Ultraman Blazar episode 3 “The Name is Earth Garon” introduced fans to Taganular, a coleopteran Kaiju with a well-earned reputation for being the hottest new creature in the Ultraman Series — literally! However, though it’s been a while since we’ve seen such a buggy beast in Ultraman, Taganular is by no means the first. Let’s take a look at the original insectoid interloper to threaten Earth, Antlar, and compare it to its more modern cousin!
Antlar
An ancient threat, Antlar was an antlion-like Kaiju that made its home under the desert sands near the lost city known as Baradhi. In addition to a near-indestructible body and fearsome mandibles, Antlar’s greatest strength was the bizarre magnetic powers it exhibited — powers so strong that it grounded the SSSP’s Jet VTOL, and nearly defeated Ultraman!
Antlar feared only one thing — the mysterious Blue Stone of Baradhi, an ancient artifact left to the Baradhi civilization by the mysterious “God of Noa”. (Sound familiar?) Despite being just, well, a rock, the stone contains tremendous power, and simply being struck with it was enough to kill Antlar in a single blow in its original fight against Ultraman, and severely weaken it in later battles.
Antlar has shown up a few times since its first appearance, and every time, it is a nearly-indestructible threat. If you have any thoughts of confronting one yourself, don’t leave home without a blue stone of your own!
Taganular
A brand-new coleopteran Kaiju only just discovered, Taganular has a very specific diet — teaterium, a compound derived from hydrogen. While teaterium is theoretically a very stable fuel, within Taganular’s body, there was a significant risk of the material achieving fission, which could cause a catastrophic meltdown! Worse yet, the more Taganular consumed, the greater the risk of fission became — and it seemed nothing could catch the creature, with it going on a “gourmet tour” across the planet.
When Taganular finally made it to Japan, it was on the verge of going critical, and its attempts to consume the last major supply of teaterium was interrupted by SKaRD and the debuting Earth Garon. Though both Earth Garon and the appearing Ultraman Blazar fought a valiant battle against the creature, its body reached the temperature of the surface of the sun, preparing to go critical… until it finally spewed all that excess energy into the air in a massive blast, cooling it down, and giving Blazar a chance to destroy it. One wonders if that blast of energy will have consequences later…? Probably not, right?
Both of these monsters are absolute powerhouses, bugs beyond reproach. If you want to check out more of the amazing new Kaiju being battled in Ultraman Blazar, check out the amazing English dub on Ultraman Connection.com!
