Gatchaman Episode 14: The Fearsome Ice-kander by lborgia88, saturn
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This is a Gatchamania Episode review. Opinions expressed are those of the author.  This episode review is image intensive.

Gatchaman Episode 14: “The Fearsome Ice-kander”

BOTP Episode: “Perilous Pleasure Cruise”


 


Happy music plays as a large cruise ship sails through a blue sea.


 


On board, passengers, mostly in swimwear, are lounging about in the sun, swimming or even playing badminton.


 


However, one man is wearing a suit and smoking a pipe. He's also sitting in a wheelchair.


 


A few boys, also quite formally dressed, are playing a game that involves trying to throw a hoop over a peg. A small girl is sitting alone nearby, with her eyes closed.


 


Her hair appears to be green and her eyes are big with long lashes -she could almost be a very young Jun (if Jun's head were too large for her body, and she were annoying, that is). The man addresses her, "Young lady?"


 


But she doesn't even open her eyes to look at him, and just says "Yes, sir," in an irritating sing-song way.


 



The man asks her if she's going to play, like everyone else. Finally, she opens her eyes (an unJun-like blue) and says "No, it's too boring," in the same annoying voice.


 


Just then, the ship's Captain (he's wearing a spiffy cap and sporting lots of gold trim on his uniform's jacket) tells the man that the little girl's father died three days ago in a traffic accident, and that she's being sent now to live with her mother (who'd been separated from the father).


 


So, this girl's father is barely cold and she's been sent packing, alone, across an ocean! Okay, now I'm prepared to cut her some slack for being annoying. She's probably traumatized!

Now, the man clearly feels bad for her, and he persuades her to throw and kick a soccer ball back and forth with him, and she does cheer up. But suddenly, the sky fills with dark clouds, to the consternation of everyone on deck, and strong wind blows and lightning flashes. The little girl is scared and she clings to the man, hiding her face.


 


Wind is roaring across the deck and high waves are rocking the ship as passengers in swimwear begin fleeing indoors.


 

 


Two passengers, however, see a large iceberg looming ahead and the ship is headed straight for it. Other passengers notice it too, and begin panicking.

Suddenly, two intense beams of light shoot up into the air and hit a large airplane that just happens to be flying low over the ocean during an intense storm (granted, the storm did come out of nowhere) and the airplane explodes -much to the horror of watching passengers on the ship. The iceberg shatters into pieces, and inside it is a giant mecha that rather resembles a walrus.


 


With a blast of cold wind from its mouth, the mecha coats the entire ship in ice and looms over it, menacingly.


 


Now we cut to a Science Ninja bracelet, lying on an end table as it signals an incoming communication. Ken is dressed in his civvies and lying on top of his bed's blankets.


 


He sits up quickly and puts on the bracelet before responding "Go ahead, this is G1, Gatchaman!"


 


It's Dr. Nambu, of course, and he politely says "Good morning, how are you today?" as Ken then demands "Why are you calling me this early in the morning?" Come on, Ken, sun is streaming in your window and you're already dressed -is it really all that early?

But Dr. Nambu says that "there's no day or night for the Team!" and that it's urgent. So, Ken goes running to his plane (and it's that oft-used bit of footage where he doesn't shut his door) while griping "I have to take off with no breakfast?"


 


As Ken runs, and runs, and runs (clearly his plane is much further from his door than it originally seemed), a faint image of Dr. Nambu's face overlies the screen and delivers exposition to the effect that a nuclear powered ship passing through the South Pacific has disappeared, and nuclear powered aircraft carriers and destroyers (we are shown brief images of these) have also disappeared -even submarines are disappearing "right in the middle of their drills).


 


Finally, Ken stops running and gets into his plane as Dr. Nambu points out that all the missing ships were nuclear powered.


 


Ken agrees this is too much of a coincidence, and his instructions from Dr. Nambu are to assemble the Team and go search for the missing ships.


  

 

Ken transmutes to birdstyle and his G1 jet.


 


And we get all the recycled footage of Jun, Jinpei, Joe and Ken linking up with the God Phoenix.


 

 


On the bridge, an on-screen Dr. Nambu says in a very cheerful voice "Good morning, Science Ninja Team! I have something very interesting here for you all to take a look at," as if he's hosting a children's TV show.


 


What he's got is film footage from a patrol ship of some icebergs in the ocean.


 


Jinpei and Ryu are impressed by the icebergs' size, but as they watch, one of the icebergs sinks into the ocean quickly.


 


Now Ken asks Dr. Nambu to replay that part, noting that these icebergs are moving against, not with, the prevailing ocean currents.


 

 


Joe concurs with Ken's assessment.


 


Dr. Nambu praises Ken's observation skills, as Jinpei (playing with his bolas) pipes up that he thinks it's weird that one of the icebergs suddenly sank too.


 


"You're practically an adult member of the Team, aren't you?" says Dr. Nambu to Jinpei, a tad patronizingly but Jinpei is pleased and laughs "Thanks, Doc!" before accidently bonking himself in the head with his bolas.


 


Ken orders Ryu to take the God Phoenix north, the direction the icebergs were moving.

Somewhere at sea, dozens of icebergs are clustered together, and we see the entrance to a Galactor base in the side of one of them, with two goons standing guard on a platform outside.


 


The narrator informs us that Galactor "defeated many nuclear powered ships with its beast, Ice-kander, and transported those frozen ships here, to this arctic base" as we see that the ships in question are indeed inside the base, and coated in ice.


 


"They took the nuclear reactor from the passenger ship and kept the aircraft carriers and submarines to use as weapons," the narrator tells us, "And the ships' passengers were sent to the human conversion laboratory, to be transformed into Galactor's minions." Um, that doesn't sound good.

Large elevator cars full of nervous passengers from the cruise ship are descending.


 


The man in the wheechair and the little girl are part of one group. "My old body is sick," he tells the little girl, "And I don't know how many days it has left in it."


 


Poor kid, her father's just been killed and now her father-substitute tells her he's dying. She says a doctor could help him, but he tells her that his sickness is one even doctors can't cure. She stares at him, perhaps too young to really comprehend, and she tells him that he has to get better, and that he mustn't give in to the sickness.


 


He holds her hand and tells her that he feels braver now and isn't scared of anything anymore, as she hugs him.

Just then, the elevator stops and the doors open. Galactor goons order everyone out of the elevator. As the little girl helps the man, pushing the back of his wheelchair, a goon says "Hurry up, you little brat!" and smacks her hard.


 


This sends her sprawling face-first on the floor. The man demands to know how the goon "Could ever hit an innocent child like that?" but gets "Shut up, you old fool!" for a reply, and a kick to the back of his chair that sends him careening down the corridor into a wall.


 


He tumbles out of his chair on to the floor as the little girl looks up, distressed to see this. She runs to the man, asking him if he's okay, and then he shakes his fist at the goon and says "Just you wait, Galactor scum!"


 


Now, we cut to the God Phoenix, flying over the cluster of icebergs. Joe calls it "a big mess" and says "there's no telling which iceberg is the one we want."


 


Ken tells a suddenly pink-cowled Jun to bring the electronic radar online.


 


But even before they use it, Ken says "What's that?" "That" appears to be some kind of mechanical... thing (a periscope?) poking out of the water amidst all the icebergs. They all agree that it must be where the base is located and Ken tells Ryu to bring them closer. He lands the God Phoenix on the ocean's surface, and Ken and Jun now appear on the dome. They both leap and soar from the dome, as the God Phoenix then plunges below the surface.


 


Commercial break!

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