Zone Fighter
By Armor Ranger White

Introduction:

About the same time that I was introduced to the Ultraman vs. Kamen Rider special I also came across a short lived series that was made by Toho after the last of the classic Godzilla movies were made. It was called Ryusei Ningen Zone translated it means Meteor Man Zone. Zone Fighter was Toho's version of Ultraman.

The Story:

The story begins when The Gorga Empire destroys the home planet of the Zone family. The Gorga are a race of gargoyle faced aliens with long antenna that they can pull of their heads and use as whips. Their goal is to take over earth and (like most villains) the rest of the Universe. The Zone family escapes to earth and take on human names.

When the Gorga Come to take Earth the three children of the Zone family Hikaru, Hotaru,and Akira Shout "Zone Fight Power " and become Zone Fighter, Zone Angel and Zone, Jr. The adults in the family serve as their advisers. Zone Fighter does the most fighting. The family car can change into Mighty liner a flying Car with a laser cannon on the roof of the car. Zone fighter uses it to fight the Gorga in their Black cars. The car reminds me of the one In Ultra Seven. Zone Angel and Zone Jr can use little air craft called Smokey it also can fire lasers and it serves one very important purpose but I'll get to that in a minute.

The Gorga can disguise themselves as humans so that they can secretly carry out their daily plots to take over the earth. when they launch a monster (called a Terro-Beast) in a capsule from space it lands on earth and the monsters grow large and start to wreak havoc on the city. The only one of the three children who can handle the giant monster threat is Zone Fighter. He shouts "Zone Double Fight" and grows giant. The big difference between Zone fighter and his Giant form is that instead of a helmet with a crest and a blue cloth that covers his nose and mouth, he has a silver face with lite up eyes and a crest on his head, with a red gem at the middle of the crest.

Zone fighter does a lot of wrestling like Ultraman. he has two weapons. Meteor Proton beam which is fired from the gem on his head. This most famous weapon is The Meteor Missile Might. He raised his arms and two Bracelets appear on his wrists. He gets on one knee and puts his arms forward and fires missiles in a gattling gun like blast. This is the move that finishes off the monster in most episodes.

Like Ultraman Zone fighter also has a time limit. The light on his belt changes color from blue to yellow to red. However in the midst of battle Zone Angel and Zone Jr can aid Zone Fighter by getting into their ship Smokey. Zone Fighter ejects the red gem on his head and the two other zone children fire a new red gem and it attaches to replace the old one. The red light on his belt buckle changes back to blue and his power is restored so that he can finish off the Giant Terro-Beast.

Conclusion:

This show had some real surprises. In one two parter episode the Gorga summon King Ghidorah to destroy Zone Fighter but he sends the three headed menace back into deep space. The ultimate guest star is Godzilla himself. He only appeared in five episodes to aid Zone Fighter. In one episode he And Godzilla spar with each other and when they are done they both shake hands and Godzilla returns to his cave. In another episode Godzilla helps defeat permanently yet another guest star Gigan. Sadly this series only lasted 26 episodes. I found out that the reason it only lasted so long was due to the energy crisis in 1973. I thought that this series was good. It had a really catchy theme song. For those who like Godzilla and Ultraman this is a good combo.

Armor Ranger White