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Da-Garn Ep. 6: The Eighth Brave Fighter!

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Summary

Seiji and the Brave Fighters search the globe again for more Brave Stones but are unable to find any. Exhausted from staying up all night, Seiji falls asleep in class and gets scolded by Morisawa. In frustration, Seiji unloads his homework onto Da-Garn and slacks off by playing video games, only to discover that Da-Garn couldn’t do anything because he can’t turn the book pages. Seiji spends the night trying to do his homework but quits because of the large amounts of it. He turns on the TV and catches a Formula One race. Seiji wishes he could see a race live in England before he remembers he can just fly there. He takes the Da-Garn Jet to England and orders Da-Garn to remain on stand-by while he lies about searching for the Brave Stones by himself. Up in space, Redlone inspects some Earth vehicles he asked his assistant to bring him on the suspicion that they have the ability to transform like the Earth robots. His assistant mumbles that he thought Redlone was engaging in his collection hobby again before hastily bringing up the next vehicle: A dekotora. Redlone is completely repulsed by it and orders that Tracegon down on Earth brings more beautiful machines. In England, Seiji immediately runs into a blonde girl being chased by men in suits. Seiji tries to act cool by threatening the men but the girl slips away into an ally. One of the men grabs Seiji but the girl comes out in a red sports car and allows Seiji to escape with her. The girl introduces herself as Julia and drives incredibly fast to Seiji’s horror. The men are scolded by their boss who orders them to find Julia immediately. The boss looks at a painting depicting two armored knights battling demons and says that when evil comes to the world, the divine power of the Henry family crest will vanquish it. Embedded on the crest are two Brave Stones, and the boss says that to protect that divine power he needs Julia back. Julia tells Seiji that she wants to become a Formula One racer, and reveals that she ran away from home because her life was becoming unbearable and lonely. Seiji says that he can relate to Julia because nobody appreciates what he goes through.

The next day, Julia and Seiji go to the track to watch the Formula One race but quickly find themselves surrounded by the men in suits. Their boss turns out to be Julia’s father, who scolds her for ignoring her family’s duty of guarding the divine power. Julia retorts that she’s sick of hearing that legend over and over and asks her father if the legend is more important than her. Just then Tracegon descends onto the race track and starts scanning the Formula One cars. Redlone orders Tracegon to bring the yellow car to him but the driver dodges Tracegon’s explosive teleport beam. Julia escapes in the confusion and her father orders his men to find her. Seiji orders Da-Garn to deal with Tracegon while he looks for Julia. The yellow race car driver dodges another teleport beam but swerves off track into a railing. Da-Garn arrives at the race track and Tracegon scans another race car and transforms into a large monster Formula One race car. Tracegon overwhelms Da-Garn with its speed and rams him into a wall, so Seiji summons the Earth Line and Earth Fighter to let him combine into Da-Garn X. Tracegon transforms into a humanoid mode and fires a beam at Da-Garn X. Da-Garn X dodges and tries to attack with his Da-Garn Blade but Tracegon gets behind him and blasts him. A stray blast knocks Seiji away and causes him to lose the Director. It also traps Julia and her father in a sea of flames. Seiji orders Da-Garn X to rescue them but he’s too preoccupied with Tracegon to comply. Julia’s father pulls out the family crest and asks it to protect his daughter but nothing happens. Tracegon knocks Da-Garn X to the ground and Seiji laments that if he kept searching for the Brave Stones instead of messing around this wouldn’t have happened. Julia holds up the family crest and begs it to protect her father. Seiji spots the glowing Brave Stones on the crest and quickly locates the Director. The Aurin shoots out a beam at the two stones and causes them to fly out and embed themselves in the yellow race car and Julia’s sports car. The two vehicles quickly transform to robot mode and introduce themselves as Mach Lander and Turbo Lander. Seiji quickly orders them to rescue Julia and her father before assisting Da-Garn X. The Landers knock Tracegon away and immobilize him with their weapons, allowing Da-Garn X to finish him off. Redlone slices his assistant again and says that next time he will deploy personally. Back at the Henry family’s mansion, Julia’s father says that while he lost the family birthright, he’s gained a more important treasure. Julia tells Seiji that her mission in life is to treasure the bond she has with her remaining family member. Seiji says that he also found his mission and Julia kisses him on the cheek as a reward. On the way home, Da-Garn congratulates Seiji on finding all the Brave Stones, and the latter says that he learned not to take his mission lightly. Seiji vows never to complain again but then freaks out when he remembers that he still has a ton of homework to do.

Commentary

And so with the usual combination of being in the right place at the right time, Seiji manages to assemble all eight Brave Fighters. Despite taking twice as long as Exkaiser and Fighbird to introduce all the robots, however, we still haven’t seen the support teams’ requisite combined forms so that’s something to look forward to. I wish the B plot wasn’t such an afterthought though. Why was Julia needed to protect the power of the Henry family crest if her father was just casually carrying it around in his pocket? This episode also made me realize that I didn’t mind the supporting human cast being pretty much absent. The best part of Fighbird was watching its goofball characters react to and assist the Brave robots, but since Seiji is forced to keep their existence a secret from pretty much everyone close to him they all end up being pretty one dimensional, including Hotaru. On a more interesting note, the painting in the Henry family mansion lends credence to Da-Garn’s statement about the Brave Fighters protecting humanity since ancient times. I wonder if they were actually inhabiting suits of armor or if that was an artistic interpretation by the painter. Also, Seiji plays video games on a device reminiscent of those old Sharp CRTs that had a built-in Famicom/Super Famicom.

Overall Rating
3.5/5

Da-Garn Info

Director(s):
Katsuyoshi Yatabe
Shinji Takamatsu

Writer(s):
Fuyunori Gobu
Yasushi Hirano

Mechanical Designer:
Kunio Okawara

Character Designer:
Masayuki Hiraoka

Musical Composer:
Yasunori Iwasaki

Format:
46 episodes

Airdates:
Japan 02.08.1992 – 01.23.1993

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