A car bearing a white flag and politicians including Prime Minister Novaki, hoping to make peace with the Gaizock, heads through the destroyed city. The car swerves as a building collapses nearby, being crushed by the landing Bandock. Inside Killer the Butcher sings in the tub. Gizarr comes by, telling him the peace party has come and Butcher tells him to welcome them onboard. Numerous tanks exit the Bandock and pass by the car carrying the peace party members. Those on the King Beal watch and Kappei’s grandmother recognizes Novaki. Kappei thinks they are too soft and the Gaizock will never agree to something with them. The men go on a conveyer belt, entering the Bandock. Heizaemon tells Kappei to head to Tokyo, expecting that he may need to save the peace party members. Kappei gets into the Zambird and Chiyonshiki follows. The Zambird takes off. The Zambull and Zambase follow. In the Bandock, the peace party members are brought to a large dinner table. One of the men says that the Gaizock will be amenable to them. Killer the Butcher comes out and tells them to enjoy their meal and that they can talk afterwards. He leads a toast, and the men raise their glasses. The glasses immediately release handcuffs onto each of their hands and Butcher says he was hoping for a hunting game with some humans. The men are later brought out towards the edge of the ship. Novaki is thrown off the side of the ship, but a balloon inflates from his handcuffs, holding him afloat in the air. The same is done with the others. Kappei and the others approach and see what’s going on. Butcher is about to shoot the men with a bow and arrow but notices the Zambot crafts flying nearby. The Gaizock tanks fire missiles upon them, which the crafts try to avoid. However this prevents them from being able to rescue the men. Butcher fires at one of the men and he falls to his death. Kappei tries to bring the craft in further but can’t get close. Butcher shoots at many more men, causing them to fall to their deaths. Kappei’s grandmother calls for him to save Novaki, but his balloon is hit as well. He strikes the top of a building and bounces off, still alive. He flees from the nearby tanks and hides in some wreckage underground. Ichitaro realizes that the tanks’ sensors can’t see underground and that Novaki is okay for now. Kappei’s grandmother again calls out for him to rescue Novaki. Uchuta and Keiko tell Kappei they’ll act as bait so he can fly in and rescue him. The Zambase is hit and crashes into the ground. Kappei says he’ll attack the tanks enabling Uchuta to rescue Keiko. He transforms the Zambird into the Zambo Ace.
The Zambo Ace steps on one of the tanks and throws a rock that destroys several others. Keiko tells Uchuta one of her engines is destroyed but she can fly with the other. Kappei tells her to send him the Zambo Magnum which he does. Kappei is able to take out several more tanks. Butcher says to send out the Beltar Tanks. A large group of Beltar Tanks head out, forming the Mecha Boost Tracid. They blast the Zambo Ace and Heizaemon tells Kappei to combine into the Zambot 3. Kappei doesn’t want to though, thinking that will be sacrificing Novaki. Keiko and Uchuta return to the King Beal. The Tracid blasts the Zambo Ace but loses track of it after it falls off the side of a cliff. Kappei wakes up and still wants to save Novaki. He notices a motorcycle nearby and gets on it. Kappei’s mother needs to hold back his grandmother from heading out to try and save Novaki. She is unsuccessful and his grandmother heads out. Kappei approaches the Bandock and Tracid on his motorcycle and swerves to avoid them. He sees some tanks approaching and jumps up between them and the Tracid trying to get them to fire upon each other. This doesn’t work though. He jumps over another tank and his motorcycle gets shot and destroyed. Upon hitting some nearby water he notices a tunnel that Novaki is hiding in. The tanks approach but can’t sense them. Still, they are unable to head out. Kappei’s grandmother approaches on her craft and is fired upon, causing her craft to crash into the nearby woods. Kappei tells Novaki to wait while he goes out and looks for his grandmother. Kappei is able to throw a rock into the censor of a nearby tank then tells Novaki they can get in it and drive away. Knowing the tanks won’t fire at each other, Kappei fires at each of the tanks, destroying them. Butcher watches, angry, wondering what the Tracid is doing. Kappei heads to the woods with Novaki, finding his grandmother. She is quite pleased to see Novaki. However, the Tracid approaches. The King Beal approaches and Heizaemon tells Kappei to return. The Zambull and Zambase fire upon the Tracid. Kappei heads out on the Zambo Ace and the crafts combine into the Zambot 3. The Zambot attacks the Tracid, which fires a cable at it which it uses to electrocute the pilots. Novaki, aboard the King Beal realizes that the Gaizock truly are the enemy and that they must fight with courage against the Gaizock like the Jin family has. The Zambot pulls down the Tracid and uses one of its own drill arms to destroy it. It then uses its Moon Attack, destroying the Tracid. Heizaemon tells Kappei to now attack the Bandock. The Zambot heads towards the Bandock, but some sort of invisible barrier repels it. Butcher laughs at how they won’t be able to get any closer as long as they have the barrier in place.
Quite a dreadful episode, which is a shame because I thought it would be a pretty good one at the start with the Bandock heading to Earth. The episode is a bit of an oddity, featuring a lot less mecha action than usual (at the halfway point I was wondering if this would be the first episode without a new Mecha Boost, although one did appear in the second half). That said, the episode is largely filler, and even the storyline with the politicians trying to make peace with the Gaizock flops quite a bit. First off, the obsession Kappei’s grandmother has with Novoki is quite ridiculous, to the point that she is heading out on a craft to try and rescue him. She’s been pretty level headed to this point but acts completely out of the norm here. Novaki’s behavior at the end of the episode makes me wonder if people will become more accepting of the Jin family, when the animosity towards them has been one of the most interesting aspects of the show. In general the action throughout the episode was lackluster (Kappei not getting himself killed when he headed out on a motorcycle is a bit unbelievable) and the animation in this episode is really bad. Probably the worst episode to this point. That said, with the Jin family trying to lead an attack on the Bandock, hopefully we’ll be going in a better direction in the next episode.
Director:
Yoshiyuki Tomino
Writer(s):
Fuyunori Gobu
Hiroyuki Hoshiyama
Soji Yoshikawa
Yoshihisa Araki
Katsuhiko Taguchi
Mechanical Designer(s):
Kunio Okawara
Ryoji Fujiwara
Character Designer:
Yoshikazu Yasuhiko
Musical Composer(s):
Takeo Watanabe
Yushi Matsuyama
Format:
23 episodes
Airdates:
Japan 10.08.1977 – 03.25.1978
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