Taro's Head Flew Off! is the fourteenth episode of Ultraman Taro.
Plot[]
Saori and Kenichi are visiting the countryside, where they witness a greedy landlord, Shimada, aggressively demolishing a mountain to make room for new housing. His actions are only halted when an explosion from the dynamite he was using causes a massive earthquake to rip through the area. Kotaro travels with ZAT to the region to investigate, discovering that a monster, Enmargo, is living under the mountain.
Cast[]
- Kotaro Higashi : Saburo Shinoda
- Shuuhei Aragaki : Takahiko Tono
- Tadao Nanbara : Toyoyuki Kimura
- Izumi Moriyama : Kiyoko Matsuya
- Tetsuya Kitajima : Hidesuke Tsumura
- Takashi Ueno : Akihiko Nishijima
- Saori Shiratori : Mayumi Asaka
- Kenichi Shiratori : Shinya Saito
Guest Actors[]
- Shimada : Jun Hamamura
- Site Manager : Hitoshi Omae
- Ryosuke : Takeo Saito
Voice Actors[]
- Narrator : Tetsuro Sagawa
Suit Actors[]
- Ultraman Taro : Hiroshi Nagasawa
- Enmargo : Toru Kawai
Appearances[]
Ultras[]
Kaiju[]
Home Media[]
- Ultraman Taro Volume 4 features episodes 14-17.
All 13 Volume set cover
Trivia[]
- In this episode, there's a striking scene where Ultraman Taro's head is severed.[3]
- Screenwriter Toshiro Ishido originally wrote: "Taro is restrained by Enmargo with both arms, and his head is cut off. But his head immediately returns. Taro then cuts off Enmargo's right arm and uses it to decapitate him."
- The final broadcast version made the scene more surreal, adding symbolic elements like Buddhist scripture motifs and Taro's head spinning in mid-air. This turned the moment into a hallucination seen by Enmargo in his last moments—a false victory before defeat.
- Director Eizo Yamagiwa said that long-running TV shows can cause creative fatigue, sometimes leading the team to unknowingly “undermine the protagonist's very existence.” He noted viewers might question the story's logic, wondering if monsters only appear because Ultraman does, or if Tokyo is attacked just due to him.
- Yamagiwa stressed that even fiction needs internal rules, but production pressures often trap staff into choices they know might be wrong. No one objects, and they say, “Let's just try it.” He didn't approve of Taro's flying head but couldn't recall who suggested it—only that it was among ideas from the team feeling creatively drained.
References[]