In Tokyo, Hana is walking Yoseph’s seven puppies and passes by all her friends. The puppies eventually drag her to a boat storage lot where she finds Kaidou lying on the ground! Just as Hana asks him where he’s been, a blast knocks them apart. Hana sees Kaidou glow red and deduces that he’s an alien. She looks up at the source of the blast and finds Mamoru. Mamoru however doesn’t notice her and attacks Kaidou, causing a large psychic distortion in the area. When Hana regains consciousness, she finds the lot wrecked and the two boys gone. In snowy Paris, Chasseur agent and G-Stone cyborg Renais Kerdif-Shishioh chases a caravan of trucks. She opens up one of them and finds it empty, noting that it’s the twelfth empty one so far. BioNet agent Gimlet sneaks up behind her and asks if she has a search warrant, earning him a hail of bullets to the gut. He gets up and reveals his unharmed metallic cyborg body under his cloak. Renais uses a smoke bomb to escape from the truck and enter Equip mode. Gimlet uses his cloak as a distraction so he can restrict Renais with his tentacles. Gimlet reminds her that she was prototype BioNet cyborg as he starts crushing her. A blast hits the truck, allowing Renais to break free and punch Gimlet in the face. He falls off the truck and gets run over by Chasseur AI robot KouRyu in vehicle mode. KouRyu asks Renais if she’s alright and the latter chastises her for blowing their cover. The trucks split into two group and Renais orders the other AI robot AnRyu to go after one. AnRyu fires missiles at the trucks and stops them, but reports that they’re not showing up on her sensors. Renais wonders where the Q-Parts are and Gimlet announces that he now knows what they’re after. The truck trailers split off into dozens of shape changing machines and Gimlet jumps to latch onto the one carrying the Q-Parts. Renais order the dragons to go after them and the two transform to robot mode. As the machines rampage past a police blockade, Volfogg activates his Holographic Camouflage and moves out from between the police cars. AnRyu asks what do about the civilians and Renais tells her to leave it to the police. Gimlet pops up and attacks Renais, knocking her off the roof of the building. She’s rescued by Guy in the PhantomGao jet, and Gimlet angrily tells Guy that he still owes him for what happened in Hong Kong. Guy tells Gimlet that 3G will put a stop to BioNet and the latter tries to attack, but gets knocked back by Volfogg’s Silver Moon blades. Volfogg launches Guy’s ID Armor and the latter enters Equip Mode. KouRyu chases some of the machines to the river and fires her MASER beam at them. However the blast creates a tidal wave that threatens to capsize a nearby tourist ship. AnRyu chases another group of machines to the Eifel Tower and fires a full barrage of missiles. The machines however dodge and the missiles hit the base of the tower instead, dislodging one of its passenger-filled elevators. The dragons can’t reach the civilians in time, but the Japanese dragons arrive to prevent both disasters. Guy uses his Will Knife and Evoluder powers to push Gimlet away, and the latter decides to change his strategy. He uses the Q-Parts to merge all the machines together and form a large robot. Guy fuse with the PhantomGao to form the robot GaoFar.
Guy attacks Gimlet and gains the upper hand but the latter uses the Q-Parts to fuse with more machines and become Gimlet Empereur. Guy tries to punch Gimlet but his arm gets trapped inside Empereur’s body and assaulted with spinning spikes. Gimlet knocks Guy down and tries to crush his head, saying that BioNet will get great publicity if they destroy a 3G robot. Guy can’t believe that the Empereur surpasses the G-Stone’s power and summons the new Gao machines StealthGao III, LinerGao II and DrillGao II. Up in the Orbit Base, operator Papillon Noir informs 3G chief Noriyuki Yaginuma that Guy is requesting permission to perform Final Fusion. Chief scientist Ryosuke Takanohashi says that the probability of success is high, and Kazou and Entouji ask Yaginuma to decide quickly. Yaginuma finally consents and stamps his approval. Entouji quickly transmits the approval signal to 3G’s new ship Division VII Super-Winged Shooting Command Warship Tsukuyomi, where Hyuuma quickly orders Mikoto to initiate Program Drive. Guy slips from Gimlet’s grasp and fuses with the Gao Machines to become the fighting mechanoid GaoFighGar! Hyuuma orders the Dividing Driver to be launched and Guy uses it to create the repression field. Guy and Gimlet grapple and the former is amazed at the Empereur’s strength. Gimlet tells him that this is the last time he’ll ruin their plans, and Guy retorts by crushing the Empereur’s hands and ramming his Drill Knee into its gut. Gimlet uses the Empereur’s reconfiguration ability to repair itself and change its arm into a cannon. He fires but Guy easily reflects the blast with Protect Wall. Gimlet reconfigures again and forms two large lightning rods on his shoulder. Before he can do anything, Guy fires a Broken Phantom. Gimlet creates a gap in the Empereur’s chest to let the projectile pass through harmlessly, but the Phantom Ring stays behind and wrecks the entire body. Gimlet tries to escape but Renais, Volfogg and the dragons have the entire field surrounded. Guy combines with GoldyMarg and Gimlet in desperation reconfigures into a tank and fires missiles at him. Guy disintegrates the missiles with the Goldion Hammer then uses Hammer Hell and Heaven to rip out Gimlet and destroy the Empereur. Gimlet begs for his life and tries to escape but Renais puts a bazooka to his face and blasts him to pieces. Kanayago descends and deploys the Carpenters to repair the damage done to Paris. Back in Tokyo, Ai and Isamu are watching the event on television. Hana peeks into their window and wonders why Mamoru isn’t back home. At the Bay Tower, Taiga and Sakura discuss the Space Energy Development Conference that will be held tomorrow, with the former noting that it will decide the fate of the whole planet. Kanayago and Tsukuyomi dock with the Orbit Base and the Brave Robot Corps unwind by drinking oil. Renais tells KouRyu and AnRyu that they’ll be stationed at the Orbit Base from now on. Mikoto comes up to Guy and offers her hand in gratitude to Renais for her hard work. Renais shakes Mikoto’s hand and burns it. Guy tries to chastise Renais but Mikoto says that it’s her fault for forgetting that Renais’ body is always generating heat due to her faulty cybernetic modifications. Renais’ was supposed to be a normal high school girl but instead she’s a cyborg who’s forced to wear a cooling coat for the rest of her life. 3G examines the recovered Q-Parts, one of several that appeared around the world six months ago. Four of them were recovered and stored in CERN’s main lab in Switzerland, 3G’s American and Chinese branches and the Orbit Base. Hyuuma contacts Liger and Yan and tells them to take precautions to prevent BioNet from stealing anymore Q-Parts. Liger asks Renais how her GS-Generator is holding up, and the latter replies that Liger should be worried about his old age. Just then Liger loses contact and Swan reports that their security system’s been deactivated. Stallion asks if they’re being hacked and the shutter doors to the room are blown open. Mamoru emerges from the dust and announces that he needs to take the Q-Parts. Elsewhere, an imprisoned J silently begs Kaidou to hurry up.
Like the TV show, GaoGaiGar Final starts off fast and furious. There’s a lot of new additions and allusions to past events that will leave the audience scratching their head. The fact of the matter is that GaoGaiGar spawned several manga, short stories and audio dramas chronicling the events between the TV show and the one-and-a-half years leading up to this OVA. Final won’t elaborate on everything that happened before sadly, but will explain just enough to remain comprehendible. The new animation is beautiful and keeps the bright colorful spirit of the TV show. At the front of the new additions is Guy’s cousin Renais. Like Guy before being purified she also was turned into a cyborg though under harsher circumstances as Gimlet implies. As such, she’s mostly an angry teen as opposed to the hot blooded Guy. On the Orbit Base side we have calm and kindly old Yaginuma and Takanohashi as the new chief and head scientist, who’re quite the contrast from the fiery and quick acting Taiga and Leo. We don’t get to know much about Papillon now, but that’ll change in the next few episodes. On the robot side, while the super sleek GaoFighGar is missing the iconic lion head chest piece, it’s still the awesome King of Braves we all know and love. On the other hand, the introduction of yet another pair of rookie dragon robots is eye-rollingly dull. And the fact that they’re female doesn’t make it look any less lazy. Oddly enough, although the next episode preview shows what is obviously the head of their combined form, they never actually combine until the end of episode seven. We don’t get to see the Brave Robot Corps’ other international members in action here, but they make brief cameo appearances during the shots of the American and Chinese 3G branches. The big surprise of course is Kaidou and J’s miraculous survival and Mamoru’s unannounced return, but we’ll get to that in the next episode.
GaoGaiGar Final Info
Director:
Yoshitomo Yonetani
Writer(s):
Yoshitomo Yonetani
Fuyunori Gobu
Yuichiro Takeda
Mechanical Designer(s):
Kunio Okawara
Kazumi Fujita
Takahiro Yamada
Character Designer:
Takahiro Kimura
Musical Composer:
Kouhei Tanaka
Format:
8 episodes (OVA); 12 episodes (TV re-edit)
Video Release:
Japan 01.21.2000 – 03.21.2003
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