Gatchaman Episode 33: “The Grand Gezora Operation –Part 2”

[Thank you, Saturn, for the screencaps!]



Gatchaman Episode 33: “The Grand Gezora Operation –Part 2”

BOTP episode: “Curse of the Cuttlefish –Part 2”





Part two begins with a brief recap of part one’s key scenes, delivered by the narrator. “Jun and Jinpei have fallen into their [Galactor’s] trap, and the entire city of Lawn Park is on the brink of devastation!”

Now, the Gezora mecha, which has been tunneling underground towards Lawn Park City, is nearing what appears to be one of its chemical plants. It’s nighttime now. In Gezora’s control room, Berg Katse gives the order for a missile to be fired.





The missile begins rapidly burrowing its way upward through the ground, and within seconds, the chemical plant is awash with flame.





Then it is destroyed in a massive explosion, as various voices of panicked citizens are heard crying out things like “Galactor came, just as they said they would!” and “The whole city is going to be destroyed!” and “Where’s the Science Ninja Team? We need them!” as the devastation spreads.





With that, we see Ken, Joe and Ryu. They’re still in their civvies and they’re watching the burning chemical plant from some distance away





All three of them are clearly frustrated that they’re just standing there and watching Galactor attack the city without being able to do anything about it. “They’re killing these innocent people just so they can lure us out!” says Joe, fist clenched. He’s ready to do something about it, but Ken is adamant that they have to follow their orders from Dr. Nambu and remain undercover.

Now Gezora itself bursts forth from the ground and begins destroying even more of Lawn Park City by firing more missiles and generally smashing things up with its tentacles. It’s rising up into the air, and Joe sees this as their chance to attack it using the God Phoenix but Ken is still determined to hold out for a more opportune moment, saying “We can’t afford to make any moves until we’re sure that we’ll succeed.”

U.N. tanks and fighter planes, however, aren’t waiting; they’re attacking Gezora. But, Gezora destroys the tanks with missiles and obliterates the fighter planes just as it had before, by detaching its tentacles and sending them at the planes. The tentacles even use some interesting formations to accomplish this.





Meanwhile, in Gezora’s control room, Katse is praising Gezora’s indestructibility. “He’s made with Uranium 235 and Uranium 238, so your strongest missiles have no effect!” he gloats exultantly.





He is angry, though, that the Science Ninja Team hasn’t made its presence known, and he vows he’ll “smoke them out” yet. So, Gezora lowers itself down over a large building and proceeds to enfold the building in its tentacles and crumble it to pieces as yet more terrorized Lawn Park citizens run through the streets. “Still not coming out, Gatchaman, what?” says Katse, as Gezora smashes still more buildings. Soon, most of Lawn Park City seems to be nothing but flaming rubble.

Next we see Dr. Nambu on the phone, horrified to hear that Lawn Park City has been taken over by Galactor. The Mayor of Lawn Park City, surrounded by a group of U.N. military leaders and other city officials, is the one calling him with the bad news, as flames and explosions are visible outside his office window.





The mayor wants to know why the Science Ninja Team isn’t doing anything to help, and a nervously sweating Dr. Nambu can only tell him that the Team can’t act unless all five members are present. “Currently,” he says, “They don’t have the power to defeat Gezora,” as the mayor clutches his head in despair. He asks the mayor to give the Team a little more time and to not lose faith in them. With that, Dr. Nambu hangs up his phone and whispers to himself, “I’m counting on you, Gatchaman…”





It’s daylight again and Berg Katse, flanked by numerous goons on the steps of a large building, is delivering a loud oration to the “Citizens of Lawn Park City,” who are timidly peering out of windows and around the edges of damaged buildings to listen to him. He announces that Galactor’s goal here is to destroy the Science Ninja Team, which he knows is hiding somewhere in the city, and that the onslaught on Lawn Park City will continue until they show themselves.





A small boy in a nearby damaged building, hearing all this, decides to step out and throw a rock at one of the goons. His frightened mother runs out to protect him, as the goon turns his rifle on the boy.





But before the goon can shoot the boy, or his mother, Ken’s birdrang comes flying out of nowhere, striking the goon and causing him to drop his rifle. As Katse turns to see what’s going on, Ken (in birdstyle now) steps around from behind a large bell hanging in a tower and taunts Katse. Immediately, the Condor and the Owl appear beside Ken too.

“Hey look, it’s Gatchaman!” cries the small boy, but his (far wiser) mother immediately yanks him indoors, shutting her door hastily.

Katse forgets all about the boy now, and orders the goons to attack the three Science Ninjas. Katse’s actually carrying a gun of his own too, with the apparent intention of participating…

Cue the big fight scene!

Ken soars down from the bell tower (taking out goons with his birdrang) while Joe does the same (hurling shuriken) and so does Ryu (crushing goons as he lands on top of them) before they all turn to wiping out more goons with kicks and punches.









Katse is waving his gun around, irate that his goons can’t defeat the Eagle, Condor and Owl and that the three of them won’t stay still long enough for him to be able to shoot them. You’d think that Katse might be noticing that the Science Ninja Team seems to be missing two members –the female and the kid- and that he just happens to have two such persons locked up in the mansion. But if he is, he’s not saying anything. Granted, his goons are all down now and the three present members of the Team are closing in on him, so that’s probably occupying his thoughts right now.

“You should have known better than to step outside the security of Gezora, you vermin!” says Ken, as he, Joe and Ryu all advance menacingly on Katse. Katse’s still got his gun, but he hasn’t tried to shoot any of them yet, as he seemingly realizes he can’t hit all three at once and he can’t decide who to shoot first.





“Go ahead and shoot, but you’ll never hit all three of us at once,” sneers Joe, confirming this.

Don’t come any closer,” stammers Katse. “If you do, I’ll kill your friends that I’ve captured!” Ken reacts with alarm to these words, thinking “Jun! Jinpei!”





“Judging by the look on your face,” says Katse, “Those two brats must be your comrades after all!” Okay, Katse is figuring things out here…

Ken retorts that the other two are waiting on board the God Phoenix, but Katse laughs and calls him a terrible liar, saying that if that were the case, the God Phoenix would be here right now. “You can’t fool me, Gatchaman. How’d you like me to kill those two?”

Judging from the look that passes over his face, Ken wouldn’t like that one bit. Neither would Joe or Ryu. But, Ken now starts to laugh. And laugh.





“You really think you’ve caught them?” he laughs. “Come on, the Science Ninja Team would never allow themselves to be captured by Galactor!”

This actually gets Katse second-guessing himself, and he says as much, stammering that he was “positive those two were in the Science Ninja Team.” Meanwhile, Joe and Ryu are staring at Ken as if they can’t quite believe that this tactic of his is actually working.





“Wrong again,” says Ken “But if you’re so sure that they are, then go ahead and do whatever you want.” Joe and Ryu both react with some consternation to this statement. Katse, however, has had enough of this, and claims that he’ll do just that –kill his two prisoners and then kill all the Science Ninjas before they can get into birdstyle, next time.

At this, Joe seems to realize that they all been spending too much time just standing there and talking and not enough time shooting. So, he shoots his cable gun at Katse. Katse leaps out of the way, and then hurls his own gun at the three of them.

“I’ll have the last laugh, you psycho!” vows Ken.

Next, Gezora is flying through the air, presumably on its way to the atomic Uranium storage building, and the God Phoenix is following. Ryu and Joe are on the bridge, in birdstyle, and now Ken is there too, also in birdstyle. Ryu asks him where Jun and Jinpei are, and Ken says they must be inside Gezora.

Now wait a minute. Galactor had the perfect opportunity to try to capture Ken back there at the mansion, or at the very least, to try to blow him up with a bomb planted inside one of the dolls but apparently they didn’t bother. We don’t find out if he left the mansion by smashing through the window again, or by using explosives charges to blow the door.

At any rate, he, Ryu and Joe are all on the God Phoenix now, and Joe is realizing that if Jun and Jinpei are on board Gezora, then he can’t fire bird missiles at it. Ken says that what happened to Jun and Jinpei is all his fault, as he was the one who made them give up their bracelets, and therefore he’s going to sneak onto Gezora and give them back their bracelets personally.






Joe insists that he’s going too, and Ken doesn’t object. They pause for a moment up on the God Phoenix’s dome, before soaring through the air towards one of Gezora’s tentacles, and getting inside through one of its holes.







Inside Gezora’s control room, Katse sees that the God Phoenix is following them, and he’s pleased to have the opportunity to “blow them to bits” along with the Uranium storage facility.

Now we see the Uranium storage facility in question.





The narrator informs us that it also contains Plutonium 239, which is made from Uranium. “Plutonium itself only emits a low dosage of radiation, and is not very dangerous. However, when it is combined with a strong outside energy source, it creates an explosion similar to that of an atomic bomb.” We are also shown a vault inside the facility, where a case of (what I assume is) Plutonium is being kept.

Gezora arrives on the scene. As U.N. tanks fire at it uselessly, Gezora grabs the entire building with its tentacles, pulls it right off of its foundation, and flies up into the air with it.





In Gezora’s control room, Katse gives orders for the Uranium facility to be dropped on top of the nuclear power plant, which will “annihilate the city!” Oh, and he wants the goons to kill Jun and Jinpei too.





Now we see two goons enter a room somewhere on Gezora that contains two coffin-shaped boxes, and one goon says they should check inside them first, “Just to be safe.”





But, Ken and Joe are in the room too now. From up near the ceiling, they leap down and attack the two goons.





With the goons dispatched, they quickly open up the coffins and find both Jun and Jinpei, tied up and with tape over their mouths.





The ropes and tape are immediately removed. Jun hugs Ken (awww!) while Jinpei remarks “Man, now I know how dead people feel!”





They hide the goons by putting them inside the coffins, and Ken gives Jun and Jinpei back their bracelets, asking for their forgiveness.





Ryu contacts Ken from the God Phoenix, and tells him they have to get out of Gezora, as it’s about to drop the Uranium storage facility on top of the nuclear power plant. Jun and Jinpei have both transmuted to birdstyle now, and before leaving the room with the others, Jun sets an explosive charge, which begins counting down...





Then we see all four of them exiting Gezora through one of the holes in its tentacles, and soaring to the God Phoenix’s dome. Just then, the God Phoenix moves away from Gezora, and inside the room where the Science Ninjas just were, the two coffins slide into chutes in the floor below them, and are senting shooting from Gezora and into one of the windows in the Uranium storage facility, which is still in the grip of Gezora’s tentacles. With this done, Katse gives the order for Gezora to drop the Uranium storage facility, even as Jun’s explosive charge continues to count down…

Suddenly, an explosion shakes Gezora. An angry Katse demands to know what’s going on, and a goon reports to him that “the tentacles’ power source just exploded!” Katse wants the goon to just get on with dropping the building on the nuclear power plant, but the goon has to explain that now the tentacles aren’t working properly, and that Gezora can’t drop it. Seeing the God Phoenix fly by, on a screen, Katse bangs his fist down in frustration and realizes that “This must be the work of Gatchaman!”

Ken now appears on a screen in Gezora’s control room, and he orders Katse to transport the Uranium storage building to some place safe, or “We’ll blow you and your stupid squid monster into a million pieces.”

Katse retaliates by pointing out that two of the Science Ninjas are trapped inside the building, and that he knows Gatchaman won’t be willing to blow them up. But now Ken is giving Katse a full view of the God Phoenix’s bridge, with all five Ninjas clearly present.





Ken goes on, blithely, that the ones Katse put in the building weren’t their comrades at all (and therefore he doesn’t care a bit about them!), and that all five of the Ninjas have been on the God Phoenix all along.

Katse mutters “Then those two weren’t members of the Science Ninja Team,” and Jun and Jinpei’s secret identities are safe, for now at least.

Now, one of Gezora’s tentacles that’s poked inside of a window of the Uranium storage facility has broken the case containing the Plutonium 239 and suddenly the tentacle startes to burn up and disintegrate.





On the bridge of the God Phoenix, Jun sees that one of Gezora’s tentacles is “melting” and she realizes that it must mean that Gezora has come into contact with Plutonium 239 inside the facility, and therefore this means that Gezora must be made from Uranium 235 and Uranium 238.

Yup, Jun’s the smart one.

Ken follows her meaning, and realizes that if Gezora collides with the entire building it will be bad for Gezora, and Jun confirms that it will indeed unleash an explosion like that of a nuclear bomb.

Ken is definitely keen for that to happen!





Inside Gezora, a goon informs Katse that Gezora’s tentacles are melting, and Katse orders him to deploy the smokescreen, which he does.

On the God Phoenix, Joe wants to shoot a bird missile at Gezora (which is now disappearing into the dark cloud from its smokescreen) but Ken says no, they can’t risk it hitting the Uranium storage facility. Just then, Gezora fires a missile at the God Phoenix, and they have to swerve hard to avoid being hit by it.

When the smokescreen has cleared, they see that Gezora is getting away, and that it’s going underwater, still clutching the Uranium storage facility. The God Phoenix follows it underwater, just in time to see Gezora’s head detach from its tentacles and abandon them and the Uranium storage facility to coming zooming at the God Phoenix. Veering to avoid collision, the God Phoenix collides instead with some undersea rocks and everyone falls out of their seats. The God Phoenix is stuck, with one of its wings still jammed into the undersea rocks, and now Gezora’s head is surging towards the God Phoenix again, to smash it apart. Katse is sure that he has the victory now.

But, Ken orders Ryu to get the God Phoenix to the surface. Ryu fires up even more of its engines, and he succeeds in getting them moving out of there before Gezora hits. Ken quickly instructs Joe to fire a bird missile at Gezora.

Ahhh, so in the first eps. we have a butt shot of Ken and in this Eps. we have a butt shot of Ryu.

And did you notice how in the last shot the Phoenix appears to be GREEN and red....

Thank you for the recap LB, and thank you, Saturn, for the screencaps you two are doing a great job.

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Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things.

Fabulous! This half of the ep is great, too...I love it when the three remaining ninjas talk to Katse...and Katse is right...Ken really is a bad liar...it seemed to me that Joe and Ryu didn't quite understand what Ken was up to at first when he started laughing.

Here's a part that had me going...huh?

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There is no problem that cannot be solved with time, patience, and a judicious amount of high explosives.

Thank you for the animation Springie. I love it.

So-o-o-o "shippy". Sigh.

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Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things.

Wonderful recap LB and Saturn.... and thanks Springie for adding the shipper animation.


One thing I did notice (mind going to gutter here) was that the mecha had a loook about it that reminded me of a male anatomy part.

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" No gratitude needs to be voiced, your mind speaks to us!"


Racer by day, Feather Thrower all the time!

Especially if it was aiming at the G1's loading dock. MUWAWAWA

__________________
" No gratitude needs to be voiced, your mind speaks to us!"


Racer by day, Feather Thrower all the time!