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Dagwon Ep. 11: Revenge, Thousands of Light Years Away

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Summary

A giant sword flies through space and crashes into Earth’s South Pole. Two men stumble upon the sword and watch as it transforms into a giant robot named Lian. Elsewhere, a tentacled fortress attacks a cargo ship under the cover of nighttime fog. Hordes of insect-like creatures invade the ship and attack the crew. The next morning, two delinquents attack En at a construction site, but he easily chases them off. Ryu arrives and tells En that the others flew out to the Pacific Ocean to investigate several recent incidents of ships vanishing. En and Ryu summon their planes to fly out and join the investigation. Kai, Shin and Yoku examine the ship that was attacked the night before. It’s been completely ruined, and the crew are all skeletons. Yoku looks at the damage to the ship and concludes that it was done by a large number of algae-like bug creatures. Suddenly, Lian appears on the horizon in sword mode and smashes through the ship, causing everyone to fall into the water. En and Ryu arrive at that moment, and Ryu stays behind to help everyone while En chases Lian. Lian heads deeper into the water until he reaches the location where the alien fortress has submerged itself. He bombards it with beam attacks and heads to a nearby island. Dag-Fire arrives and asks Lian who he is, but he doesn’t answer. The area behind Dag-Fire suddenly explodes, and Lian says that’s the revenge of two billion dead souls. Dag-Fire then punches Lian, but Lian says he doesn’t have to answer anything. The alien fortress then rises out of the ocean, with Arch sitting at the upper level. Arch says he’s surprised to see the last sword alien on Earth. He asks Lian if he thought such an attack could destroy his fortress, and Lian flies over to attack Arch. The tentacles grab Lian, and Arch tosses him back down to the island. He then opens his coat, and hordes of the bugs fly out to attack Dag-Fire and Lian. The rest of the Dagwon team arrive and attack the fortress with beam weapons. Arch tells Lian he’s cheated death once again, and the fortress vanishes. Lian punches the ground in anger and damns Arch.

Lian accompanies everyone back to the Dag-Base. En asks him if he’s from Sargasso, but he says he’s a sentient robot. En asks Lian why he came to Earth, and Lian says it’s for revenge. He explains that Arch froze the planet Sword and killed its two billion inhabitants. Lian was the only survivor, and he’s traveled thousands of light years to find Arch. He came to Earth because he knew that was where the Sargasso criminals were escaping to. En and Shin say that the five of them will help Lian defeat Arch, but he refuses. He says his revenge will be meaningless unless he can kill Arch with his own hands. Yoku notes that Arch has the power to destroy an entire planet, and Ryu tells Lian he can’t defeat Arch on his own. Lian says that he has a self-destruct mechanism in his body, so he plans to ram into the Arch Fortress and blow himself and Arch up. En asks Lian about his own life, and Lian says he doesn’t care to live. He tells them not to interfere with his revenge and flies off. Later, the Arch Fortress reappears and approaches the bay area. En and the others arrive on the scene, and En notices that the Arch Fortress is dangerously close to an oil refinery. Everyone then transforms and combines into Fire Dagwon, Liner Dagwon and Shadow Dagwon. The three then grab onto the Arch Fortress and try to push it back, but it doesn’t work. Lian attacks from the air and cuts through the Arch Fortress’ tentacles. He then closes in on Arch, but Fire Dagwon stops him in midair. He points out that the Arch Fortress is over an oil refinery and that it could set off lots of explosions. Lian says that he doesn’t care what happens to Earth, as long as he gets his revenge on Arch. Lian tells Fire Dagwon to step aside, but Fire Dagwon challenges him to a fight. The two then begin to punch and kick each other in midair. The Arch Fortress continues to move forward, so Liner Dagwon freezes it with Liner Blizzard. The quickly breaks, and Lian attacks Arch head-on. Arch stops Lian with a force field and shocks him when he begins to break through. He also shocks the three Dagwons when they approach. Fire Dagwon grabs Lian and manages to break both of them free. Arch decides that he’s a bit tired, and the Arch Fortress vanishes. Lian vows that he will repay the Dagwon team and flies off.

Commentary

This episode is notable for several things. First, it brings back the powerful and mysterious Arch, who last appeared in episode 7. Second, it introduces the robot Lian, who’s out for Arch’s blood. Although sentient robots are common in the other Brave shows, this is the first time one has shown up in Dagwon. Sure, it’s a bit strange to have a planet of sentient, transforming robot swords, but weirder things have shown up. Lian’s definitely a loner type, though I suspect he’ll eventually get along with the Dagwon boys and defend the Earth with them. He’ll certainly have to if he wants to face Arch again, since he managed to escape. On a side note – if there’s one thing that bothered me about this episode, it was the time-killing transformation scenes. Was it really necessary to show all five boys transform into their Dag forms, then show all of them combining into their Dagwon forms? Transformation/combination has always been a big part of super robot shows, but that’s certainly a good waste of a minute or two.

Overall Rating
4/5

Dagwon Info

Director:
Tomomi Mochizuki

Writer(s):
Kenichi Araki
Go Sakamoto
Hiroaki Kitajima
Mutsumi Nakano
Toshifumi Kawase
Yasunori Yamada
Yooshiyuki Suga

Mechanical Designer:
Kunio Okawara

Character Designer:
Akira Oguro

Musical Composer:
Edison

Format:
48 episodes

Airdates:
Japan 02.03.1996 – 01.25.1997

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