Dark Zagi

"Being a Night Raider was just very convenient for me. So I could restore my former form, all of you were just a tool."

- Mitsuhiko/Zagi, Nexus.

Dark Zagi (ダークザギ) is a demonic clone of Ultraman Noa and the main antagonist of Ultra N Project. He was created by a race of aliens as a biological weapon against Space Beasts. But something went wrong and Zagi turned on his creators, which they tried to end him by destroying their home planet but failed. Zagi then took an army of creatures known as Space Beasts and began a spree of universal destruction on any planet in his way.

Aside from "Dark Zagi", he is called with many names in the series and official materials, such as:
 * Dark Side Noa (ダークサイドノア): His alternate name in the ULTRA N PROJECT.
 * Ultinoid Zagi (ウルティノイド・ザギ): His original name upon his creation.
 * Unknown Hand (アンノウンハンド): His codename by TLT members for the use of Dark Field G.

Subtitle: Evil God of Destruction (邪悪なる暗黒破壊神)

Battle of Dream NOA
Space Beasts were a menace in the galaxy harboring the M-80 nebula in the Scorpio constellation, they were similar to the monsters of the Showa universe, and their origins are unknown. Zagi came into existence on the homeworld of the beings known to TLT as the Visitors, the jellyfish-like race, as an answer to this problem. They had witnessed the awesome power of a being of light known as Ultraman Noa, an immortal force of good who had visited other planets to defend them against monsters. Desiring a protector of their own, they went to work to create a duplicate of the great giant, an anti-Beast bio-weapon bearing the form and power of the ancient protector. However the end result would be horrid, dark and twisted mockery of Noa's form known as Ultinoid Zagi.

In order to counter the Space Beast' ability to evolve from predation, Zagi was installed with a self-evolving program. But the giant awakened with a distorted consciousness, being well aware of his nature as a "duplicate to the giant of light" and resorted to evolve the Space Beasts instead as he went astray. For the sake of surpassing the original Zagi incorporated the qualities and characteristics of the Space Beasts, and eventually the title of Dark Zagi.

The dark giant forced his creators to destroy their homeworld, by causing their star to go supernova in an attempt to destroy him, their endeavor cast him into a tear between universes where he fought the Ultras from the Land of Light. During the battle, he briefly held Zoffy as a hostage. This was a battle that made Ultraman Noa a legend in the Land of Light as he eventually cast his doppelgänger back into the tear. In his home universe Noa sealed the tear at the expense of most of his energy forcing him into lesser forms, while Zagi lost his physical form from the same technique. Knowing the supernova would carry the particles of Space Beasts to another galaxy, his creators fled to Earth, the world they predicted would suffer because of their actions and Zagi took off after them followed by Noa.

Pre-Nexus
Arriving in Colorado, where TLT, the Terrestrial Liberation Trust, was being formed with help from the newly arrived visitors, he possessed a resident scientist Hajime Yamaoka and proceeded to slaughter the scientific team, all save for a young girl, the child of two of the scientists, somehow knowing her destiny, his goal was to use that for his ultimate plan.

Later on he called his favorite Space Beast to be the first to attack the people of Earth, called Beast the One by military, it had the Ultra like ability to merge with another being in which it used to absorb organisms to enhance its base form before being killed by Ultraman the Next; Noa's weakened form with the first Deunamist Shunichi Maki.

Ultraman Nexus
As TLT was formed Zagi infiltrated it as Mitsuhiko Ishibori, having erased all memories of his host's previous life. There he watched the young girl he spared, Nagi, grow while corrupting her crush and mentor Mizorogi to further deepen the darkness in her heart. With the appearance of the Second Deunamist Jun Himeya, the host of Noa's semi-evolved form Nexus, Zagi began the long scheme to gradually strengthen the light using his pawns, the Space Beasts, Dark Faust and Dark Mephisto (Mizorogi) and Dark Mephisto Zwei.

By the time of the third Deunamist, Zagi was left with no Dark Giants of his own to command his monster legions so he backed them up with his own dark power. After displaying his power of the Dark Field G he would codename Unknown Hand, due to the fact the he never physically appeared as far as TLT knew. All of these creatures were intentionally sacrificed so that the power of Nexus could be increased, allowing him to regain his body. Following the fall of the second Mephisto, he began the last phase of his plans, having his beast MegaFlash attack a city in broad daylight, creating the fear needed to increase his power, while weakening the power of the Visitors' potential barrier which limited the appearance of Space Beasts. After the destruction of Izmael, the baton of Nexus was passed to Nagi after he left Ren.

Upon revealing his true nature and attacked the command center, Mitsuhiko/Zagi departed to Level 0, where Lethe was housed, the power of the Visitors was now too weak to stop him. There he defeated Komon, Captain Wakura, and Illustrator with Nagi shortly after. Zagi proceeded to tell the Night Raiders his entire plan. After Nagi turned into Nexus, Lethe synchronized with Nagi's emotions and memories and consumed all the energy in her body because of her hatred, allowing Zagi to absorb this energy in turn to restore his physical body.

After Zagi returned to his true form, he attacked the city of Shinjuku and caused the simultaneous Beast attacks across the globe. After saving Nagi from Lethe's hold on her, Komon became the fifth Deunamist of Nexus and transformed as Zagi was destroying the city. Zagi had not anticipated another Deunamist acquiring the light, as Nexus used Amphans, Junis and Junis Blue as he barely held his own against Zagi. As the crowd of humans were in awe and had great hope of the silver giant hero winning, Nexus turned into Ultraman Noa. Zagi roared in rage at the sight of his template restored and challenged to a final battle over Earth. As much as Zagi tried Noa easily overpowered the fiend and after being literally punched into orbit by the Noa Inferno, Noa used the Lightning Noa to destroy Zagi once and for all.

While there would still be space beasts roaming the Earth, no one lost hope as humanity fought back many times.

Ultraman Ginga
Zagi (or at least another version of him) returned at the end of the Theater Special, having been summoned by Dark Lugiel to challenge Ginga. Appearing out of his signature Dark Field G, Zagi was met by Jean-nine and manhandled the robot fighter, nearly ripping off its head in a display of utter brutality before forcing it off line. It was only the timely appearance of Ginga that saved it.

Ginga rescued his friend by knocking Zagi down with an energy pulse to the face, but hardly a slouch, in the mere second Ginga turned away Zagi was back on his feet and knocked down the Ultra with his Gravity Zagi. The two then began a high speed battle that involved them moving at high speeds with aura (which usually only appear when Ultras are flying through space) and teleporting all over the planet. In the end the two clashed with their beams and rammed the other engaging in a point blank beam clash. It ended with a large explosion that cleared the rain clouds in a large circle while the two floated down. Once on terra firma, Zagi's Energy Core cracked, his twinged about in pain as dark energy escaped his body before exploding. His Spark Doll was then recovered by Dark Lugiel and most likely held by him until his own defeat, after which all the Spark Dolls returned home.

Profile

 * Height: 50 m
 * Weight: 55,000 t
 * Home World: The Visitor's homeworld in the scorpio galaxy in the M80 nebula

Physical Attributes

 * Eyes: Unlike most Ultras and his template's, Zagi's eyes glowed bright red. It is assumed they had similar but lesser abilities to Noa.
 * Energy Core (エナジーコーア): Like his template, Zagi's equivalent to an Color Timer was the Energy Core. Unlike his giants', his was the same design as Noa's.
 * Ultra Armor: Like Noa, Zagi's body was covered in natural armor that appeared to be similar to Protectors. Despite being stronger than any of the other Ultras (Faust, Mephisto, Zwei and Nexus) it was clearly weaker than Noa's as Nexus in Junis and Junis Blue form were able to hurt him, while he was barely a challenge for Noa.
 * Arms: Zagi was physically stronger than any of the other Ultras save Noa, he was stronger than Nexus in Junis and is able to endure any finishers delivered by Nexus.

Transformation
Zagi in his human form, does not have a transformation device, he purely used Lethe. Lethe first absorbed Nexus's light and turned it into darkness. The darkness then transferred to Zagi's human form and restored him to his original body.

Spark Doll
Dark Zagi became a Spark Doll in the conclusion of the Dark Spark War due to the Darkness Spark's powers. His Spark Doll was kept in Dark Lugiel's collection, and was Dark Lived after Icarus' failure as Tyrant. After defeating Jean-nine, Zagi was countered by Ultraman Ginga, but the beam clash defeated him. His Spark Doll was reclaimed by Dark Lugiel before Hikaru Raido could find it.

After Dark Lugiel's defeat, it is presumed Zagi regain his original form and departed Earth for home.

Dark Dunamist

 * Mitsuhiko Ishibori (石堀 光彦): An alias made by Dark Zagi, the true identity of his body is Hajime Yamaoka (山岡 一), a TLT scientist who died after Zagi assimilated his body. Traces of his host's identity were erased from memories of TLT members in order to strengthen the validity of his disguise.

Ultraman F


In the 2016 novel that serves as an alternate continuation to Ultraman, an alternate counterpart of Zagi was summoned by Soso and Utsutsu by Clone Bullton and transform his summoners into Dark Mephisto and Faust respectively. He would soon faced Fuji/Ultraman F and defeated after their finishers clashed. Ironically, Zagi is also one of the main factors of transforming Fuji into a pseudo Ultraman, therefore leading to his downfall.

Toy Release Information
Dark Zagi was released as an Ultra Hero Series EX & Special (Yellow Eyes) in 2004. He was re-released as an Ultra Monster Series EX figure.

Trivia

 * Zagi's suit was first unveiled in the 2004 Ultraman Festival, where he is represented as a darker half of Ultraman Noa. This plot is a contradiction to the original story (as he is an actual dark Ultra instead of Noa's clone) but predated the relationship of Ultraman Ginga and Dark Lugiel by 11 years.
 * Originally, the transformed appearance of Mitsuhiko Ishibori would have been Dark Lucifer until the show's cancellation changed the whole script. It should also be noted that Dark Zagi lacks the two spikes in his back, but Lucifer has them.
 * Zagi that appeared in Ginga is most likely an alternate version of the character.
 * Despite it being his signature technique, Zagi was never seen using Dark Field G in the show in Ultra Form. However in Ultraman Ginga, Zagi appears using his Dark Field G.
 * In the Tsuburaya All Monster Photobook, Zagi has the second subtitle of Dark God of Destruction.
 * Originally Zagi had yellow eyes in the stage shows, but in later appearances, toys and on the show they were changed to red.
 * Being that he is a clone of Noa, his weight and height are the exactly the same as Noa when the Noa Aegis are not taken into consideration.
 * Dark Zagi actually makes an appearance in the show's second opening. During a line up of all the giants; Faust, Mephisto, Junis and finally Junis Blue, Zagi's blurry reflection can be seen in Junis Blue's eye. It is only brief and easy to miss.
 * Before he was physically seen in the last episode he was seen in the dimension of the strange ruins, rampaging. This was a vision by the Illustrator and it's true nature is unknown. However, the next Deunamist to gain the light, met Stone Fleugal in a forest area instead of the temple, implying it had been destroyed.
 * Through his human identity, Zagi is the first antagonist to appear in a show's opening at the end with the Attack Team line up with the star Ultra.
 * Zagi is one of the few Ultras not based on either Ultraman or Ultraseven, even remotely, instead he was designed entirely after Ultraman Noa.
 * The fact that Zagi has the same mental powers as the Visitors implies that part of his DNA (or the Ultra equivalent) stems from them, this may have attributed to him going mad. While Noa may possess the standard mental abilities of an Ultra, Zagi's powers are emphasized, implying they are unique to him and the Visitors.
 * Zagi may be the first instance of an Ultra 'Clone', but the first artificial Ultra was Terranoid.
 * Zagi's origins were revealed in stage shows and interviews from Nexus series staff as well as art books.
 * While Noa's name may have been drawn from the Biblical character, Zagi's name is an anagram of Giza, specifically the Great Pyramid of Giza. Conveniently, later Noah's people in the bible became big enemies with the Egyptians during Moses' time, as they were enslaved, before rebelling and escaping from Egypt, representing the two's relationship.
 * Dark Zagi's intended Ultimate form Dark Lucifer was originally put forward as the villain of the movie Ultraman Saga, it was turned down in place of Alien Bat and Hyper Zetton.
 * Oddly, despite his animalistic behavior in Ultra form, Zagi has shown to be rather intelligent, having created a long term plan that actually succeeded and his human disguise showed remarkable skill with hacking and analyzing, being able to even shutdown TLT's security, to help the Night Raiders save Ren. Even in stage shows he has been shown as being more in control of himself in battle yet his film and TV appearances show him as something akin to a berserker in battle. An example of this being in that in an Ultraman Ginga stage show, he is not afraid to fight fellow antagonists if they are getting in his way, even going so far as to brutally attack EX Zetton, who was also an antagonist in the exact same stage show.
 * Dark Zagi is one of the few dark Ultras to fight in the Dark Spark War.
 * Zagi's battle with Ultraman Ginga ended in a similar way to his battle with Ultraman Noa, where their beams collided, their signature beams were fired from opposite vertical hands.