Episode 28
Invisible Demons

(First uploaded on January 22nd, 2000)

So the episode begins with an elementary school or junior high school soccer game, and it is being held in a rather large stadium, and we see striped stockinged legs kicking at a soccer ball, and Ryu is sitting on the steps of the bleachers stand, and Joe is leaning against the railing, and what I want to know is where all these people came from, like, since when do you see a children's soccer game with the bleachers full, to the point where two people can't find seats in the bleachers, I mean, isn't the usual situation something like a parent or two for every player and the kids who didn't get to start crowded around in the front two rows, and lots and lots and lots of empty bleachers? But anyway, the game gets kind of heated, and the goalie blocks a shot by using his head (literally). Ryu comments that they play rather well for kids, and I would like to comment that the goalie is wearing the exact same uniform as the field players on his team, because the only two things I know about soccer is that you are not allowed to touch the ball with your hands unless you are the goalie, and that the goalie has to wear a different jersey than the rest of his team so the referee knows that you are the one who is allowed to use your hands.
And then the goalie in the wrong uniform blocks another shot, but then he is suddenly floating in midair, and he screams some, and the other children playing on the field kind of stand there with their mouths hanging open, and the goalie kid screams some more, and then he disappears, and the soccer ball that he dropped falls to the ground, and the children stand there with their mouths hanging open some more, and we see tire tracks on the field in front of the soccer goal, and the children stand there with their mouths hanging open some more, and the ball rolls into the goal, and Ryu is like wow, Joe, did you see that, and Joe says you idiot, I can't see it, that's why it's so strange, and 1) Gatchaman is funniest when it is not trying to be funny, and this time it was trying 2) why is Joe so badly drawn?

So then we get Ken in an amusement park, and Ken is watching kids have fun on a merry-go-round, which, strangely enough, doesn't have a tent or a pole in the center, I mean, every single merry-go-round that I have seen has a pole in the center and a tent overhead, even if not all of them have a brass ring, and I brace myself for a totally contrived line about how he misses his father and the good times they had together, which never comes, and instead there's a kid saying that he's the one and only G1 of the Science Ninja Team, Gatchaman, Bird Go, and suddenly he is floating in midair, and he disappears, and Ken, who is incredibly badly drawn in this scene, freaks some, and another kid is like where'd he go, come back, and we hear, but do not see, the kid screaming some more, and Ken runs in the direction of the kid's voice, but he doesn't see anything, so he stops and looks around and sees the tire tracks, and the people in the amusement park freak some more, and Ken hollers stop and runs after the tire tracks, and finds himself in a hall of mirrors, and the door to the hall of mirrors opens, and we see a translucent mecha that looks like a snail with three eyes enter, and Ken follows it, and the translucent snail becomes totally transparent, and Ken runs after it but, in a totally contrived scene, he runs into a mirror and falls, and says an expletive with a reference to human waste products, and goes on to mutter something about how they have found a wonderful hiding place, and how difficult it is to find them, and how all he can see is himself, wherever he looks, and I am wondering how on earth that kid knew that the team says “Bird Go!" to change to birdstyle, I mean, doesn't that mean that there's been a breach of security of some kind?

And then we get a shot of a local electrical appliance store, and there are people gathered around the five or six television sets in the window, and the newscaster says “we interrupt this program" or somesuch to tell people there have been a chain of disappearances of elementary and junior high school students all over the country, but it's not yet certain whether they are simple kidnappings or some kind of freaky scientific phenomenon, and that all children are being advised to avoid going outside, and then we cut to Berg “Purple Doberman on Speed" Katze watching the same newscast, and he turns off the TV and cackles a bit about how they don't stand a chance against his genius, and then a Galactor soldier (read: cannon fodder) asks him what he wants to do with the children, which I am not even going to comment on, and Katze says that they will be used as eyes for Galactor, and to bring the children out of the transparent tank, but I am thinking that if it is a transparent tank, why did the children disappear, I mean, if it were supposed to be a transparent tank, wouldn't you be able to see right through the tank to see the child in question inside? But this is Gatchascience, and I decide to leave it at that, as the tanks become visible and the hatches of the tanks open, and the children are brought on wheeled stretchers to the center of the room, and the children writhe in discomfort as Katze looks on, which I am not even going to comment on, and above their heads, a shilouetted image of a hawk is floating, and good old PDOS helpfully explains that these are three dimensional images of the children's dreams, and that he is going to use the children's brain waves to create a monster that can slip in anywhere, and that he will call the monster the Alphaguiller, in, of course, a reference to alpha waves, a type of brain waves, and I deeply regret having had any thoughts regarding the scientific plausibility of a transparent tank that doesn't let you see the passengers inside when we've got monsters built out of kidnapped children's dreams in the same episode, and PDOS informs us that children have good memories, in, perhaps, a scriptwriter's observation from when he was told by his five-year-old that he had broken his promise to take the kid to the amusement park, but anyway, PDOS helpfully informs us some more that the Alphaguiller is a product of those sharp memories, and that it will read the secret documents of the Mantle Project hidden in the basement of the International Science Organization, and meanwhile, the so-called three dimensional images are turning into a leopard, and then a winged griffin of some kind, and then a tentacled...what on earth is it? Oh, never mind.

So the next scene is in the ISO parking lot, and you notice that there is a row of parked cars which have a row of cars parked right in front of them and a row of cars parked right behind them, and you begin to wonder how on earth those cars are supposed to get out, and there is a driver with a hat dozing in a convertible with its top down, and what I want to know is what is the point of having a convertible if you are going to have someone drive it for you, I mean, isn't the whole point of driving a convertible having the top down and feeling the force of the wind in your hair increase as you step on the gas, but then again, this is a Gatchaman episode, so the driver is probably not going to be around to drive the convertible much longer anyway, and sure enough, something kind of giant ameba, which, I suppose, is supposed to be the so-called Alphaguiller, comes down from overhead and passes by, and the driver is like what is that and he reaches out to touch the weird object, and he screams, and he disappears, and there are workers looking out the window, and they see the giant amoebae-like thing coming closer, and they freak for a moment before they disappear, and there is cannon fodder, excuse me, I meant a Galactor soldier in the base, and it tells Katze that the ameba has reached the basement file room, and PDOS is al happy and orders full power on the memory device, and to record everything the ameba reads into its memory device on the computer, and the ameba, being an ameba of course, passes through the iron bars of the basement, and enters the file cabinet through the keyhole, and the Galactor soldier tells us, in case we couldn't figure it out for ourselves, that the ameba has begun reading the files, and PDOS gloats, and what I want to know is how an ameba made of children's dreams can zap things and send data transmissions.

Next scene. Crescent Coral base. Same fish in the same school which we have seen in, oh, I don't know, something like 27 previous episodes, and the team is in the briefing room, and Jinpei is like he doesn't get it, the kids just disappear, and Joe, who looks like a delinquent 8th grader in this scene (though if you stop and think about it, if he was driving a car and hanging out with the likes of Lucy, he probably was a delinquent 8th grader at one point in time), says that he heard that the kids might have slipped into the fourth dimension, which Ryu doesn't buy, and I don't blame Ryu in the least for this, and Jinpei is like did you really, really, really see the kids disappear, and Ken says yes, he saw it too, I saw something like a blurry snail in the Mirror Pavilion, like, I would really, really, really count Ken “Wonder Boy (because we wonder about him all the time)" Washio as a credible source of information, and Joe fills us in that they checked the Mirror Pavilion and there was nothing there, and Jun is like there's nothing they can do against any invisible enemy, and Dr. N enters the room, and tells them that there's been another mysterious incident, and Ken is like what now, and Dr. N tells them about the ameba, and how it disappeared after breaking into the secret file room, and Ryu asks sensibly if there was anything stolen, and Dr. N says there was nothing missing, and Ryu says that everyone must have been dreaming, so Ryu is a realist and the kind of person who doesn't believe in witches and fairies and elves and leprechauns and stuff, and Dr. N is like no, two of their people came into contact with the ameba and were killed, and that the file room contained important information regarding the Mantle Plan, and Jun is like it's Galactor, um, Jun, like that took a four-digit I.Q., and Joe is kind of dismayed that they have to be doing two things at once (exterminating the ameba and searching for the missing kids) and Ken says that he just realized that he heard a strange sound when the kids disappeared, and Joe and Ryu say that they heard it too, and Dr. N asks them to elaborate, and no, it's wishful thinking, his glasses don't have temple frames again.

So the next scene (or scenes, depending on how you count them) is of Galactor out on a rampage, let me see, we see a dam breaking, and then we see gas tanks explode, and then we see a geothermal energy development center being destroyed, and we see an oil refinery explode, and each time, someone from the facility in question sends out an SOS saying that they can't see whatever is attacking them, which really impresses me at their powers of deduction, because if my energy facility were under attack by something I couldn't see, I would probably think there had been some spontaneous accident or something, as opposed to an attack by something I couldn't see. And Joe slams his fist against the wall of the briefing room, and says a bad word with a reference to human waste products, and says that all the places that were attacked were vital parts of the Mantle Plan, and that this must mean that the secret files have been stolen, and we see the usual fish outside the same porthole of the briefing room, and Jinpei points out that none of the files have been stolen, so surely they couldn't have read all those files and then returned them, and Jun suggests some sort of supernatural power, and Ryu says probably not, and then he turns to Ken and asks if they are going to just sit there, and Ken says that all they can do is wait for Dr. N., who is in the ISO, and that might not be a very good thing (or perhaps it is a very good thing, depending upon how much you like Dr. N) because the next scene is of the giant ameba that is in the hallway of the ISO building, and there are people screaming and freaking and running down the stairs in threes, which scares me, because I hate going down stairs, I don't know if it is because my severe nearsightedness and super-thick eyeglasses (or super-strong contacts, depending on which I am wearing) deprive me of the depth perception, or it is because I've sprained my ankles so many times that I've a deep set fear of going down stairs, but I can never, never, never go down in stairs in threes like the people in this scene are doing, and Dr. N is at a terminal in his office, and a worker enters the room, and tells him that the ameba is here and that it got into the file cabinets, and Dr. N freaks, and we are back in the hall again, and the ameba is fired on by security guards, but nothing happens to the ameba, but the security guards get to scream a little bit before they disappear, and we hear Dr. N's voice over the intercom telling everyone in the building to leave the monster alone, and speaking of Dr. N's voice, his was the only one played by its original voice actor in the recent Tatsunoko TV special broadcast on New Year's Eve, and although the voice actor playing the PDOS actually did a pretty decent job of imitating Terashima Mikio, the person who hired the voice actor for Ken in that show should be tarred, feathered and keelhauled, I mean, it's not like Mori Katsuji is dead, and as long as you are going to have Go Mifune (a.k.a. Speed Racer) in the show, you may as well cast two roles with one voice actor and hire the original, but anyway, in case you are interested, the special is of value only if you are familiar with Tatsunoko anime characters and if you don't mind having your favorite characters drawn in a modern anime fashion, so for someone like me, who only cares about Gatchaman and who doesn't particularly like the overly shadowed, overly effeminate anorexic pretty boy depictions so popular in current anime, watching this so-called special once was enough, which is why you won't be getting a PD of it anytime soon. So anyway, the security guards leave the monster alone, while Dr. N orders the cameras inside the file room to be turned on, and I have to say that if I were in charge of security of a large organization with lots of documents which could prove dangerous in the wrong hands, the room with all the potentially dangerous documents would be the first one in which I would install a camera THAT IS OPERATIONAL 24 HOURS A DAY, 7 DAYS A WEEK, but that's just me, and through the newly turned-on camera, we see that the ameba is turning pages, which is pretty impressive work for an ameba, and of course, in true Gatchaman fashion, all this data is transmitted by ticker tape, as opposed directly to a hard drive or something, and Katze gloats, and Dr. N looks at the ameba and ponders, and Katze gloats some more, and Dr. N stands suddenly saying by George I think I've got it, and calls Ken, and Ken is like what's up dude, and Dr. N tells them to come to the ISO building, and Ken says roger and then we get the view of perhaps one of the most often used stock cels in the history of Japanese animation, when you consider that Gatchaman ran for 105 episodes, the one where the Godphoenix leaves Crescent Coral base and takes to the skies.

(*cringe* someone save me... The Narrator from H*ll tells us, in case we hadn't figured it out already, that the GP left Crescent Coral base under Dr. N's orders, I mean, how dense does he think we are, and that Galactor had already unveiled the secrets of the Mantle Plan, that it began its next attack, and we get lots of images from oil refineries and power plants and construction sites being destroyed, and what I am wondering is, um, power plants and construction sites are kind of hard to keep a secret, and that Galactor could have destroyed them whenever their little hearts desired, but PDOS gloats and we get a message from a worker from one of these awfully-conspicuous-for-top-secret facilities saying that they are being attacked by an invisible enemy, and we pause for a commercial break.

So now Dr. N is doing a slide presentation, and Jinpei says tire tracks, and Dr. N says that their depth tells us the size and weight which tells us that it is a tank, and Joe says an invisible tank, like yes, we can see that, and that it's kind of clever of them, and we see slides of file cabinets and amoebae, which makes me wonder if Dr. N actually made a slide from the surveillance camera recording, as opposed to just showing the tape itself, which would make more sense from a time efficiency standpoint, and Ken wants to know what that thing that looks like a fragment of a Jackson Pollock painting, and Dr. N tells them that the thing is what appeared in the file room, and that it is reading the files, and Ryu wants to know what exactly it is, and Dr. N says that he doesn't know, but that he does know that it is acting as the eyes and the brain behind Galactor, which doesn't make sense to me, but Joe clarifies it by telling us that what Dr. N is telling us is that the thing that the ameba reads are sent to Galactor, and Ken interrupts him, like, nice manners there, Wonder Boy, to say that they send out the transparent tank after they read the files, and Jinpei is like wouldn't that destroy the entire Mantle Project, and that they have to do something, and Ryu wrestles Jinpei while telling him that he totally agrees, but it is really kind of hard to attack an enemy which they can't see, and Dr. N tells them that there is a way, and I am thinking, of course there is a way, there are 77 more episodes left, and the slides are put away and the blinds are opened, and he is holding a glass ashtray, um, fine example you are setting for your wards, Dr. N, by smoking, like, in a recent survey conducted by an anti-smoking organization, on a scale of zero to ten, Japan scores a zero in sending messages that smoking is not a good thing (as opposed to the US, which scores a six), and it really annoys me that people don't seem to understand that smoking is not only bad for the smoker’s health, it's also bad for people who just sit around people who smoke, like, how much do I love these “organic farming" nut anal retentive mothers who say that non-organically farmed produce is giving their children atopic dermatitis and diminished immune systems, and that it is terribly irresponsible of the government to let such food be sold without warning, and all the while, they say nothing to their husbands who sit and smoke in the living room, like, I understand that you are concerned for your children, but what about that man living in your house sending a very clear message that he doesn't give a damn that he is giving your kid, who also happens to be HIS OWN kid, an increased risk for catching more colds than other kids or getting more ear infections than other kids, or at an increased risk for having asthma, I MEAN, REALLY. But, anyway. Dr. N tells us that we see things because light is refracted, and that if you make a substance which refracts light the way air does, it will become invisible, just like air, and that Galactor had successfully made something that does this, albeit incompletely, and I forget my promise to myself and start wondering about what passengers of a transparent tank would look like from the outside, and Dr. N says that he says incompletely because Ken saw it in the mirror pavilion and Jinpei hmms, and Ryu, in trying-too-hard-to-provide-comic-relief mode, says to Jinpei do you understand any of this, and Jinpei, also in trying-too-hard-to-provide-comic-relief mode, is like of course I do, and Dr. N ignores them, while suggesting that the invisible tank can remain unseen if light hits it from only one direction, but when light hits it from more than one direction, like in the Mirror Pavilion, it can be seen, and speaking of mirrors, how scary are boutique mirrors that make you look like you are 10 kilos lighter than you actually are so that you will buy the dress thinking that it makes you look thin, and you wear that cute little dress to work thinking that it makes you look thin, and people look at you with a sort of anguished smile all day, and you are wondering why, until you go to the bathroom and check yourself in the mirror and realize that the cute little dress you bought is not very cute, but very, very, VERY little on you, and makes you look, um, what is the politically correct term these days, oh yes, it make you look like a REAL WOMAN, and not like in a Kate Winslet in Titanic kind of REAL WOMAN, which wouldn't really be that bad, but like in a sumo wrestler kind of way. And Jinpei and Ryu try too hard provide comic relief some more, while Dr. N mumbles something about dangerous gambles and how every one of the kidnapped children had powerful brain waves, like, 1) what do you mean by powerful brain waves, do you mean that the children had seizure disorder (the politically and medico-legally correct term I believe to be in current use, the disorder formerly known as epilepsy, and a term that is doublespeak, because, I've never heard of a normal seizure), which is, of course, quite possible because many children with seizure disorder can live lives no different from their disease-free friends 2) since when do ordinary children get electroencephalograms, like, I didn't get one until I was 23, and that was only because one of the psychiatrists was doing research and he wanted normal volunteer electroencephalograms, and between the two MRIs of my brain and the one MRI of my knee and the goodness-knows-how-many sonograms of my abdomen, I am probably in the top 99th percentile of all healthy people in the universe when it comes to the number of times I have been scanned (and I can confidently say healthy because all of the previously mentioned scans were normal), but anyway, like I was saying, the average person has no idea what their brain waves are like, so how was Dr. N and co. able to find out the amplitude of brain waves which were never measured? And then Dr. N continues to mumble some more about how he doesn't know about how the kidnapped children and their so-called powerful brain waves are being used, but that it has something to do with the strange monster that appeared in the file cabinets, and I would like to know if anyone out there has ever met a monster that they didn't find strange. Show of hands please? I didn't think so. But all of this goes whoosh past Wonder Boy's nonexistent brain, because he says, get this, actually UNDERSTANDS the stuff that Dr. N just mumbled, and finishes Dr. N's mumbling for him by saying that they get caught by Galactor on purpose, to infiltrate their secret base, like, WHERE ON EARTH DID THAT COME FROM, and Dr. N says that they are going to amplify the brain waves of one of them by threefold, and use them as bait for Galactor, and what I want to know is, how on earth are brain waves amplified, I mean, some people who suffer head trauma or vascular malformations or brain tumors get seizures...

And I deeply regret having asked that, because in the next scene, we get the Narrator from H*ll telling us that the role of decoy was given to Jun, and that it was a very grueling experiment, and I would like to point good old Dr. N to the Helsinki Accord yet again, and I would also like to ask why Jun was chosen to be the one lying on an operating table-like contraption with a helmet with electrodes on her head, which reminds me of what one of the older radiology technologists said today about how the stray cats running around on campus used to all have electrodes attached to their heads, because they were all fugitives from an experiment one of the researchers in the psychiatry department was conducting, but anyway, Dr. N turns on a switch. O.K. Dr. N must be some kind of seriously twisted pervert, because we get Jun in all her electrode-crowned glory screaming and writhing in pain, and I find this really disturbing in a kinky kind of way, not to mention that all the glassware in the living room is now shattered thanks to Jun's voice, and this scene with Jun screaming and writhing goes on as the NFL tells us that powerful electronic waves were sent into Jun all at once so that her brain waves would be amplified threefold, and Jun screams and moans and writhes some more, like, put her (and me) out of her misery already, and the others kind of just look on, and at least Jinpei looks partially concerned, but Dr. N just kind of watches with his face devoid of expression. F***ing pervert. (Then again, that's usually how perverts make themselves a menace to society, but you get the point.)
And Jun doesn't suffer any kind of personality or I.Q. alteration, because we have the NfH tell us that the SNT, with Jun as a decoy, set up watch in Leisureland (the name of the amusement park), where there had been multiple disappearances, and Jun is walking around in civvies, and Ken and Joe are trying too hard to be ninjas in their civvies, and there are Galactor Green People in the so-called transparent tank, and they see Jun over a black and white monitor, and one says to the other that there's a woman with above cutoff-level brain waves, and how on earth they figured this out on a black and white video monitor is anyone's guess, and the other GGP says to kidnap her immediately, and Jun walks around some more, and Ken and Joe follow her some more, and Ken notices tire tracks behind Jun, and in a very non-ninja manner, shouts “Oh!" and Jun screams and writes and moans for quite some time before she disappears, and right then and there, the pervert director just...um, never mind.

And I don't even what to think about where the homing device Ken says has been activated is in terms of Jun's anatomy, or how the fanfic writers can have a field day about how Ken and Joe were together in that moment before the four of them run into the so-called Mirror Pavilion. Then the floor opens up and the four of them are swallowed (as if anyone didn't see that one coming from a mile away) and don't ask me how they managed to join hands in a spoke wheel pattern while they are falling, or why they needed to join hands in a spoke wheel pattern while they are falling, and we find that the flashy arm movement to activate their Birdstyles isn't really necessary, because while they are still joining hands in a spoke wheel formation, Ken says Bird Go and the rest of them say Bird Go, which sounds really strange because the three of them say it in unison and they say it really short and fast, and not like “Baaaaaaaard Go!" the way they usually do.

So now we are in the base, and the kidnapped children and Jun are lying in a spoke-wheel pattern with headgear, and PDOS is looking down at them from the control center, and PDOS asks his GGP if that is the woman with the impressive brain waves, and I still want to know just what it is that they mean by “impressive brain waves", and GGP says that it is, and that there were four men who followed her and tried to enter the pavilion, but that they dropped them into the trap at the entrance and killed them, and PDOS says in a so very contrived line that is so very typical for this show to dispose of the bodies because they wouldn't want the Science Ninja Team to catch on, and the GGP presses a button and Jun begins moaning and groaning again, LIKE WOULD SOMEBODY PLEASE TAKE THEIR PERVERTED FANTASIES SOMEPLACE ELSE and the translucent snail appears, and the PDOS informs us that the Alphaguiller's weakness is that it's very short lived, but that they will reconstruct it as many times as it takes to crush the Mantle Project completely, and I am thinking it is pretty darn hard to crush a project once it has been decided by a Japanese bureaucracy, but that's just me.

So the next scene has the four men who followed the woman with the incredible brain waves, who are, for some mysterious reason, dressed in helmets and tights and wings, and Jinpei comments that they've wandered into a strange place, and you notice that there are giant eyeballs, and Ken comments on how Galactor sure knows how to make strange things, like, um, we'll take your word for it, Mr. We’ve-tried-every-kind-of-torture-but-I’m-not-the-least-bit-frumpled-and-I-still-have-my-weapon-with-me, and Joe says Ken, which I'm not even going to comment on, and Ken looks up and one of the eyeballs open and there are two GGP and one says to the other that it's funny that no one is there, and the other says that there should be four bodies, and Joe comments on how that must be the way out, and so we get a small fight scene, and they enter the eyeball, and then there is a big fight scene in which the four of them form a huddle and Jinpei announces “Ninpo Cross Fighter" which should be a great big clue to the GGP that they should get as far away as they can, but, of course, in true GGP tradition, they don't, and so the four of them spin around and around like a windmill and kick and blow and whatever GGP by the dozens, and what I want to know is which is the real Ninpo Cross Fighter, the one we see here, or the one in episode 19 in which Ken and Joe link arms, and Jun, in an incredible strength move, spins the two of them around and around like a baton. And the fight scene continues, and Ken jumps on top of a GGP's shoulders, facing the GGP so that the poor GGP's face is in Ken's...um, never mind. Let's just go ahead to the next scene, in which the translucent snail is in the ISO file room again, and a GGP tells PDOS that something is wrong, the Alphaguiller isn't showing any readings at all, and PDOS is incredulous, and Ken molests GGP some more, and Dr. N and the other ISO employees are watching the translucent snail on the screen, and an ISO person says, oh, Dr. N, it's here, just like we expected, and Dr. N laughs, and PDOS's computer begins generating ticker tape, and GGP says that the computer has begun to generate ticker tape, and Ken and Ryu molest GGP some more in some scenes using recycled cels because they spent too much of their budget making Jun moan and groan to satisfy some director's perverted desires, and PDOS cackles, and there's some more GGP molestation, and PDOS announces that the ISO has made a giant uranium storage facility in the desert, and that the tanks should be sent out to seize the uranium, and might I point out that it might be unwise to send out his GGP to retrieve uranium, of all things in the world, without lead shielding, which would render the tanks visible, oh wait, this is Gatchascience, or perhaps, it might be unwise to send out his GGP to retrieve uranium, of all things in the world, as they might use metal buckets or something to transport it, oh wait, this is the Gatchaverse, and did the ticker tape mention which desert? Oh yes, this is the Gatchaverse.. And Wonder Boy says that he won't let that happen, and his bladed boomerang thing strikes the ticker tape from PDOS's hand, and Wonder Boy catches it and does a majorette's baton routine with it before putting it back in its holster, or whatever it is, and says a line about how his evil plans will go no further, which he probably practiced in front of his bathroom mirror about ten times every day, and PDOS cackles about how he hates to tell him that he no longer needs the kidnapped children or the secret base because he has his hands on the last part of the Mantle Project, and Wonder Boy sits there wondering as PDOS breaks through the glass window of the control room to the room below, and Wonder Boy sits there wondering some more until Joe shouts Ken, and he finally notices Jun and the other children in the room below, and how the tanks are leaving, and so Wonder Boy gives the order to get Jun and the children, and the other three shout Roger and jump to the lower room through the broken window, and Wonder Boy contacts Dr. N, telling him that they have managed to save Jun and the other children, but that they've let the transparent tanks and PDOS escape, and Dr. N tells him not to be too hard on himself, and to come back because there's still some more work to do.

So the next scene is in the desert, and you see the tire tracks again, and what I want to know is if they're in the desert, wouldn't the transparent snails get dusty to the point of being visible, not to mention that they got there much too quickly for the snail's pace at which they travel, oh wait, this is the Gatchaverse, and there is a large building ahead, and a GGP says that must be it, and PDOS says to attack at once, and so they do, and the interior of the building is lined with mirrors, and PDOS is like what on earth, and Dr. N cackles and says that they've been waiting for them, and PDOS is wearing lip gloss, and Dr. N cackles some more about this wonderful castle that he has built just for them, and if I were a GGP I would fire a couple hundred rounds into Dr. N just to stop his cackling, but I suppose if GGP had that kind of sense, PDOS would have conquered the world already, and PDOS and Co. attempt to escape, but then the GP flies in through the door of the building and shoves the tanks into a nice little pile as it does so, and they of course conveniently explode, and speaking of explosions, Gatchaman is actually being broadcast on conventional (as in non-cable, non-pay) TV for the first time in years, and so all the Japanese Gatchafans waited in eager anticipation, and don't get me wrong, I think that it is a good thing for Gatchaman that they've doing these weekly broadcasts, even if they are at 5:30 in the morning, but they've censored words like “kichigai" (lunatic, often used in reference to the PDOS) and “mekura" (blind, used in episode 31 “Plan to Assassinate Dr. Nambu", when the Woman Commander says to Dr. N “this train is currently running blind, without a driver") because they're not politically correct, which I can understand, but how politically incorrect are these terms in the concept of these spoken lines in Gatchaman, and they also cut the explosions because animated explosions caused epileptic seizures in susceptible children like in that Pokemon incident a while back, and speaking of Pokemon, I happened to be in the US for a day job related event this past November, and Pokemon was everywhere, and it was just so very bizarre to have Burger King in Pokemon paper bags and cups and Pokemon backpacks and Pokemon sneakers and Pokemon paraphernalia selling for $9.95 that could be purchased in Japan for several hundred yen, and my friends and I joked that we probably could have made enough to pay for the trip if we had brought cheap Pokemon merchandise to sell. Oh, another thing, have you ever heard of anything more stupid than the idea of a website to bash Pikachu in the head with a baseball bat? I have. The idea of Nintendo actually taking this website seriously enough to appeal to it “not to destroy the children's dreams".  Um, whatever. Oh, and one last thing, how Fred Ladd is the name “Ash Ketchum"?

So anyway, back to the explosion, the GGP are blown away as always, and PDOS is hit by a tire, and since the tanks were moving on caterpillars, where did the tire come from, and Wonder Boy gloats, and PDOS grunts, and Wonder Boy gloats some more, and PDOS puts Wonder Boy in his place by telling him off, flourishing his cape, and disappears, engulfed in blue flames, and Wonder Boy must not get it that he's let PDOS escape, because he looks happy for some reason, and PDOS gloats through a hole in the sand, and NfH (who else?) closes by telling us that just when they had thought they'd had PDOS cornered, they lost him in the flames, like, um, I think we all caught that, and Wonder Boy felt a strong sense of defeat, and that Gatchaman shouldn't give up, because there would be a new battle to fight tomorrow, and I'm glad Wonder Boy has a strong sense of defeat, because all these Important ISO secrets have been stolen by Galactor, stuff about dams and geothermal energy centers and oil refineries, and they still have a means to get into your file cabinets if they so choose, and they still know how to make transparent tanks, and since this tactic with transparent tanks works so well, I would stick to it, but apparently the next episode is about professional wrestling.

Um, no comment.