Characters/Termite Bugrom

This character only appears in this timeline.

There are many clues that indicate that the world visited in "El-Hazard: The Alternative World" is tied somehow to El-Hazard. One of these clues is the existence of a race of giant insectoid creatures who are hostile toward the humans of their world. These are the Termite Bugrom, or the White Bugrom, as they are more often referred to as by the other characters on the show.

There are many differences between the Termite Bugrom and the Bugrom of El-Hazard. For one thing, while the Bugrom of El-Hazard come in a large number of shapes and sizes, there is only one type of Termite Bugrom (two, if you count the Queen). Standing roughly waist-high, they are beige in coloration, with brown heads, and bear a passing resemblance to termites. They are all roughly the same size, though younger Bugrom are smaller. While apparently not great fighters, they make up for their inadequate bodies by sheer numbers, mobbing their opponents. When even that is not enough they also possess the ability to spit a kind of resin-like substance that hardens into a barrier tough enough to withstand even Shayla-Shayla's strength.

They are not completely unlike the Bugrom of El-Hazard, however. Katsuhiko Jinnai isn't able to understand their language, but El-Hazard Bugrom, like Katsuo/Groucho can. At least, they can part of the time. At other times, the speech of the Termite Bugrom is beyond even Katsuo/Groucho's ability to decipher. It is not clear whether this occasional indecipherability is a deliberate attempt on the part of the Termite Bugrom to hide information from Katsuo/Groucho and his master, but given that he lost the ability to understand them at about the point that they started planning Jinnai's fate, it seems likely. Also like the Bugrom of El-Hazard, the Termite Bugrom are all ruled by a single queen, who, at least in the beginning, resembles a human. Even further, she very closely resembles Queen Diva. While this resemblance eventually turns out to be an illusion, it is still quite the coincidence.

The Termite Bugrom live in caves and tunnels underground, but this may merely have been a necessary adaptation, given that the surface world is currently experiencing an ice-age of sorts and is completely buried in snow and ice. They depend on a source of warmth to hatch their eggs, which they keep protected in a deep pit filled with a warm liquid, probably warmed by geothermal heat.

The Termite Bugrom are also slowly, but surely encroaching on the territory possessed by the people of Creteria. In fact, their underground tunnels extend all the way to the base of the palace, at which point the Termite Bugrom have made considerable progress in chewing their way into the castle itself. Their motivation for doing so is yet another mystery. Do they have some kind of personal grudge against the humans? Or is it simply that they want control of the humans' territory to expand their own territory, especially since the humans have already done an admirable job in digging deep into the earth. In either case, the humans are well aware of their intrusion, but because of the many other problems Creteria is plagued with, there is only so much they can do about it.

The Termite Bugrom raise a number of interesting questions, but, as these questions are never answered, they are largely reduced to nothing more than a plot device for keeping Jinnai and Shayla occupied until they are needed in the main storyline. What is their connection to the Bugrom of El-Hazard? How is such a connection possible? Why do they attack the city of Creteria? What was their true goal in fattening Jinnai up for their queen? Like many aspects of the show, the Termite Bugrom held a great deal of promise for interesting and thought-provoking storytelling, all of which fell flat at the hands of a rushed and ill-thought-out ending.

Portions of this page originally belonged to The Wanderers' Guide to El-Hazard: The Magnificent world, co-authored by Jason Bertovich (Makoto) and Aaron Ziegler (Spanner). The original page is no longer available on-line.