1 - New Dark Clouds

People are cleaning up and rebuilding after the destruction that accompanied the end of Gatch II. But a fragment of Sosai X remains alive. It levitates itself and flies around looking for somewhere to rebuild itself, and winds up in either a warehouse or a ship's hull, where it grabs computer terminals, girders, propellers, anything it can to build a huge pyramid around itself.

In the meantime, Ken, Jun, Jinpei and Ryu are in the Snack Jun. Jinpei is happily building a house of cards, while the others talk. wondering about Joe. Joe has been left weakened at the end of Gatch II because after Raphael died nobody else knew how to recharge him. Ken goes to see him, in a hospital room in the ISO building. Joe is ready to die, Ken raises the blind to show him there's still a world worth living for.

In the meantime, Egobossler is admiring his portraits of Katse and Gel Sadra while drinking a large glass of red stuff (port? brandy? wine?). He strolls out to applause from his generals? puppet government? who are all standing around a huge table with a map of the world on it. He makes a Hitler style speech exorting them to take over the world now Sosai X is gone. Tanks come out of the ground and attack cities, backed up by helicopter gunships and relentlessly marching infantry. There is much destruction. Egobossler celebrates with another glass.

Nambu addresses the UN, showing them the destruction wrought (some of the pictures look like genuine war photographs, coloured so that they don't stand out). A call comes in - Egobossler wants to introduce himself. He swirls his glass around (unable to drink through his mask, I expect) and probably says he's going to take over the world. Ken wants to go and fight, and Nambu seems reluctant. They look almost as if they are to come to blows, but Nambu lets them go. They board the New Godphoenix and head out. By this time it looks as if Ego's forces are approaching one of Gel Sadra's old bases (I shall have to check that) but the team get there just before and start wiping out the enemy. Just as the tanks are about to fire missiles at the NGP, and the NGP is about to fire missiles at the tanks, a collossal mech breaks out of the ground. It's so huge that we're never shown what it looks like in its entirety. The NGP looks about the size of a bee next to it. It tosses the tanks aside and beats the NGP, breaking off its tail and forcing it to crash in woodland - it looks as if the team eject. Sosai Z appears in his pyramid of metal above it, announcing his presence, and the episode ends with the mech about to spike Ken, who is injured on the ground.

9/10 - exciting

2 - The Gatchaspartan appears

The collossal mecha is about to spike Ken. Suddenly, an underground tank equipped with drills comes out of the ground and picks up the soil and rocks with the team on top, puts them inside itself, and goes back under the ground again. The collossal mecha continues its strike but there's nothing there. Seeing that Gatchaman has gone, Sosai Z levitates the collossal mech into itself and then levitates Ego in for a chat. Inside Z there is a huge amount of space and lots of pretty lights to look at, Ego eventually drifts to where Z's speaking area is and they discuss an alliance. Ego works for Z, and Z will put all of Galactor's remaining resources at his disposal I expect. Z and Ego have a jolly old laugh.

Ken, Jun, Jinpei and Ryu wake up on a metal floor. Ken sees a man standing over them and moves to attack, but the man reveals himself to be Kamo, their chief engineer. He shows them their new weapons and intruduces them to the Gatchaspartan and its capabilities. They go through a long, protracted Thunderbirds style sequence of getting into the vehicles. There is pointedly a G2 vehicle and a G2 lift and a G2 launch ramp, but the G2 can't go because Joe isn't there to pilot it. The others take off and rush to attack the collossal mech.

Back at the ISO, Nambu is looking at Joe's cyborg charts and notes, and talking to Joe who looks as if he has absolutely given up the will to live. Suddenly, a call comes through the intercom that Galactor is attacking. Joe hears this and is stunned into action, while Nambu runs off to deal with stuff. Joe struggles (this makes his efforts to get to his car after that puppy incident look like he just had a bit of a headache) to get out of his room, out of the ISO building, into a flying submarine and to Kamo's mountain lair to get to the G2 and launch it.

Meanwhile, Ken has decided for some reason that he has to ram the collossal mech. The others scream "no". Just as he's about to hit it, a missile shoots in from nowhere and he pulls out of his dive. It's Joe who's shot the mech. Not that the mech seems very worried about it, but now they can unite the Gatchspartan. Very protracted unite sequence, much like the Sailor Moon transformation in slowness and impracticality. Once it's all united, the inside evidently goes through some kind of transformation so they can all sit together in a control room (how does Joe come up through the floor when his car goes right on top?). Ken immediately goes for his sword, detatches the G1 and jumps on top of it and carves a hole in the middle of the collossal mech's belly with the Gatchafencer, then the G1 unites with the rest of the Gatchspartan again and Ken stands right on the back, on top of the G2's rear spoiler, and the Gatchspartan flies through the middle of the mech. How Ken doesn't get knocked off I have no idea, I assume there's an energy field around it - perhaps this is the hypershoot in its early form. Anyway, the mech is destroyed and Ego is a bit dismayed.

At the end, Joe is asleep with exhaustion in the Gatchspartan when they get a call from Nambu. It sounds as if he may have found a way to recharge Joe.

7/10 - I had a Gatchspartan toy and it was brilliant to play with, but it's ludicrous in action. But there's lots of other stuff to watch this ep for.

3 - A Polluted Oasis

This ep starts with a reasonably accurate map of Europe (pre-unification of East and West Germany) showing that Egobossler's base is in Germany and he's invading the rest of Europe in 3 waves, through France, BeNeLux and Poland. Or perhaps it's a sign that he's using Hitler's invasion plans, except that Germany wasn't split until after WW2.

So, all over Europe his armies are burning villages and generally being nasty to people. In one particular village, they are preventing the people from getting to their spring to get water, the troops are using it to supply the invasion lines instead. The team see what's happening, and Ken and Jun take cases of explosives to deal with the Galactors. They explore the rooftops of the village, eventually dropping to the ground just before some Galactors appear. They hide in a doorway, and the door opens behind them allowing them through before the Galactors see them. Inside, a grey haired and bearded man talks to them, before opening another door. Now they see that they are inside a church, but the villagers who've been brutalised by the Galactors are sheltering inside, all bandaged and sick and listening to babies cry. There's a bit of a discussion between Greyman and a younger guy, and Jun begins assembling explosive devices.

Beneath a cliff outside the village the Galactors have set up camp. They have tents, tanks and supply trucks. Ken and Jun leap around the vehicles, planting explosives and setting them to detonate when the vehicles move. Then they take one of the tanks (without explosive of course) and shell the ammunition trucks. This causes lots of explosions. Then the Galactors run out of their tents and into their vehicles and of course there are lots more explosions. The tents burn, the Galactors burn or get shredded to pieces, and generally the camp is lost.

Kempler breaks the news to Ego, who's got yet another glass of the red stuff. Ego isn't upset. He's got giant cyborg troops from Z to help him. The giant cyborg troops scare the willies out of Kempler.

The people are able to get back to their spring, and boy are they thirsty. Greyman and Ken have some discussions, where Ken evidently agrees to do something, which the rest of the team look a bit astounded by. He and Greyman then address the villagers, who promptly get up and leave. Which isn't what they wanted them to do. I suspect Greyman wanted the villagers to fight for their village, but they are only villagers facing a well armed army so who can blame them for refusing.

Anyhow, the team wait for Galactor to return, and sure enough a truck speeds up and the giant cyborg troops leap out. The team fight against them but to no avail, they're just too strong. They have swords and are too strong for the Gatchafencer. They have maces which they spin so fast that they repel the shuriken. They're too strong to be distracted by Jinpei's soap-on-a-rope, or by Ryu's pike and chain. Only Jun's energy net has any effect, and then only on one cyborg at a time, leaving her open to attack by the others. She modifies her freeze gun in some way which allows her to disable them.

Kempler's tanks appear while the team are busy with the cyborgs. Greyman picks up a shotgun and races towards them, shooting uselessly - they are tanks after all - but Kempler pops up from his turret and shoots back with a gun. Despite having the traditional Galactor inability to shoot straight, he still manages to injure Greyman. Greyman shouts heroically and refuses to stay down, so Kempler shoots badly a lot more, managing to repeatedly give him minor flesh wounds in the shoulders. The villagers seem incensed by this and the men and boys pick up guns and march out to meet the tanks. Fortunately by this time the team have finished with the cyborgs.

Ken rushes towards the tanks, his sword brandished. The tanks fire shells at him, but of course they all miss. Kempler shoots at him, but in his birdstyle he's bulletproof. He runs a very long way. The rest of the team, led by Joe, rush to their vehicles and race towards the tanks. They shoot the tanks with missiles, blowing many up. Kempler orders a withdrawal of his remaining tanks.

Ken's very out of breath by now, he's been running for ever and he still didn't get as far as the tanks. And it's the end of the episode, which is a good thing.

4/10 - too much talking, too many people doing suicidal things, too much stupid useless running about by Ken, too much bad shooting. No hypershoot though.

4 - Challenge of the Iron Commandos

The episode opens with a view of a small, peaceful island, with a village at one end and a Disney-type castle on top of cliffs at the other. Suddenly submarines surface and fire at the village, and then helicopters come strafing overhead, and robot/cyborg troops start marching through walls while the villagers run like hell or cower in whatever shelter they can find. The troops head up the hill towards the castle, where a white flag of surrender is being waved from one of the towers.

The troops are in the main hall, and the queen is calling for peace or for them not to hurt anyone or something like that. The troops all start chanting (it sounds very much as if they're shouting "Hitler" but it could be "Iwa" or something like that) and Egobossler strolls in in his mask, flanked by Kempler and Mechandor. I think he fancies the queen. He has the queen and surrounding people marched away by the troops and looks very jolly about getting a castle all of his very own. It looks like he's progressed from the red wine to tawny port or brandy in this episode.

Nambu tells the team that bad things are going down. He pops up a map of europe which indicates that Ego is in control of every major city (it's not like the one in ep 3, this one looks like a few sea level changes may have taken place). The team set off to help.

When they get to the island, they see the villagers standing on the edge of a cliff below the castle. They're tied up and the green guys are pointing guns at them. They'll die if Gatchaman try anything. The team land at another island nearby, it seems nobody is interested in this one as it has no castle. Ken has an idea and takes his plane underwater to the island, and sneaks up on the robots/cyborgs. However, there are a lot of them and they don't respond to his attempts to punch or kick them, and the gatchafencer doesn't work on them either. One of them hits him, and then one of them shoots him with a laser rifle. Ken rolls to the edge of the cliff, and Kempler appears with his laser gun and shoots the edge of the cliff away. The cliff and Ken fall down to the sea. Meanwhile the rest of the team are also taking their vehicles under the sea to the island.

Some hours pass. A caterer (you can tell by the big cake painted on the side of his truck and the fact that he's wearing his chef's hat while driving) turns up at the castle. Ego is sitting down to a sumptuous feast (he's got his mask on, how on earth is he going to eat anything?) with the queen, who doesn't look very happy about it. He gives a rousing speech and a bit of a toast to his troops, the queen throws her drink over him and slaps his face, and then a huge cake, of the type that you expect someone to burst out of, gets wheeled in. Ken bursts out, and the rest of the team appear from behind columns, and just as they're about to start fighting, Ego starts having a jolly big laugh. The castle begins to shake, then the wall behind Ego and the queen begins to fall apart (Ego and the queen don't seem bothered by this). A huge mech is behind the wall and it begins to knock the castle to pieces, so the team run for their vehicles which are parked on the sea floor.

Once they get in, they "unite Gatchaspartan", and this is the first showing of the unite and hypershoot footage that will appear in so many episodes after this, including a scene of just how redundant the rest of the team are during this manoeuvre. Ken lops off the mech's tentacles, but it grows them back, so he goes to full Gatchaspartan and rips right through the middle of it.

Once the mech is gone, all the Galactors leave, Ego hanging off a helicopter ladder as he most likely promises to return. The queen and her subjects wave goodbye to the Gatchaspartan from a miraculously intact tower on the castle, as the team fly off into the sunset.

7/10 - or should that be 6/10? Can't really think of much to say about this

5 - The terrible soldiers charge

Lots of refugees wind up at a coastline, beneath a castle on a cliff. I wonder if this is the same place as in episode 4, because it looks very similar, but I suspect that was too small for refugees to have to walk very far to get to the sea. Anyway, they're all waiting for Red Cross ships to arrive. The ships are being escorted by the team, and just after Jun has finished flying down low to check that nothing nasty is hanging around, something nasty just happens to show itself as a shadow in the water. Just as the Red Cross ships are getting really close to the shore, and the refugees are getting really happy to see them, a mech (purple and vaguely insect like) comes out of the water, and a submarine surfaces next to the island. A large number of the huge soldiers that appeared in ep3 come out and start menacing the people, and the mech picks up the leading Red Cross ship and grinds it into little pieces. The team shoot it with missiles and it retreats back under the water, but then it releases mines, so no ships can reach the shore at all. The remaining 2 ships are forced to turn back, and the team can't do anything more because the troops will of course shoot all the refugees if they try.

The story focuses on 3 boys among the refugees, the leader of whom is the episode's comic relief. They're hungry (one's stomach rumbles actually sound like almighty farts) and they're not going to just sit around and be hungry. The team leave Ryu to mind the Gatchapartan under the water and scuba their way to shore. There, the boys try to attack them until the team explain who they are. Then they give the boys some fish to eat while they stand outside and discuss their plan top get into the castle which Kempler is using as his command base. The boys of course overhear them, and set off in a small boat to get to the secret entrance. Only problem is the mines. Just as they're bound to hit the mines, Ryu swims up and holds the boat still, and the rest of the team pull the mines out of the way, and the boys carry on with no idea how they managed to survive that one. When they land, the team grab them and tie them up for their own safety, then set off to climb up the cliffs and vertical castle walls. Once inside they head for the dungeons where many refugees are being held, guarded by the huge troops. Joe launches a shuriken which misses the guard, but it's releasing a purple gas which knocks the guy out. They let all the refugees out and start leading them to safety.

Meanwhile, the boys have managed to get out of their ropes. They've got a time-bomb in their boat, and they climb up to the castle with it where they find a secret entrance through the wall. This leads into the castle's main hall where Kempler is sitting on a throne giving orders to the enormous soldiers. They creep out, but when they drop the bomb they're heard and grabbed. At this time the team appear at a higher level of the hall with the refugees. There's a bit of talking and then the bomb goes off, flooring the soldiers. Kempler runs out onto a balcony pursued by the team, but the mech appears and takes him away. Ken calls for the Gatchaspartan. The mech doesn't honestly put up much of a fight, the hypershoot comes and goes and the mech's head flies off with Kempler in it.

With the mech gone, Galactor leaves. The episode closes with the red cross ships returning to help the refugees.

6/10 - okay episode, reminiscent of "Kiddie Gatchaman" from series 1.

6 - Burn! G-Fencer

The team set out from their base in a fierce storm. In what I assume is a flashback, Ken smashes a pane of glass in rage, he's probably determined to go and fight Egobossler. The rest of the team take a bit of talking round, but eventually agree. So they fly in formation through the storm, lashed by rain and flashed by lightning, until the sky clears enough for them to see a massive number of fighter planes on a collision course with them. Ken gives the order to unite Gatchaspartan, and then actually sits in the main cockpit with the rest of the team for once while they blast a hole through the middle of the enemy squadron with the Gatchaspartan's lasers. They fly on and come to a castle on top of a cliff. This is the third episode in a row with a castle on top of a cliff next to the sea, but this time it's Egobossler's. Just as they're probably thinking how unprotected it looks, Sosai Z materialises his massiveness right above it and either the castle moves up or the cliffs move down, revealing huge defences around the outside of it.

Sosai Z also materialises a mech, which is obviously a praying mantis and the first recognisable mech I've seen in this series. Ken zips back to his plane and goes hypershoot, and slices and dices it before reuniting with the rest of the Gatchaspartan and flying right through the middle of it. It falls to the ground and explodes, but not before it fires a missile, which hits the Gatchaspartan and presumably does something bad to the field that must surround Ken while he's standing on it, so he gets buffeted by all kinds of debris. The team fly past all the defences, untouched by whatever's being shot at them, and break through the castle's outer wall. There, they are attacked by the gigantic troops again as well as normal goons, and fight their way out of it. I think this is the first episode the rest of the team's weapons appear in, Jun has her energy net, Jinpei has a sort of cross between a spinning top and a yoyo, and Ryu has a traditional looking weapon which is a staff and a hook with a big chain, good for throwing. Joe of course has his cyborg self and his shuriken for distance work. Some more agile troops, Ego's version of the Blackbirds, turn up and the team are being beaten back badly by the colossal guys. Ken decides they have to do the whirlwind thing, which is generated from their belts as in Gatch 2, the rest of the team aren't eager but they do it and wipe out the opposition. Several members of the team collapse, exhausted, but suddenly Ego appears at a balcony and challenges Ken to a duel. They fight in the manner of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon with lots of leaping from tower to tower and clashing in mid air. Eventually it seems that Ken has managed to slash Ego vertically down his body. Ego stands laughing, his eyes flash yellow, his mask falls in half, and he's not Ego at all. He's a robot. The voice of the real Egobossler goads Ken, the robot body explodes throwing Ken off the balcony, and hundreds more troops appear. Ken rages impotently, they're back where they started and they can't win. Joe sends the rest of the team back to get the Gatchaspartan, it's time for a strategic withdrawal. In a yaoi-fantasy inspiring sequence, he tries to get Ken to calm down and eventually drags him back to the Gatchaspartan, still waving his sword, and they leave.

Next events I'm not sure of, as I don't speak enough Japanese. It looks as if Ken comes to his senses, realises that there was no way they could have won, and offers to resign. Joe hands him his sword back, he's still the leader. They fly off into the sunset.

6/10 - okay episode, can't think of anything else to say, at least they get the hypershoot over with early

7 - Take the giant iron beast by force

The episode opens with explosions, tyres being blown through windows, a city being attacked by a giant orange and purple monstermech. The mech stops and makes an announcement and demands. The mayor of the city hugs his son (Tony, I think) and then goes out to speak with the mech. He promises that his city will work for Galactor, much to his son's horror. The city's foundries and factories begin producing items, probably weapons, for Galactor.

While his father's away appeasing the enemy, Tony breaks some family photographs and is generally very upset. When his father comes home he refuses to speak to him. His father then goes downstairs and through a door which leads into an underground tunnel, most likely a bomb shelter or hidey-hole from the previous Galactor wars. Tony follows and finds his father working an old radio set, trying to call Gatchaman to come and help. After presumably promising that he wasn't followed and he won't tell anyone, the mayor calls and gets through to Ken. He asks for help, but Ken says that the Gatchaman team won't help. The rest of the team are horrified and after Ken puts the radio down they give him a good shouting at, Ryu appearing to promise physical harm. Joe remains calm, I think he sees that Ken plans to make a quiet entrance. The team are very happy to be going after all.

Tony is more upset than ever and runs to his room where he takes a catapult from one of his drawers. He goes to where Ego and Kempler and their guards are having a jolly function and smashes Ego's glass of red stuff. Ego sends the guards after him and he's soon surrounded, but a shadowy figure appears from the bushes and beats the crap out of the guards. Of course, it's Ken in his civvies. He takes Tony away to the riverside where they sit under a bridge and Tony tells him what a bunch of cowardly scumbags Gatchaman are. Ken says comforting things, makes Tony promise not to tell anyone about him, and runs off.

When Tony gets back to the mayoral mansion, he sees that Ego and Kempler and guards are there with his father. Ego sends the guards out to get Tony, and gives him a bloody slap round the face. Just as he's having a good old gloat and maniacal laugh, feminine laughter echoes around the hall where they're standing. Jun and Jinpei beat up the goons and rescue the mayor and Tony. Then Ego calls the mech, but Ken's voice comes from it - it's now under Gatchaman's command. Ego and Kempler make their getaway in a helicopter, and many more helicopters appear. Then Sosai Z appears above the city. He pulls the mech inside himself.

Ken, Joe and Ryu are standing on the floor inside Z. He throws some light and bubble effects at them, and then causes the head of the mech to fly at them, and then changes the mech into a mass of flying metal bricks which he fires at Ken. Ken dodges them and then hits them with his sword, so then they go after Joe. They turn into a giant fist which grabs him. But Ryu thows his pike/chain into it which breaks it back to pieces, and then keeps them away from himself by spinning the chain around his head. Joe goes after the mech's head which is flying around again, spiking it with shuriken, but then the rest of the mech reforms and steps on him. He's strong enough to hold its foot up, but he's still standing on the head which is cracking under the pressure. He pushes the foot up for long enough to leap out of the way before it smashes down and explodes. Then he throws a shuriken at Z. Z decides he's had enough and spits them out, after some speechifying where he no doubt promises that he'll finish them off next time.

So Z vanishes, and Ego and Kempler are long gone. The townspeople turn out to show their respect for Gatchaman as the Gatchaspartan takes off. Tony suddenly realises that the guy who saved him after his catapult attack was really Eagle Ken, and he shouts Thank You and Sayonara as they head off into the sunset.

9/10 - I really enjoyed this one.

8 - The suicide squad

There is a mass breakout at a prison. The guards fire machine-guns at the prisoners from the towers, and when the escapees are out of their range Galactor troops turn up and shoot them instead, with more accuracy. I believe, although I can't be sure, that these are ex-Galactors (presumably either prisoners of war from Ego's forces or from Gel-Sadra's era), and that Egobossler is staging the breakouts and having them shot in order to prevent them giving ISO forces any information about existing bases.

(There is a map of europe shown during the briefing. Europe has now become so distorted that global warming cannot be blamed any more. France and everywhere north of Switzerland has fallen off, Spain has shrunk and Italy has grown massively. I think one of the animators drew it from memory, unless Egobossler has been even naughtier in his plans for world domination than I thought.)

Three prisoners decide that they're going to go into one of the bases and get information to give to the ISO. They are a blonde guy (BG), a black haired bearded guy (Nico) and a comedy fatman in a poncho (CF). Ken and Joe have also been sent to get information from the same base, and consequentially bump into them and, when told that they're going to the Galactor base, decide to let them go. The guys promptly get captured by Galactor guards. Ken and Joe find them and rescue them, and they all go on together to find the base.

As they are walking across the desert, with CF japing along in the lead, Ken suddenly gets very alert, leaps into the air and flaps his cape wings. This blows away a surface level of dust, revealing a number of land mines. Nico decides to lead and walks in a straight line way beyond the area where they're visible, missing all the land mines. The others follow, CF swigging liberally from a hip flask for courage. When they get to the other side, Nico is sitting on a rock having a calming cigarette and Ken promptly punches him out - I'm not sure why. By the time CF arrives his nose is glowing like Santa's favourite reindeer's.

Then they come to a tunnel with little metal tubes poking out all over the walls. Joe throws a stick into it and massive jolts of electricity come out of the metal tubes and fry it. This looks impassable. But then CF pulls a circuit board out from under his poncho and slips it into a panel at the entrance of the tunnel. This disables the electrical defenses and they can all get through, into the base.

Once inside, they sneak past guards into a room. The ex-Galactors wait there while Ken and Joe vanish up through the ceiling. Ken and Joe wander around the base while CF hunts through the lockers in search of goon uniforms to fit them. BG gets fed up of waiting and walks out. Ken and Joe have found their way to a very important room in the base, which has various little doors all over it with labels on them. They're after what's behind SP-1. Joe is just about to shoot his way into it when BG walks in, tells them to stop and turns a dial which opens the door up nicely. CF has followed, and almost reaches in to pull the contents out when they notice it's protected with a laser alarm system. BG has a nice extending screwdriver which he uses to unscrew a panel at the back and disable the laser system, so they can get the SP-1 box out without setting the alarms off. All well and good. At this point Nico (or maybe Niku) walks in and sees that there's a machine gun poking through a hole in the wall above them. He leaps and forces them to cover, but gets shot in the process and dies in CF's arms.

Under a barrage of machine gun fire the rest of them escape from the tunnels and emerge onto a balcony. Ken and Joe could fly down but they won't be able to get both BG and CF down before the goons catch up with them. They just happen to be next to a pile of missiles and CF picks one up and throws it at the goons. He gets caught up in the explosion while Ken and Joe carry BG to safety. BG has the SP-1 box in his pocket.

Once outside and safe, CF turns up alive but singed. He makes affectionate gestures towards BG, but BG gets very standoffish and insists that he's taking the SP-1 and walks off. Why Ken and Joe let him go is beyond my comprehension of Japanese, perhaps he says he will destroy it if they go after him. But, luckily, CF has excellent pickpocket skills - while hugging BG he took the real SP-1 and replaced it with a lookalike. CF remains with Ken and Joe and they take the SP-1 back to the rest of the team and then, presumably, to the ISO.

8/10 - this isn't a spectacular episode, and I might be completely wrong about the prisoners' backgrounds and motives, but it is a good story