"We are told about an unusual freezing period that comes to Earth every 10,000 years. One hot summer day can turn to freezing and snow can start falling out of nowhere. What is this a sign of? Today we shall tall the story of very cold winter weather on a hot summer day."
―Narrator
Tokyo Ice Age(東京氷河期, Tōkyō Hyōgaki) is the fourteeth episode of Ultra Q.
On a summer day, a plane landing at Haneda Airport suddenly freezes in the air and drops to the tarmac. As emergency vehicles respond, the airport begins to freeze over. After a nuclear reactor explodes near the South Pole, Jun postulates that Peguila may be migrating to the North Pole. Suddenly, the monster lands in the middle of the city and begins to turn the metropolis into a frozen wasteland.
Plot
At a Tokyo airport, a sudden, mysterious cold wave causes an aircraft to crash and grounds the other planes. A strange black cloud descends on Tokyo and from within it, emerges the monster Peguila. Resting from its journey between the South and North Poles, the monster arrives in the heart of the city, turning the area into an arctic landscape.
During Peguila's destructive spree, the Daily News offices are damaged in the attack. Yuriko, Editor Seki and a young boy named Haruo become trapped when their car is hurled by Peguila's freezing assault. In the meantime, Jun and Ippei discover a drunken man asleep in their plane. After bringing the man inside, he wakes up and holds the two pilots at gunpoint.
Having escaped from the snowed-in vehicle, Haruo makes it to Hoshikawa Airport to ask for Jun's help. The desparate man recognizes the boy as his son and commandeers Jun's Cessna to attack the monster. After picking up a supply of Peguimin H from the Polar Vegetation Research Institute, Haruo's father sacrifices his life by piloting the plane into Peguila and succeeds in driving the monster away from Tokyo.
Ultra Q Volume 4 features episodes 13-16, and Total Natural Color Blu-ray Volume 4 features episodes 12-14.
2001 release
2008 release
Total Natural Color Blu-ray
Trivia
This episode is labeled as "No.16" on the script cover. However, due to adjustments in the production process, it was actually the fifteenth episode filmed, with production taking place from April 2 to April 24, 1965.[2]
This episode serves as a sequel to episode 5 "Peguila is Here!", with its story set one year after the events of that episode 5. However, both episodes were filmed simultaneously, effectively making them a two-part narrative in production order.
While the plot focuses on Peguila's attack on Tokyo, the central theme revolves around a seasonal worker who comes to the city for labor, offering a critique of postwar society. The story reflects the struggles of Teruo Sawamura, a former Zero fighter pilot, struggling with unemployment in postwar Tokyo and turning to crime. This theme is reflected in Yuriko's opening quote from poet Rainer Maria Rilke: "People look just like ants and come to a big city for only the purpose of dying." likening Tokyo to a bitter sugar cube—an allusion to the city's indifference toward the working class.
The episode also incorporates Cold War commentary. Ippei is seen reading a news report about the U.S. and the Soviet Union competing to mine uranium in Antarctica, subtly implying that Peguila's departure from the region might have been triggered by an ice melt caused by a nuclear reactor explosion.
Originally, this episode was scheduled to air as the eighth episode on February 20, 1966, according to the broadcast plan from December 22, 1965. However, after the New Year, TBS moved it up to the episode 7, set to air on February 13. However, due to a series of aviation accidents in Japan at the time, the episode faced multiple delays.[3][4]
The opening scene of the episode involves an aircraft landing at Haneda Airport that crashes for unknown reasons, though it is actually caused by Peguila. However, just two weeks before the planned broadcast, the crash of All Nippon Airways Flight 60 occurred at Haneda Airport on February 4, 1966, claiming all 133 lives on board. In response, TBS postponed the episode and aired "Terror of the Sweet Honey" in its place.
Then, on March 4, another disaster struck when Canadian Pacific Air Lines Flight 402 crashed at Haneda Airport, killing 64 people. The following day, on March 5, BOAC Flight 911 crashed near Mount Fuji, resulting in 124 fatalities. Out of respect, TBS once again delayed the episode and instead aired "Balloonga" earlier than planned.
According to newspaper reports at the time, the repeated postponements due to real-life aviation disasters left TBS staff deeply unsettled. Some even feared the ominous saying, "What has happened twice will occur three times." Ultimately, to prevent further delays, the episode finally aired on April 3, 1966.[5]
Notably, during the rebroadcast on October 19 and 26, 1967, this episode and episode 5 were finally aired consecutively as originally intended.
According to a discussion with Jin Katagiri during the ULTRAMAN ARCHIVES Premium Theater screening and special talk event held in 2019, Teruyoshi Nakano explained that the materials available at the time could not produce perfectly round eyeballs. As a result, Peguila's eyes were sculpted from clay and painted. Additionally, the eyelids were operated by internal metal wires, but the mechanism didn't function properly, so they couldn't fully close. As a result, Peguila's eyes ended up half-open, giving the kaiju a sleepy or drowsy appearance.[6][7]
The Pegimin H used in this episode, along with the Helipron Crystal G from episode 2 "Goro and Goroh," and the Lazery B-1 from episode 8 "Terror of the Sweet Honey," were all set as "effective monster-fighting agents." As a result, they were not altered by the sponsor Takeda Pharmaceutical.
Peguila's black smoke emission while flying was a creative decision by director Samaji Nonagase, while its freezing ray was achieved through gas effects.
The frozen Tokyo scenes were not filmed on location but created entirely with miniature sets in the studio.
The dramatic in-car tumbling sequence was shot using a 360-degree rotating camera platform.[8][9]
According to Hiroko Sakurai, in the farewell scene at Ueno Station, Hideaki Sato, who played Haruo, and the assistant director actually boarded the departing train, while the main cast remained on the platform to see them off. This moment was entirely improvised, with no prior rehearsal. Sakurai described the filming of this scene as akin to a "documentary shoot."[10]
Although there were plans for Peguila to return in future episodes, the idea was ultimately abandoned.
Sequences from this episode served as the basis for the opening of the 2022 film Shin Ultraman, including a recreated scene where Peguila freezes Tokyo.[11]
Errors
At 20:45 mark, a small aircraft wing can be seen appearing in the dark mist, where it shouldn't be.
At 23:35, just before the shot transitions to a close-up of the plane's frozen wing, a large fan is briefly visible in the lower left corner of the frame.
