Review by Chris

January 15, 2003

Uso slices up an asteroid and ties the smaller pieces of rock to a wire web surrounding the Sinope and Aineias. This way the two ships will show up as just a meteorite on Zanscare sensors. Martina works on the outside of the Aineias and suddenly falls in. She's taken inside the ship, and everyone decides that she has to see a doctor. Tomache says the nearest colony is Amelia, the capital of Zanscare. He says if they go there they could be considered criminals. Uso thinks they have no other choice, and Odelo tells him if he's caught he'll be sent to the guillotine. A Sinope captained by an instructor and his two students Patrick and Nikolai patrols the area near Amelia. Since Mutterma Sugan has deployed the fleet, they are patrolling because the defenses around Amelia are weak. They pick up the 'meteorite' approaching Amelia, and the instructor orders his students to take care of it before it damages the colony. Patrick and Nikolai launch in their Shy-Tarn mobile suits and spot the web of rocks. They begin firing at the asteroid fragments when they spot the ships. Uso comes out from hiding, and they fire their beam rifles and cannons at him. Warren fires out a missile filled with dummies, and the rookie pilots fall for it and think there are more suits. Uso deploys dummies of his own to confuse them. They fire at several dummies before realizing what they are. Nikolai moves in to attack Uso, but Uso grabs him from behind. He tells Nikolai to get out of the Shy-Tarn or die. The instructor contemplates calling for help, but Patrick says if he does that Nikolai will die. He tells Nikolai to surrender, and he and Patrick grab Nikolai with a hovercraft and escape. Uso approaches the underside of Amelia and slices open a cargo bay door with his beam saber. Batsraff Massarik asks him to hurry before they are spotted by anyone else. Uso rips away the cargo bay door and tosses it into space.

In space, the instructor and his students join up with a man named Zubroch Simonev who owns the insect-like mobile worker Sandhoge. Inside the cargo bay, Uso uses his beam saber to cut a small hole into the ceiling and the tunnel above it. He then attaches a small airlock to it and lifts Batsraff and Martina into it. Odelo tells Elischa that Uso is becoming too impulsive, and he worries that Uso will give in to fighting. Elischa says that Uso is a normal kid and tells Odelo not to be jealous. The Sandhoge is spotted out in space, and Uso mounts the overhang cannons onto his shoulders before flying out. He searches the area near the colony and is attacked from behind. He flies away from the cargo bay and lets the Sandhoge chase him so that everyone else can enter the colony safely. As he is about to shoot at it, the Sandhoge fires harpoons at the V-Dash Gundam and disable the head camera. Zubroch shoots out wires and wraps the V-Dash Gundam in it. Nikolai separates his portion of the Sandhoge and rips off one of Uso's overhang cannons. Zubroch doesn't want them to get the glory because he wants to produce more Sandhoges. Uso uses their arguing to break out of the wires and attack the Sandhoge. He punches it repeatedly and dodges attacks from Nikolai. The Sandhoge kicks him, and he breaks away and slices off its arms and legs with his beam saber. He leaves the crippled Sandhoge floating in space and returns to the cargo bay. After changing out of his pilot's suit, he finds Haro waiting for him with the address to the doctor. A defense robot attacks Uso, and he disables it with a wire gun. He walks through the tunnel and opens a manhole to go up to the street. He sees that he went the wrong way because he is directly in front of Maria's palace. Uso watches as young soldiers march by. He takes a taxi to the proper address and finds Odelo waiting outside. A car pulls up across the street, and Maria gets out and goes into another building. Flanders runs down the street and jumps on Uso, and they wonder where he came from. Warren spots Suzy and Karlmann nearby, and they run over to them. Suzy begins to cry, and Uso wonders if Shakti is nearby.

Last time, Uso went out looking for Shakti, and now there is the slight diversion due to Martina's sickness. Uso encounters some new mobile suits and some pretty bad student pilots. There's also the insect-looking Sandhoge, which is one of the oddest designs I've seen yet in this series. We also get to see the Amelia colony, which is the capital of the Zanscare Empire. This European flavored colony seems very militaristic now due to Zanscare. It does seem that they are using all their resources and making even young people fight. This is evident in the soldiers Uso sees on the streets, as well as young pilots Nikolai and Bradley. Maria shows up in regular clothes near the episode's end along with Suzy, so Shakti must certainly be nearby. But what is Maria doing out on the street dressed like a commoner?

Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

<<back to Victory Gundam episodes