up
to or just relying on muscle memory of “save Johnny first.” What happens next
is interesting. Drakulon turns himself Giant and faces off against the robot
with a sword and shield in a knight costume with a cape. The fight is actually
unlike any that we had seen before. Drakulon fights like an acrobatic human,
and his sword carries with it an explosion when thrown. Then, something
baffling happens.
Johnny recalls that Drakulon
should not be able to stand the cross, so, first, the robot T-poses in front of
the setting sun, and then obeys Johnny’s order to “throw the cross,” at which
point, a flaming cross appears and launches at Drakulon. If you are lost, I do
not blame you. This seems like the most egregious Deus ex Machina in the entire
show. However, I think I can mount a cogent defense of it.
The first thing to keep in
mind is that this move is never used elsewhere, so the viewer does not know it
is an option going into this episode. That’s why it is a Deus ex Machina (a
literal God the Machine), but, answer me this: why would this move be used
anywhere else? It is a time-consuming move to muster, and Giant Robo has both
flame breath and Mega-ton punches to exercise far more readily and efficiently
(not to mention the finger missiles and eye lasers). No other monster has a
unique weakness to crosses, flaming or otherwise.
Okay, so the usage of the
weapon makes sense, but why does it exist? People are quick to forget that
UNICORN did not invent the robot; Guillotine did. Guillotine’s master plan in
the show involves growing to giant size to threaten the Earth, but it takes a
lot of energy to get him there. Drakulon is one of the only other Gargoylians
that can grow in size, and he can do it so much faster. Guillotine baits the
audience throughout the show by constantly saying his underlings will die for
their failures but never delivering; by episode 17, he proves that, actually,
he has no issue with killing his underlings for their failure. It seems like an
obvious insurance policy to me to ensure that his most dangerous subcontractor
cannot beat what Guillotine initially planned to be his main weapon. Is the
flaming cross too fantastical for a sci-fi show? Too bad, the evil emperor
pirate space squid probably ordered the robot that way, and frankly, it’d be
dumber if he didn’t.
Okay, so why does Johnny
know about it? By the beginning of episode two, UNICORN has studied Giant Robo
and all his weapons and abilities. From there, Johnny spends at least five
months on these missions with Jerry and the robot (if you use the airing
dates), so Johnny would eventually discover that the robot can, for some
reason, generate flaming crosses. But do you remember the start of the episode
when Azuma assumed that any vampire activity was likely tied to Gargoyle? Or
the middle of the episode when Jerry, upon realizing guns did not stop the
vampires, told Johnny to summon the robot? Those moments make more sense if
UNICORN knows the robot can do this, and then of course we see when Johnny
remembers. I do not think I am reaching here; this feels like pretty basic
inferences that do not cause any problems with the rest of the show. When I
review media, regardless of if I love it or hate it, I intend to operate within
the best faith possible, to steelman each stimulus because the flaws will win
out anyway if it really is bad, and this is fine.
Conclusion
Especially given the
contrivances one expects from this show, this episode stands out not only as an
experimental episode of tokusatsu but as a pretty well written one for its high
concept. The Deus ex Machina makes sense in context, Drakulon is legitimately a
threatening character for his intelligence (unlike whatever Fangar was doing
half the time) as well as his strength, and this episode shows off some of the
best displays of the characterization of Johnny and Jerry that keeps me coming
back to this show and this episode.
This is not the only
Halloween-styled episode of Johnny Sokko; The Terrifying Space Mummy aired just
a month earlier. (Maybe we should talk about that one next year). This is not
the first time we at Plan9Crunch have discussed Johnny Sokko And His Flying
Robot and hopefully will not be the last. Links to a blog post and podcast
episode are below. Happy Halloween and Happy Johnny Sokko Day.
https://youtu.be/4G1jbizjHiY?si=BrhwylHKVy9fWTJw
https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2013/05/johnny-sokko-and-giant-robot-in-movie.html
