Fighbird Ep. 29: Fly! Fire Shuttle

At the Amano Peace Labs, Haruka angrily yells out for Hiroshi after discovering that their finances are in the red again. The circuit breaker trips and Kenta notes that it’s been happening a lot recently. Haruka demands to know why Hiroshi is using so much electricity, and the latter reveals that he’s working on a solar energy gathering satellite which will free them from ever needing electricity. Down in the hangar, Hiroshi shows them the nearly complete Fire Shuttle which he’ll use to take the satellite into space. Just then, the minus energy detector goes off. Hiroshi analyzes the readout and reveals that it’s only a satellite that will harmlessly fall to Earth and burn up in the atmosphere. They head outside to watch it, but to their horror it survives the reentry and crashes into a nearby island, destroying it completely. Up in space, Jango berates Zol for wasting his special anti-friction coating on a badly aimed shot. Zol retorts that there are plenty of satellites to use but Jango reminds him that they were supposed to destroy a major city before attracting Fighbird‘s attention. Draias, however, assures Jango that the Space Police will not be an obstacle. Hiroshi deduces that someone must have tampered with the satellite and Kenta suggests that they investigate. Hiroshi says that if they use the Fire Jet to head out into space it would use up half its fuel and not have enough energy in case of an emergency, which means they must finish the Fire Shuttle. As they work on it with the help of the Baron team, Haruka runs in and reveals that several satellites have stopped transmitting. Hiroshi gives Kenta a space suit and lets him head up to space with Katori in the Fire Jet. After escaping Earth’s atmosphere, Kenta marvels at the vastness of space and asks Katori if he misses his home. Katori says that he must defeat Draias first and detects a large mass ahead. They find all the missing satellites combined together into one large body. Katori heads inside to investigate but a large booster crashes into the entrance and traps him inside. Zol shows up in a large mechanical monster along with Draias.

Kenta escapes in the Fire Jet but Draias chases him down and combines into robot mode. He fires upon Kenta and leads him towards Zol who kicks the Fire Jet and sends it crashing into the satellite structure. The impact creates an opening for Katori to escape but sends Kenta hurtling into space. Katori rescues him and tries to summon the banged up Fire Jet, but Draias cuts it off and critically damages it. Just as he’s about to crush Katori and Kenta with his fists, the rest of the Space Police and Hiroshi in the Fire Shuttle arrive and blast him. Draias orders Zol to shoot the satellites into Earth while the Space Police regroups. Thunder Baron and Super Guardion try to stop Zol but Draias intercepts them. Super Guardion grapples Draias and tells Thunder Baron to stop the satellites. Zol finishes attaching boosters to the satellites but gets attacked by Thunder Baron before he can set them off. He dodges the shots and zaps Thunder Baron with his wire fist. Draias pummels Super Guardion and Zol activates the boosters after throwing Thunder Baron onto the satellites. Before Draias can gloat however, Thunder Baron and Super Guardion recover and start pushing back the satellites. However, this makes them helpless to defend against Draias and Zol firing upon them. With Hiroshi unable to repair the Fire Jet, Katori transfers his cosmic energy into the Fire Shuttle and heads off to assist his comrades. He fires upon Draias and combines with the Fire Shuttle into the giant robot Granbird! Granbird distracts Draias and Zol while his teammates start removing the boosters. Draias tries to attack Granbird with his Death Blade but the latter summons the Breaster Jet, which fires missiles at Draias then combines with Granbird. Granbird dodges Draias’ blasts and knees him in the face, then pulls out his Gran Cannon. He fires a large blast that misses Draias but destroys Zol’s monster. Draias escapes in defeat and the rest of the Space Police manage to remove all the boosters. Later, Hiroshi prepares to activate the solar energy satellite and everyone starts discussing what they’ll buy with the saved money. To their dismay, the solar beam ends up depleting their entire energy reserve because it needed far more energy to convert than it could generate. Haruka explodes in everyone’s face and laments the fact that they have to wear the same clothes every day.