John and Eugene fall into the Unbalanced Zone. For the next 49 minutes you will experience a parting of mind from body and join them in becoming swallowed into this mysterious time.

We start our look at the legendary Eji Tsubaraya’s first TV series for Japanese TV: 1966’s Ultra Q.

In the first episode a prehistoric mammal (and let me be very clear, this is Gomess, NOT Godzilla) reawakens and causes havoc on an underground construction site.

Episode Synopsis

Construction on a Tokyo-Osaka expressway tunnel is interrupted when a digger breaks into a pre-existing tunnel.  Running out, the operator is crazed, claiming he saw a monster.  But he’s an alcoholic, so no one believes him.

The concept of a tunnel inside of a tunnel being too abstract for mere words prompts ambitious photojournalist Yuriko Edogawa to go cover the story.  She travels by air to scene courtesy of her fiends Jun Manjome and Ippei Togawa from the Hoshikawa Air Service.

At the scene she meets fellow reporter on the ground, Nitta.

A strange rock-like object, suspiciously egg-shaped, has also been dug up and Jiro, a studious, bespectacled boy and amateur paleontologist is fascinated by it.   While Jun and Yuriko investigate the tunnel, Ippei, Nitta and Jiro travel 70km away to Mt. Konpo, on Jiro’s hunch that the “tunnel” is actually a massive lava tube.  At Mt. Konpo, they have a legend of Littra and Gomess, two ancient creatures that live there.

Jiro recognizes them as Litolaria, an ancient reptile-bird hybrid, and Gometius, a vicious carnivorous mammal.  He also recognizes that the strange rock is actually a chrysalis for Littra.

Inside the tunnel, an earthquake leaves Jun and Yuriko trapped inside the lava tube and, pursued by Gomess.

When Ippei and the others return, the discover that the tunnel has collapsed and a rescue party immediately starts digging them out.  They find them, and Gomess finds them.  They flee for their lives. 

Jiro, meanwhile, uses fire to warm up the Litter chrysalis and hatch it, just as the rescue party run out with Gomess in pursuit.   A battle of the monsters ensues, with Littra killing Gomess with his Citronella Acid spray, but the battle proves too much for Littra who succumbs to his injuries moments after defeating Gomess.