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Fighbird Ep. 4: The Dreaded Blood Virus

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Summary

In Jango’s lab, Jango curses Shura and Zol’s repeated failures while working on a new blood cell destroying virus that he plans on spreading into blood banks. Shura walks uninvited into the lab and grabs a canister of the virus, saying he wants to take it for a test drive. At the Amano Peace Labs, Hiroshi tests out a pair of mouth-operated binoculars and ends up falling into the indoor pool. Haruka and Kenta arrive from school and the latter asks where Katori is. Hiroshi replies that he sent him to the bookstore. Down at the train station, Katori notices a mobile blood bank and asks the physician what a blood donation is. When told that it saves lives, he happily offers to donate. Yoshiko comes out of the van and says that they need to check his blood type first. After taking some samples however, she notices something strange about them and decides to examine them back at the lab. She also notes that Katori looks familiar. When Katori returns home, Hiroshi asks why he took so long. When the former reveals that he donated blood, Hiroshi panics and reveals that his blood is only an imitation. If the sample gets examined they’ll discover that Katori is not really human. Kenta suspects there’ll be trouble if Satsuda finds out and Hiroshi tries to jam a large syringe in his arm to extract replacement blood for Katori. Kenta jumps away and suggests that they get the sample back instead. When Kenta reaches the station however, he finds the blood bank has already left. Using Wrister, he contacts Katori and informs him of the situation. Katori contacts Guard Rescue and asks where the donated blood was taken. Guard Rescue reveals that it was taken to the blood lab for examination. At the blood lab, Shura and the Teshitas barge in and hold the lab workers at gunpoint. He has the Teshitas find the blood storage room where Yoshiko was about to examine Katori’s blood. Hiroshi builds a small robot that can scan any blood sample within range so they can find Katori’s among the hundreds of samples at the blood lab. Katori and Kenta head out while he makes some final adjustments to the robot.

Guard Rescue brings Kenta, Katori and the robot to the blood lab. Kenta spots a SOS that Yoshiko managed to write on a window with her lipstick and Katori quickly hurries inside. He fights the Teshitas while Kenta runs in to find the sample. Guard Rescue calls the remaining Guard team members. Katori frees the hostages while Kenta finds the blood storage room and overhears Shura talking about using the virus on the blood supply. The robot activates on its own and grabs the virus canister. Shura and the Teshitas give chase while Kenta informs Katori of the situation, adding that he also found his blood sample. Katori intercepts Shura and the latter is forced to summon his giant monster. Katori summons the Fire Jet and combines into Fighbird. Fighbird kicks the monster and the latter retaliates by firing at Fighbird then tackling him to the ground. The lab workers watch the fight from the rooftop and Yoshiko notices the Teshitas running towards them. Fortunately they’re blown away by the Guard team. Guard Fire extends his ladders to the roof to allow the lab workers to escape while Guard Star takes out the remaining Teshitas. Kenta evades the Teshitas chasing him but discovers that the canister the robot swiped wasn’t Katori’s blood sample. Shura joins the fight in another monster and tells the first one to attack the Guard team. With the lab workers safely evacuated, the Guard team combines into Guardion and retaliates against the first monster. Meanwhile, Kenta still can’t find Katori’s sample and the robot complicates things further by detecting the wrong canisters. Guardion impales the first monster with his ladders and destroys it. Shura overpowers Fighbird with his drill arm but the latter uses his Sun Slicer to damage it. Fighbird then finishes off the monster with his Flame Sword. Kenta finally manages to find Katori’s blood sample and the two quickly run out of the lab as Yoshiko yells at them to come back.

Commentary

If there’s anything to glean from this series so far, it’s that Jango really hates mankind. He also apparently isn’t getting along with Draias’ henchmen. Speaking of which, Shura puts on a solo performance in this episode while Zol and Draias don’t show up at all. We also have the proper debut of Yoshiko, who had only made minor appearances in the first and third episodes prior to this. Since she saw something fishy about Katori’s blood and is already a frequent shotgun rider on Guard Rescue, obviously she’ll get involved with the Space Police eventually. Moving on, it’s interesting how Hiroshi had the foresight to modify Katori’s artificial skin to include fake blood, but the poor guy never thought about the possibility of Katori trying to donate it. I have to wonder though this was part of his original plan for the android or something he added after the necessity to hide Katori’s identity presented itself.

Overall Rating
3/5

Fighbird Info

Director:
Katsuyoshi Yatabe

Writer:
Yasushi Hirano

Mechanical Designer:
Kunio Okawara

Character Designer:
Hitoshi Ueda

Musical Composer:
Toshiyuki Watanabe

Format:
48 episodes

Airdates:
Japan 02.02.1991 – 02.01.1992

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