By Crew members work on repairs on the Solo Ship. On the bridge, Sheryl scolds Lin for bringing in food while Cosmo and Kasha discuss the Ideon‘s missile launchers. Aboard the Dorowa Zan, Doku Jilbal, a Heavy Mobile Mecha developer volunteers to head out and attack the Giant God. A trio of Zigg Macks along with some Zlow Jicks depart. Sheryl tries to contact help for the Solo Ship to no avail. Bes says its because no one will believe they’ve encountered aliens. Suddenly Hatari succeeds in contacting the base Braziller. While discussing whether to head there or not, news of a Buff Clan attack arrives so everyone heads out to battle. Cosmo goes out ahead of everyone on the Ideo-Delta. The craft comes under fire from many Zlow Jicks. When the Ideo-Nova and Ideo-Buster approach Doku has the Zlow Jicks head after them while the Zigg Macks take on the Ideo-Delta. Cosmo, now the only one left alive on the craft is overtaken by the Zigg Macks and the Ideo-Delta crashes into a nearby asteroid. Cosmo struggles getting the damaged Ideo-Delta to move. The Zigg Macks continue to launch attacks at it and all the monitors go out. Two of the Zigg Macks start lifting up the Ideo-Delta to take with them when the Ideo-Nova and Ideo-Buster arrive and attack. Bes tells Hatari to head into DS Drive towards Braziller once they rescue Cosmo. Moera tells Cosmo to dock with them but Cosmo, in rough shape, won’t respond. The three Ideon units land on the deck of the Solo Ship, which enters DS Drive immediately afterwards. The Solo Ship departs from DS Drive and approaches the asteroid base Braziller.
The Solo Ship crew depart the ship and meet with officers from the base, led by Camyula Lanban. The officers have a hard time believing that they’ve encountered aliens. Camyula asks about Cosmo, who is very shook up after the recent battle. Bes says that the base isn’t prepared for a Buff Clan attack but Camyula is confident that they have enough battle strength. Bes and Sheryl try to convince Camyula that Karala is an alien. Camyula takes Cosmo with her as she leaves. Meanwhile the Dorowa Zan heads through Null Space. Doku says that he’ll take more control over the Zlow Jick squadron in the next battle. A Solo Ship crew member finds the Buff Clan tracking device but Bes, thinking its part of the ship, tells him to leave it. Lou cries in the cafeteria; Lin thinks its because they’re away from the Solo Ship. Camyula takes Cosmo to a park in Braziller. She says she has a son like him but they were separated 10 years ago. Cosmo tells her to stop treating him like a boy but when he starts talking about the Buff Clan he loses it, still being shook up from the earlier battle. Cosmo runs off screaming and is brought down by Camyula. Meanwhile the Buff Clan forces approach Braziller, causing alarms to go off throughout the base. Camyula tells Cosmo to put on a space suit. The Buff Clan launches its attack on Braziller. The base’s forces are no match for the Buff Clan. Camyula drives Cosmo to the Solo Ship but their hovercraft is struck by a Buff Clan attack. Camyula is crushed by the hovercraft and dies when Cosmo tries to pull her out. Cosmo makes his way back to the Solo Ship and gets in the Ideo-Delta. All three Ideon crafts head out and combine when the docking sign appears. The Ideon makes its way towards the Buff Clan’s Zigg Macks and force them out of the base. An enraged Cosmo launches the Ideon’s all missile attack, destroying a third of the Buff Clan’s forces with a single attack. The Buff Clan retreats. The Ideon lands in the base and screams along with Cosmo.
This episode is a unique one in that its the sole time in the series that we get any of the ‘pilot angst’ that was prevalent in much of Tomino’s other works, particularly the original Gundam series. Ideon rightfully gets a lot of credit for influencing Evangelion, but the one area where they are quite different is the male leads. Outside of this episode, where Cosmo is nearly killed in battle against the Buff Clan, he is usually quite happy and eager to be a pilot. And even so, the storyline is quite a rushed one as Cosmo returns to piloting after Camyula’s death within the same episode as his horrific experience against the Buff Clan. Overall a pretty good episode, although the fact that the entire storyline was crammed into a single episode is a flaw. Another noticeable flaw is the inconsistency in the animation, where the first half of the episode is drawn quite bad while the second half is quite good, as if there was a change in animation directors halfway through. Perhaps it was originally meant to be two episodes and got compressed into one? Regardless of the flaws, this is probably the best episode of the series so far.
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