DAY NINE:
SPACE GERM DARII

Written by Jonathan Wojcik

A quick and simple one today, which I'm posting belatedly while I work on the "extra large" Day 10 entry (which could also possibly go up late - I'm working on a lot in general right now!) ...Darii is the first endoparasitic Ultramonster I was ever aware of, and quite possibly one of the first in the franchise, as other parasitic kaiju tend to be the external variety. Can something BE a "kaiju" if it's actually tiny, though?

Darii's "germ" title is a translation of "baikin," which is a sort of cutesy way of broadly referring to bacteria, viruses, tiny parasites and even mold, but of course this is an alien creature here, and not something that fits into any Earthly kingdom of life. On arriving to Earth, Darii ends up hiding out in a flower until an unlucky human inhales it into her lungs, after which the monster takes control of her body each night to feed vampirically on anyone who shares the same blood type. Fortunately for her, she has access to the world's finest of all medical treatments: an Ultraman who can be shrunk down, sent into her lungs, and pummel her disease with his fists.

It's a simple episode, but the twist of a battle against a microscopic kaiju inside a human body is a fun one, and even one the franchise would repeat a couple times down the road. Darii itself is a pretty fantastic costume, too, I love its bubblegum pink, crustaceoid design and the long, bony arthropod limbs dangling off its sides. I also really like the way it looks hunched over atop the suit's humanoid legs, but the actor actually spends most scenes crawling on their hands and knees, with a fog effect to partially obscure the more humanoid shape of the monster. They honestly could have just made this one a puppet if they wanted it to look like a crawling louse, but it's a lot of fun that they crammed somebody into it anyway.

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