"The last time Mount Fuji erupted was over 250 years ago and it has been quiet since then. 250 years... 250 years... 250 years... Wait a minute! 250 years is nothing in comparison to the thousands of years Mount Fuji has been around. It seems like just a little nap for Mount Fuji."
―Narrator
S.O.S. Mount Fuji(SOS富士山, Esu Ō Esu Fujisan) is the seventh episode of Ultra Q.
Mt. Fuji threatens to erupt after hundreds of years of dormancy. lppei accompanies Yuriko on an assignment to investigate the danger, but is stymied when the local constable fails to get citizens to take the danger seriously. Increased volcanic activity causes a huge boulder to be expelled from the bottom of Lake Yoshino, but the stone proves to be not a mere rock, but a living monster, Gorgos.
Plot[]
When Yuriko investigates increased volcanic activity in the Mt. Fuji area, she learns the story of a modern-day Tarzan named Takeru, who is rumored to live in the region's dense woods since becoming lost within them 15 years ago. Meanwhile underground volcanic energy creates boiling temperatures in a lake at the foot of the mountain and a huge boulder erupts from the waters.
Because the rock obstructs a main travel route, it is blasted apart with dynamite and the pieces are transported back into the forest. At one night, the pieces collect around a strange luminescent rock, creating an enormous rock monster called Gorgos that lives and breathes like an animal. While the investigative trio searches for Takeru with the help of his older sister Mitsuko, an area policeman finds him trapped by the monster beneath a fallen tree and helps him to escape.
Takeru rushes the others to safety and then confronts the monster alone. Climbing on the creature's back, he is successful in destroying the mysterious glowing orb which functions as the monster's heart and the beast falls over dead. Takeru is reunited with his sister and happily returns to civilization.
This episode is labeled as "No.26" on the script cover. However, due to adjustments in the production process, it was actually the twenty-seventh episode filmed, with production taking place from November and December 1965.[2][3]
During the early script development stage, the episode was titled "Gorgos (The Call of the Wild)"(ゴルゴス (野生の呼ぶ声), Gorugosu (Yasei no Yobu Koe)), before being changed to "SOS Mount Fuji"(SOSフジ山, SOS Fuji-san), and later finalized with its broadcast title.
According to Hiroko Sakurai, this episode was a rare instance of an overnight location shoot by a waterfall. It also marked the first on-site appearance of TBS producer Takashi Kakoi, who left an impression with his composed demeanor, dressed in tall boots. However, the muddy ground around the falls caused quite a hassle, and the only thing Sakurai vividly remembered was how her shoes were ruined by the mud.[5]
A script-based version of "S.O.S. Mount Fuji" was published in the February 1966 issue of Bokura magazine. However, its story was entirely different from the broadcast version. This script was part of a series of seventeen Ultra Q short stories serialized in Bokura, and it remains the only one to significantly deviate from the televised plot.[6]
In this version, Cicada Human and M1 fight against Gorgos. As Mount Fuji erupts, Jun desperately urges the Cicada Human and M1 to retreat, but they refuse to back down. In the end, they sacrifice themselves to trap the rock monster within the lava.
According to an interview with director Toshihiro Iijima conducted by Yoichi Iwasa, when Iijima saw the illustrated spread of this alternate story, he was directly asked about it. His response was simply, "I have no idea," adding, "The magazine's editorial team must have put it together themselves. Maybe Tetsuo Kinjo was involved, but I don't know for sure."
Iwasa speculated that the article's editorial process might have followed this sequence: Shoji Otomo handled the planning and structure → the Tsuburaya Productions literature department (or possibly Tetsuo Kinjo) supervised → after finalizing the illustrations, it was published in Bokura's February issue. However, this remains speculation, as no concrete evidence has confirmed this theory.
