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GaoGaiGar Ep. 14: The Valley that calls forth the Mist

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Summary

Pizza has a dream of his past. On a distant planet, he walks the desert after a lost battle and collapses from his wounds. Penchinon appears before him and Pizza demands that he kills him quickly. Penchinon instead offers him a chance to continue his duty as a soldier seeking death. Elsewhere, Guy is chasing a Zonderized cargo plane but loses it in the clouds. At 3G, Taiga says that this is the third time this has happened and they are unable to trace the plane’s location. Mamoru and his friends ride a cable car up a mountain, with Sunou’s attempts to show off getting repeatedly trounced by Reiko. Suddenly a deep fog surrounds the cable car and Mamoru’s hair glows. They arrive at the top to find the station empty and none of their communication devices working. They have little time to ponder the situation before a tank arrives and starts firing on them. As they run, Reiko trips over a booby trap and gets hoisted on a net out of sight. Mamoru wonders why he can’t sense a Zonder in the tank and Sunou falls into a hole in the ground. The remaining kids run towards a bridge where the tank can’t follow them but they’re greeted by an attack helicopter which grabs Sueo in a net and flies away. Caught between both vehicles on the bridge, Mamoru apologizes to Hana before hurling them both into the river below. He wakes up later on a patch of grass to find Volfogg standing over him. Volfogg tells him to stay where he is before abruptly disappearing. The Zonder controlling the vehicles notices Volfogg on his sensors and sends the tank and helicopter after him. Volfogg evades them using his Holographic Camouflage and provokes them into destroying each other with friendly fire. The Zonder is annoyed and sends more forces after him. In a flashback, Dave is a crewman aboard a military cargo plane who gets berated by the officers for being fat and constantly playing a strategy video game that won’t do him any good. A depressed Dave walks into the cargo area and says that if was really a general he’d bring total victory in a war. Pizza appears before him and tells him to carry out his wish before giving him a Zonder crystal.

3G tracks the situation on the mountain. Mikoto says that the fog is completely impenetrable by any sensor or scanner and Entouji can’t contact Volfogg, who’s busy evading heavy fire from a squad of helicopters. Taiga realizes that Mamoru is the Zonder’s real target and the cargo plane is just a decoy, so he orders Guy, Hyuuma, HyoRyu and EnRyu to scramble to the location. Volfogg continues to evade helicopters and tanks and spots and array of laser trip wires. He uses his sirens to summon the GunDober and GunGlue and has them change to robot mode. GunDober uses its Iron Collar to slam the helicopters into each other and Volfogg uses the distraction to escape. They reach a clearing and find themselves surrounded by tanks, so Volfogg combines with the Gun machines to form Big Volfogg, surprising the Zonder. Big Volfogg uses his many techniques to destroy the entire tank and helicopter brigade. The Zonder finally gets desperate and tries to crash the cargo plane into Big Volfogg before merging with it and the other wreckage to form EI-14. Mamoru senses the Zonder and realizes that Volfogg is fighting it. Big Volfogg blocks EI-14 gatling gun fire and bombs with his Murasame Sword but realizes he’s being pushed back towards Mamoru’s location. Mamoru walks into the fight and Big Volfogg is forced to shield him with his Mirror Coating. EI-14 pulls out a knife and prepares to run Big Volfogg through but GaoGaiGar arrives just in time to smash its body with Broken Magnum. Guy has Big Volfogg whisk Mamoru away to safety as EI-14 regenerates its body and disappears into the fog. It pelts Guy with exploding spears and Guy is unable to find it until ChoRyuJin fires an Eraser Head that clears out all the fog. With its main advantage gone, EI-14 can do little to stop Guy from tearing it a new one before extracting its core with Hell and Heaven. Mamoru purifies the core and Big Volfogg takes him back to the station where his friends lay unconscious but unharmed. Volfogg formally introduces himself to Mamoru and quickly leaves before Mamoru has a chance to thank him.

Commentary

We finally get Volfogg’s spotlight episode, and it’s pretty fun to watch. There’s some minor insight to Pizza’s past and we finally know the true purpose of the two Gun machines that were appearing repeatedly throughout the show. It’s also nice that each new Zonder doesn’t immediately just morph into the big monster of the week. This one for instance indulges in its armchair general fantasies while trying to catch Mamoru, which is Pizza and Penchinon’s current agenda. Though you can only do so much to catch someone when his protector is a robot ninja police car. The rest of the 3G robots don’t get to do much, though watching GaoGaiGar brutally beat the Zonder robot never gets old, and let’s not start asking questions about how the Eraser Head can get rid of fog now.

Overall Rating
4/5

GaoGaiGar Info

Director:
Yoshitomo Yonetani

Writer(s):
Yoshitomo Yonetani
Ryosuke Takahashi
Fuyunori Gobu
Yuichiro Takeda

Mechanical Designer(s):
Kunio Okawara
Takahiro Yamada
Takehiro Kirao

Character Designer:
Takahiro Kimura

Musical Composer:
Kouhei Tanaka

Format:
49 episodes

Airdates:
Japan 02.01.1997 – 01.31.1998

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