Gatchaman Episodes  

Written by Pat Munson-Siter and Alara Rogers (except where otherwise noted)

Typed and Edited by Alara Rogers (this is who to blame for mistakes!)

Who Did What

KEY: PAMS-- Author Pat Munson-Siter

AJER-- Author Alara Rogers

James-- Author James Long

script-- cited as a script

The International Science Organization is exploring various forms of non-pollutant energy, among them atomic energy, through the Mantle Project. Then the Mantle Project's uranium stockpile is stolen by a monstrous robot shaped like a giant turtle. The directors of ISO are thrown into confusion... except for Dr. Nambu, astrophysicist and head of the Japan Branch of ISO, who names the culprit. An organization called Galactor, that has been secretly preparing for world conquest for years, has finally made its first open move. Though most of ISO intelligence has not been able to gather information on Galactor, Nambu has known about them for some time, and has been secretly preparing a team of five young people to counter Galactor's evil... Gatchaman, the Science Ninja Team.

"They are sometimes five, sometimes one. The white shadow that slips in unseen... Science Ninja Team Gatchaman."

Aboard the team's combat plane, the God Phoenix, the team pursues the mecha. Finally Ken, G-1, the team leader, and Jun, G-3, the sabotage expert and technician, sneak aboard the mecha and let the other three in. They are challenged by the captain of Turtle King, and use their secret weapon, the Whirlwind Fighter, to defeat the Galactors inside. The captain gets away, though, and as they're escaping causes the hatch to close on the God Phoenix. Turtle King is breaking up, and they'll soon go down with it... they must use the weapon of last resort, the Firebird, to get away. It is untested, prompting some fear whether it will work, but in the end it succeeds and they escape.

Title in Battle of the Planets: Attack of the Space Terrapin

(Not significantly different in BOTP)

A mission to (mars? the moon?) ends safely, as the space capsule returns to Earth and makes a successful splashdown. Unfortunately for the astronauts, their routine mapping mission led them to record the location of several Galactor bases, and Galactor is not happy...

Galactor steals away the capsule and crew before they can be retrieved. Gatchaman tracks down the Galactor base-- commanded by the captain of Turtle King-- and Ken goes in alone. After a short battle with the Galactors, he is captured by the threat of harm to the astronauts, who turn out to be dead after all. Jinpei, the youngest member of the team, sneaks in and saves Ken, and the two of them destroy the base. The captain is instructed by the mysterious Berg Katse to take out the Gatchamen or die trying. As they use the Firebird effect on him, it's the latter he accomplishes.

Title in Battle of the Planets: Rescue of the Astronauts

(In BOTP, the astronauts supposedly survived)

A giant thunderstorm blows up around a passenger jet, which explodes. Below, a giant mummy can be seen, gloating at the destruction. At the airport, a little boy's toy rolls near Ken. The boy snatches it back, explaining that his father gave it to him. The boy's uncle, Professor Tetsuro Takahara, is actually the man Ken was sent to protect, the inventor of a superior energy source. Giving his name as Owashi no Ken, which is actually his code name, and saying that Nambu sent him, Ken becomes the professor's confidant. It seems his brother, an airline pilot, disappeared in the storms recently. He has little hope that his brother lives, but the boy, Makoto, is convinced his father is coming home, and insists on coming to the airport every day to wait for him.

Then a plane arrives, and Makoto's father steps out. Both Makoto and the Professor are overjoyed, and later, at a press conference, Makoto's father explains his miraculous survival, holding his happy son on his lap. But the professor stares suspiciously at the ring on his brother's finger...

Late that night, the brother is searching the study when the professor arrives with a flashlight. He says that he was certain the man was an impostor since he saw the ring-- his brother hated rings. The impostor congratulates him on his perspicacity and gives his name as Berg Katse-- the leader of Galactor himself. Then Katse escapes and ducks into Makoto's room, where he threatens to kill the sleeping child if Tetsuro does not surrender the formula.

Enter Ken, who begins a series tradition, beating the stuffing out of Katse. The noise wakes up Makoto, who sees Ken attacking what he thinks to be his father, and he charges to Katse's rescue. Ken is distracted by the boy and Katse makes his escape. Now Makoto, believing that Ken drove his father off, will never forgive him. Ken accepts the child's anger with equinamity and tells the professor that he understands how the boy feels-- his father was a pilot who vanished, too...

The next day, the giant mummy attacks the airport. Ken and the rest of the Science Ninja Team go in the God Phoenix to attack it. During the battle, they see that Makoto has gone to the airport, as usual, and has seen Katse, who is still disguised as his father. Makoto is in the middle of the airfield, crying and waving to Katse, who is about to callously let the mecha stomp on the boy. Professor Takahara shows up and saves him, and is forced to give the Science Ninja Team the special formula in order to stop the mecha. It was, in fact, hidden in Makoto's toy. The Ninja Team destroy the mecha, turning it into a skeleton and leaving only a small rocket, which Katse steps into, taking off his face as he does so.

The Science Ninja Team has stopped the menace, but not in time to save a small boy from grief...

Title in Battle of the Planets: The Space Mummy

(Not significantly different in BOTP)

Galactor is trying to capture all the underground resources of the world (oil, coal, etc) using a huge underground mecha they call "Mechadegon." The mecha causes an earthquake every time it acts. Ken goes to meet the head of ISO's Earthquake Center, Dr. Nakahara, who tells him he believes the earthquakes are not natural. Just then, an earthquake occurs, and Dr. Nakahara and Ken are both sucked in. Ken changes to Bird Style and saves himself, but despite his best efforts he cannot save Nakahara. He does see something underground, confirming Nakahara's hypothesis.

At Nakahara's grave, Ken is attacked by Naomi, Nakahara's young daughter (12-14 or so) who thinks he is a Galactor and arranged her father's death. Ken knocks her out, and shortly afterward spots Mechadegon. Soon Gatchaman is after the mecha, and Ken brings Naomi aboard, breaking the Ninja Team's secrecy regulations. He forces her to fire the bird missiles that destroy the mecha, avenging her father. She promises not to betray their secret. Later, Ken attempts to resign for breaking the rules, but Nambu accepts him back into the team.

Title in BOTP: The Space Serpent

(In BOTP, the Naomi character didn't fire the missiles, providing opportunity for Mark to expound on the worthlessness of revenge. The mecha turned out to be piloted by robots anyway.)

Weird pollution appears in oceans worldwide, disturbing even the Science Ninja Team on their beach vacation. They are sent to a possible source of the disasters, and discover many mysterious old wrecks-- "ghost ships"-- which Joe proceeds to blast hell out of. There are zillions of these things, however, with the result that when the real threat shows up, he doesn't have enough bird missiles left. Mysterious red planes show up and save the Ninja Team. Then they go back on vacation. This is not my favorite episode. (Couldn't you guess?)

Title in BOTP: Ghost Ship of Planet Mir

(Not significantly different-- it was just as bad)

Galactor sends in "mini-robots" to steal all the gold in the World Bank's vaults. Gatchaman is dispatched. Tracking the mecha, they come to a seemingly deserted island. In civvies, Ken, Jun and Jinpei investigate and act as decoys while Joe, bird-style, tries another route. The three in civvies are captured and brought to the base captain. He questions them, getting only their insistence that they were just out having a picnic, but is interrupted by one of his men, who's seen the God Phoenix on their television monitors. Joe, outside, sees the missile launchers rise, and manages to wake Ryu in time for G-5 to get out of the way. Then Joe finds the gold, and has Ryu bring the God Phoenix into the base's hangar, where he loads the gold on board. He then signals the others, who have switched to bird style and begun the fight. They get back to the God Phoenix, and the base explodes behind them. The base captain, in a small sub, reports to Katse the destruction of the base, but believes he still has the gold with him. Then he discovers it is fake, and Katse orders the robot piloting the vessel to destroy itself, the sub, and the base captain with them. Galactor does not tolerate failures...

Title in Battle of the Planets: Big Robot Gold Grab

(I don't know, not having seen it in BOTP)

The ISO is hosting an air show. Ken will be piloting one of the ISO's newest jets. As he takes off, a strange biplane appears. It's being flown by a pilot wearing a skull mask, who's standing on top of the plane. The Galactor identifies himself as Katzen Berig. Using whips made of a super-strong material, he first demolishes Ken's plane-- Ken bails out safely-- and then proceeds to demolish every plane at the show. Ken tells the rest of the team that he's safe, and also the name of the enemy. Jun correctly figures out that "Katzen Berig" is a thinly veiled reference to the name "Berg Katse"...

As time goes by, the biplane appears elsewhere, destroying other planes, rocket bases, and so on. The Gatchamen attack in the God Phoenix, but the Phoenix is damaged by the whips as well. Finally they follow the biplane to its home base, and invade it. After a struggle they manage to defeat the current Galactor menace, but Katse (Katzen?) escapes the destruction.

Title in BOTP: Ace from Outer Space

(The menace was not supposed to come from Spectra at all in this episode of BOTP-- the "Katzen Berig" character was Captain Doom from the planet Ergos, and he had designs on the conquest of Earth and Spectra. Otherwise not too different.)

A submarine patrol is cruising near one of the underwater cities when it is attacked by a huge mecha shaped like a sea anemone. Meanwhile, Ken and Jinpei are playing with some youngsters. The conversation turns to members of the Ninja Team and how much they like each one. Much to Jinpei's dismay, it turns out that their favorite is Gatchaman, with the Swan coming next, then G-2 and G-5... and G-4 as their least favorite! Before Jinpei can adequately vent his frustrations to his "big brother", however, Nambu calls the team in, and tells them that a secret base is being built for them to operate out of, but he fears that Galactor has already discovered it. He sends them off to search a certain area of the sea for Galactor. The first day reveals nothing. That night, Jinpei sneaks away while the others sleep to search on his own, determined to prove his worth. He ends up in Katse's clutches, but manages to summon the rest of the team. Their presence convinces Katse that the undersea base he's discovered nearby must be their secret base, and Gatchaman thinks it probably is, too. Katse destroys the base before the team can destroy the mecha, much to the team's dismay, and escapes. Then Nambu calls them in... it was a decoy base they were defending, and which Katse destroyed! So the Science Ninja Team come to Crescent Coral for the first time.

Title in BOTP: Fearful Sea Anemone

(The base in BOTP was just a new Earth research center of some sort, and was not supposed to be Center Neptune, the analogue of Crescent Coral.)

Galactor has sent a scorpion-shaped mecha to the moon, where it "eats" rocks and boulders, then shoots them toward the Earth, where the meteors create considerable damage. Gatchaman is sure it's a Galactor plan. Nambu's investigation shows the meteors are all of lunar origin. Nambu sends the team into space to investigate, as he has lost all contact with their space and lunar outposts. The God Phoenix, en route, barely dodges another swarm of meteors. Then the scorpion heads for Earth to cause more damage. Ken is the first to realize that the "large" meteor in the next swarm is actually the mecha responsible for the trouble; and the God Phoenix returns home. Nambu tells them to ignore the monster and leave it to the Red Impulse-- the squad of red fighter planes that saved them in ep. #5. The Ninja Team are to find the base controlling the monster and destroy it. They invade the base, and when the commander won't tell them which controls they want, Joe shoots out every control panel in sight. The team is trapped, but using one of Jun's yo-yo bombs, are able to escape before the base is destroyed. Nambu tells them that without the guidance of its operators, the scorpion was reduced to scrap metal by Red Impulse and the ground forces. Gatchaman has won another battle.

Title in BOTP: The Jupiter Moon Menace

(This episode was so bad that I have mercifully forgotten the whole thing.)

At the Snack J, everyone is having a good time, until the lights go out. Elsewhere, the whole city is plunged into darkness, and many accidents occur. At the power plant, an army of ants is destroying everything. Gatchaman arrives and creates a flood that washes away the menace, since the ants are too small and numerous for bird missiles to be effective against them. The next day, the team investigates, and discover some damaged ants-- they are robots. They take one to Nambu, who repairs it and, at Joe's suggestion, programs it to return "home". The team follows, and discovers a Galactor base within a huge artificial anthill. They are trapped within the base, imprisoned in a glass-like dome that will not break. Katse-- wearing a stylized ant's costume-- gloats that they will run out of oxygen soon, then leaves them. Jinpei offers the use of his clackers; he loads them with gunpowder and sets them against the glass. They cover themselves with their mantles, and the explosion cracks open the glass.

In the meantime, the Red Impulse team have been fighting the army of ants destroying the city, with flamethrowers. Angry, Katse orders their huge "queen" ant, a giant mecha, into battle. Nambu discovers that the ants are vulnerable to heat, and equips the God Phoenix with a solar-powered heat ray. There is a problem when the sun goes briefly behind clouds and the giant ant grows wings to attack the God Phoenix, but eventually it is destroyed by Nambu's invention. Red Impulse congratulates them, and they are grateful for the sun that saved their lives.

Title in BOTP: A Swarm of Robot Ants

(Not significantly different, but the ant dude wasn't supposed to be Zoltar)

Ken is flying to a meeting with Dr. Nambu when he crosses paths with Red Impulse. They fly against each other for a while. Red Impulse tells Ken that while he's an excellent pilot, he's not yet good enough to take him on-- yet. Then Red Impulse escapes Ken easily, and Ken wishes he could fly that well. He mentions the meeting to Nambu, who tells him that his father was also an outstanding pilot. Then Nambu gives him his next assignment-- the team is to escort a new experimental plane, the Blue Hawk, to an air show. Unknown to Gatchaman or Nambu, the Blue Hawk's crew has been murdered and replaced with Galactors. Red Impulse discovers this, and attacks the Blue Hawk just as it is about to blast the God Phoenix. Unaware of their own danger, Ken goes after Red Impulse in the Eagle Sharp, under the impression that he has turned against ISO. He is defeated by Red Impulse (rather spectacularly, too), who tells him that the Blue Hawk is under Galactor control, and his teammates are in danger.

Meanwhile, the God Phoenix has been lured into a trap, and the rest of the Science Ninja Team gassed. Katse is about to have them executed by firing squad when Red Impulse and G-1 rescue them. The whole team then destroys the base, and are forced to destroy the Blue Hawk as well.

Title in BOTP: Space Rocket Escort

(The original crew didn't die, and Mark and Cronos didn't actually have a fight. Mark was just suspicious, not convinced that Cronos was the bad guy, since Cronos was supposed to be Mark's best friend.)

(under construction)

Title in BOTP: Beast with a Sweet Tooth

(not significantly different)

(under construction)

Did not appear in BOTP

An old man in a wheelchair befriends a little girl whose father has recently been killed. They play ball on the deck of a passenger ship. Then an iceberg suddenly appears, and from it emerges the Icecander, another Galactor mecha. The vessel disappears.

Nambu wakes Ken up with an emergency call, and when Ken complains about the early hour Nambu tells him severely that Gatchaman is on duty 24 hours a day. Nambu briefs the team about the disappearance of many nuclear-powered vessels. He also shows them a video tape taken from the air, of a mysterious iceberg near the equator. Ken notices that it is traveling against the current. (One wonders who Galactor thought they were fooling. An iceberg near the equator, traveling against the current?)

On board the Icecander, the captured prisoners are treated roughly by the Galactors as they arrive at a hidden Galactor base. The Science Ninja Team invade the base, and discover the missing vessels. Meanwhile, the Galactors prepare to operate on the young girl, eager to get at more experimental subjects. Ken and Jun interrupt. Katse throws a time bomb at them, but the old man grabs it and shields the rest of them from the explosion with his own body.

The Science Ninja Team frees all the prisoners and gets them to their ships. They all get out before the base goes up behind them. The Icecander also escapes and attacks. The God Phoenix turns on the Firebird effect and destroys it. The team says farewell to the the surviving passengers, who continue on their interrupted trip, the little girl with tears in her eyes.

Title in BOTP: Perilous Pleasure Cruise

(In BOTP, the old man was the girl's grandfather. He was the developer of an immortality formula, but all the bugs hadn't been worked out-- his daughter and research assistant, the girl's mother, had died trying the formula. Zoltar gets the formula from him, and is about to test it on the little girl-- with a high percentage chance she will die of it-- when G-Force show. In the end, Zoltar gloats that he will live forever, but Anderson tells G-Force that the formula was too unreliable, and will do Zoltar no good.)

(under construction)

Title in BOTP: Thing with 1000 Eyes

(Not significantly different as far as I remember)

(under construction)

Title in BOTP: Microfilm Mystery

(not significantly different)

The episode opens with Commander X's voice describing human barbarism. All humans have within them an atavistic core that seeks destruction and chaos. Civilization teaches people to suppress this core, to be outraged at acts of destruction. But children, who have not yet learned to suppress their destructive impulses, are chaotic barbarians. Far from the sweet, innocent creatures adults idolize them as, children are monsters, and X will use their monstrosity against the civilized adult community.

Jinpei interrupts a bunch of young hooligans in their quest to wreck things for fun. Later, they all find some large and captivating (to little boys) beetles, which they all take home. That night, the beetles grow, revealing themselves as Galactor monstermechs. Each captures the little boy who captured it, and leave. The beetles then use the boys' natural destructive tendencies as power for their own destructive actions. (Jinpei is more civilized than the other boys, but as a member of the Ninja Team he's no less destructive.) The Ninja Team almost attack the mecha before discovering the truth-- Jinpei is in one of the things, and to destroy the monstermech is to kill the prisoner it holds! They also stop the Red Impulse squad from attacking the mecha, and after the mechs escape, they carefully track them down.

The boys have been "released" into Galactor hands, and the Galactors are going to kill them. Jinpei doesn't dare to switch to Bird Style with so many hostile witnesses around; he's as helpless as the other boys. Then Ken and Jun arrive and save the day. The Galactor plan is defeated, and the chastened young hooligans promise to behave themselves in the future.

Title in BOTP: The Alien Beetles

(I never really saw it, but I dimly remember that they were using the boys' "life forces" instead of violent emotions to power the things.)

Galactor sends out a huge mechanical whale to disrupt shipping. It also encounters a herd of real whales, and kills most of them. The Science Ninja Team come across the carnage, and Jinpei and Joe save one baby whale from the scavengers. Ken gets the idea of using the baby to track the robot. Jinpei protests, but then goes along; the baby can indeed track the killer robot to its base, and somehow Jinpei persuades it to do so. (This, among other episodes, is one of the instances that make fans think Jinpei has some power to talk to animals.) The Ninja Team destroy the Galactors, thus avenging the baby whale's dead school. Jinpei says goodbye to the baby, and the team watch it return to the open sea.

Title in BOTP: A Whale Joins G-Force

(Not significantly different. This is the episode where Princess calls Zoltar "Ol' Kinky." I always wondered-- does she know something we don't?)

A spy sneaks into a Galactor base in the kingdom of Ruman and photographs several secret documents. Berg Katse and the king of Ruman are informed, and identify the culprit as the Crown Prince of Ruman, Luka. Since Katse is trying to make nice with the king, at least until his position in Ruman is unassailable, he cannot directly kill the prince. However, he can try to get the film back.

Prince Luka and all of the Science Ninja Team are competing in a race in Ruman. The purpose of the race is to pass the microfilm from Luka to the Ninja Team without Galactor intercepting it. The race turns into a vast game of "keep-away". Eventually Luka and the team (who are all still in civilian clothes at this point) are all captured. Katse demand the return of the microfilm, or he will kill the king. Luka doesn't believe him, and passes it to the Ninja Team, who pass it among themselves, until finally Jinpei pretends to swallow it. The king is killed, shocking Luka no end, the team and Luka are all imprisoned, and Jinpei is dragged off to have his stomach cut open-- without anesthetic.

In the cell, Jun moans in anguish at Jinpei's stupidity in swallowing the thing, until Luka shows her that he has it. Jinpei stuck it in his boot while he was writhing in the apparent throes of agony. Jun uses the plastique in her heel to break them all out, and they go to rescue Jinpei, just in time. Joe takes on Katse and attempts to remove his mask, and possibly his head as well. They go rolling across the floor. A Galactor attempting to defend his leader charges at Joe with a scalpel. Joe disarms him without taking his attention from Katse, but the scalpel falls in Katse's reach, and he stabs Joe in the wrist with it, making his escape.

The Galactors then attempt to recover the microfilm. In the end, the Science Ninja Team fail-- the microfilm is burned beyond usefulness.

Did not appear in BOTP

Galactor is attacking a city with a mole-shaped mecha. The Ninja Team counterattack. While Joe is driving, shooting at the mecha, he sees a young puppy howling at the side of its dead mother... about to be stepped on by the mecha. Joe, seeing himself in the puppy, leaves his car and snatches it up-- but a near-miss by a missile showers out shrapnel, one piece of which penetrates his helmet, and he falls. The rest of the team drive off the mecha, and go to Joe's side. Jinpei almost hits the puppy when it growls at them, but Ken stops him, saying it's just protecting Joe. They're afraid Joe's dead, but are relieved to find him still alive, if unconscious. They take him back to Nambu, who discovers there is still shrapnel inside Joe's head. He can't operate in that area without risking further damage, and whirling Joe about on a centrifuge doesn't shake it loose either. So the Ninja Team, without Joe or his car, go out against the Galactor mole again. Joe wakes, sneaks out, steals his car and joins them. Using the firebird effect once the G-2 is joined to the whole, they attack once more. The God Phoenix is sent gyrating away by the mole's dying struggles, and as the ship and its occupants are tossed about, the shrapnel is finally dislodged and thrown out of Joe's head... it seems he will be all right!

Did not appear in BOTP (although there are fans who think it should have)

(under construction)

Title in BOTP: Mad New Ruler of Spectra

(under construction)

Title in BOTP: The Sea Dragon

(not significantly different)

(under construction)

Title in BOTP: Magnetic Attraction

(not significantly different)

A number of ISO scientists have disappeared. A huge, human-shaped mecha seems to be involved. Gatchaman is dispatched to investigate-- after some difficulty in getting Jinpei into ISO headquarters; apparently children are not allowed, but Dr. Nambu comes to Jinpei's rescue... Driving through the city where the scientists lived, Jinpei is excited upon sighting an amusement park. The most eye-catching thing about the park is an enormous statue of an Indian chief, headdress and all. Later, when they visit the park, Jinpei is enchanted by a flutist at one of the exhibits, dressed as a weird Pied Piper. Ken has to drag him off by the ear.

Ken goes to visit a group of ISO scientists, arriving just in time to see them taken down by a group of Galactor Bird Ninjas, the Blackbirds. Ken battles and defeats the Blackbirds, with more difficulty than is common for Galactors. That night, Jun and Jinpei follow one of the scientists, and see his car attacked by a huge, humanoid robot lit up like a huge neon sign. Foiled, the robot escapes, to attack the city. The Eagle discovers that the Indian statue is missing, and on further investigation discovers that the Pied Piper is actually Katse. In the meantime, Jun and Jinpei have been battling the deadly traps of the amusement park.

Katse turns out to be controlling the giant through the notes he plays on his flute. He announces that the next target for the Neon Giant is Dr. Nambu. Ken sends Joe and Ryu to try to protect Nambu, but before he can stop Katse, he is attacked by more Blackbirds. Jun and Jinpei arrive and dispatch the Blackbirds. Ken and Katse get into a fight, and the flute falls into Jinpei's hands. After some coaxing, Jinpei plays a sprightly little tune on it, jamming the circuits, which causes the mecha to blow up moments from attacking Dr. Nambu. Katse, given added strength from fury, throws Ken from him and runs for it. The Science Ninja Team decide this might be a good action to duplicate, as Katse blows up the base after him. Then the Science Ninja Team head home-- Nambu has been saved, the menace has been defeated, and Jinpei is the proud owner of a new flute.

Title in BOTP: The Musical Mummy

(The mecha was capturing, not killing, the scientists, but the rest of the story was not too different.)

Title in BOTP: The Fiery Lava Giant

(The girl was supposed to be an old friend of Princess's, and it was not Mt. Rushmore, but a similar monument on another planet. Otherwise not too different.)

There is an emergency, but Ryu doesn't come to pick up the rest of the team-- because, as it turns out, he was asleep. In guilt and shame, he resigns from the team and goes home. It turns out that home has problems, as well-- the fishing village he grew up in is being besieged by the destruction of numerous fishing expeditions. Believing Galactor may be involved, Nambu comes with the Science Ninja Team to investigate, but Ryu is too ashamed to speak to them. Investigating on his own, Ryu discovers a Galactor base. He swears his little brother Seiji to secrecy and goes to infiltrate, but is captured. Ken hears about his disappearance, and persuades Seiji to tell him where Ryu went, so he can rescue him. He goes after Ryu, but is himself captured, before Ryu's horrified eyes.

The Science Ninja Team and Nambu search for Ken and Ryu. Seiji comes out after them in a fishing boat. They bring him aboard, and he confesses what Ryu and Ken told him, giving them some idea of what exactly happened to them.

Ryu plays the coward for a group of Galactors who intend to execute him, and uses their brutality as a weapon to defeat them. Meanwhile, the base captain asks Katse what he should do with Gatchaman. "He's been trained to bear pain, and so he's not likely to talk, whatever we do," Katse replies. "Just kill him."

Ryu shows up and preserves Ken from this fate. They take out the Galactors in the control room-- but they cannot possibly escape. Ken tells Ryu that there's no hope for them-- his plan for destroying the base will involve both their deaths as well. Ryu says simply, "I'd be happy to die with you, Ken."

They open the sea doors, flooding the base, and then Ken calls Nambu. Though Nambu, Joe and Jun all beg him not to give up, to give them his location, Ken is entirely resigned to death. He tells Nambu that he wants Ryu to go on record as having been a Science Ninja at the time of his death, and then says farewell. Then the team see bubbles coming out of a crevice, and figure that it's the base location. Since the God Phoenix can;t fit, Jinpei is sent in his helicobuggy to the rescue.

Ryu and Ken come to understand each other better, in the last few minutes of their lives. They hold hands under the water and look at each other, smiling with friendship. Then they falter and plunge under the water-- and at this point Jinpei shows up with an oxygen mask and an escape vessel. Back aboard the God Phoenix, Ryu is officially reinstated and given back his bracelet, and takes back the pilot's seat.

Title in BOTP: The Bat Ray Bombers

(Essentially the same, but Zoltar was going to interrogate Mark-- and from the sound of it, enjoy it quite a bit-- making it a little more advantageous for the two to kill themselves. "No, the questioning of the G-Force commander is a delight I have reserved for myself. And I do hope he is not too eager to talk-- it will be a pleasure to convince him..." This is one of the few instances where I think the BOTP version was better done. Certainly, it seems truer to Katse's character than "just kill him" is.)

A racer named Lucy-- an old racing acquaintance of Joe's-- is offering ISO the location of Galactor's headquarters in exchange for ten million dollars, and so Joe is assigned to get it from her over the course of the World Custom Car rally, a race taking place in Africa and covering 5000 kilometers in four days. Berg Katse, observing the race, reports over its course to Commander X, and the two of them launch numerous mecha-animal attacks against the two racers. Lucy refuses to tell Joe where the headquarters is until they've won the race. As a former Galactor, she is suspicious of the Science Ninja Team, and in fact takes several potshots at them until Joe persuades her to stop. As it turns out, her abandonment of Galactor was not the abandonment of her ambitions. "I betrayed them to attack them," she says at one point, and later:

LUCY: I'm not one to lose to the likes of Berg Katse and Commander X.

JOE: But you'll never be able to win by yourself.

LUCY: But I can do whatever I want with five of Galactor's bases...

JOE: What?

LUCY: That's right. I'm taking over Galactor.

JOE: So then why'd you tell ISO you'd tell us Galactor secrets? Tell me!

LUCY: I kill two birds with one stone that way, you see? I get your money, and you kill Commander X and Berg Katse for me.

JOE: Then you'll be the Commander, and you'll set up a new organization... Not bad.

LUCY: We could do it together.

At the end of the race, Katse destroys the evidence of the base the mecha-animals had operated out of, and then reports to X that Lucy is about to divulge the information. X replies, "I hate to destroy my best work, but there's no other way. Kill Lucy."

And just as Lucy is about to tell Joe where Galactor HQ is, she doubles over in agony. Her face takes on a mechanical aspect, she staggers to the wall and crashes through it, and on impact with the ground she explodes. Lucy was a cyborg-- practically an android, in fact-- and the Science Ninja Team don't view such beings as people. But for Joe, Lucy's true nature is irrelevant. "She was a good partner," he thinks to himself, driving to get rid of his sorrow.

Title in BOTP: Race Against Disaster

(Radically different-- Lucy was a Spectran assassin assigned to eliminate Jason, but she decided at the beginning of the race she was going to betray them and protect him. The animal mecha attacks were intended to eliminate Jason, not Lucy [which was still her name].)

Ryu and Joe are watching a soccer game between small boys when the goalie for one team disappears, mysterious treadmarks appearing in the soft soil from some strange, invisible mecha. In an amusement park, Ken is watching a little boy playing at being Gatchaman when the boy vanishes from sight. Again, strange tracks are left behind. Ken follows the tracks into the "mirror pavilion", and sees a snail-shaped monstermech appear. But when he chases after it, he runs smack into a wall.

Meanwhile, Katse examines his captives, five small boys with unusually strong brainwaves (usually used in Gatchaman as a synonym for latent psi.) He will use their minds to generate an imagination monster, an amorphous thing made from the conflicting imaginations of the children. The monster is used as Galactor's eyes and ears, sneaking into a top-secret ISO vault (and disintegrating several people in the process), where it proceeds to read files on the Mantle Project.

Nambu tells the team that more invisible mecha have been attacking various sites where Mantle Project work is going on. The mecha utilize refractory indices to appear invisible, but appear in mirror-lined rooms. He has also deduced that the creature sneaking into ISO files is a psi-generated being of some sort. A member of the team must be chosen as a decoy, and be captured in the hope of leading the rest of the team to the Galactor base. Jun is chosen, and her brainwaves are artifically boosted (an extremely painful process, apparently) to attract Galactor attention. She is indeed captured, and the team secretly follow, back into the mirror pavilion. They are caught in a dead-fall, but use bird style to escape.

Meanwhile, Katse has dispatched the monster to read ISO files again, but it can only seem to find one set of files. The information from the file comes in, and Katse gloats. "That's it. Now I've got it all." The Science Ninja Team show up, but Katse tells them they're too late-- Galactor already knows where to strike. He makes his escape, and he and his men leave in the snail mecha. The Ninja Team release Jun and the children, and then head for the location Galactor learned about. They call Nambu, apologizing that they couldn't stop the Galactors, but Nambu tells them that it's quite all right-- the last file was faked. Galactor is headed for a trap.

The monstermechs drive straight into another mirror-lined room, and Nambu announces to them that they have been tricked. Katse orders an about-face, but the retreating mecha are struck by the incoming God Phoenix. Katse is thrown clear of his exploding vehicle. The Science Ninja Team order him to unmask, but he laughs, stands up, and drawing blue flame about himself, seems to disappear, burned from the bottom up like a piece of paper. When the illusion vanishes, a tunnel is left behind.

Did not appear in BOTP

Katse observes from the deck of a ship as a volcano erupts. Smiling, he tells his men that it's time he took Galack X into operation. They protest that Galack hasn't been trained sufficiently yet, to which Katse responds that there's plenty of opportunities for training in the offing. "I'll train him well."

Nambu, learning of the eruption, notes that the sudden activation of a sleeping volcano might well have something to do with Galactor, and sends the team to investigate. Ken suggests that he, Jun and Joe are sufficient for the investigation-- Jinpei and Ryu are vacationing at the Shirayuki Orphanage, where Jinpei and Jun grew up, and Ken doesn't want to spoil their vacation. At the orphanage, the latest craze is kickboxing. Jinpei notes a pair of boys who are doing it badly, and offers to demonstrate how it should be done-- or rather, to have Ryu demonstrate it. Ryu really has no desire to do such a "barbarous thing", but he demonstrates, using perhaps a little more strength than is absolutely necessary... Jinpei promises to coach the boys, and offers to take them to an actual match with money he doesn't really have.

The match is to be between the Oriental champion, Great Shimura, and the rookie Galack X, who has a mysterious woman manager with sunglasses and a sinister smile. Galack X defeats Shimura, and the boys are eager to catch a glimpse of their new idol backstage. What they see, however, is that Galack's bandaged hands and feet concealed metal weaponry. Noting that they're observed, the woman and Galack capture the boys and stuff them into the trunk of a car. Jinpei and Ryu come upon the scene, and Ryu takes on Galack-- and gets the stuffing beat out of him-- while Jinpei pursues the woman and the children.

In the meantime, Ken, Jun and Joe have narrowed their investigation to the zone where the orphanage is. Then they hear of Ryu's injury. In the hospital, he tells them what became of Jinpei and the boys. By this time, Jinpei has found a Galactor base. He infiltrates, being careful of the infrared beams. Then he sees Galack go through one of the beams without setting it off, tests the beam, and sets off an alarm. He reaches a control room, and is caught. Above him, he sees the woman and the two boys, trussed up. "These boys saw us at a rather inconvenient time," she says, laughing. "We can't have that. Understand?" Then she whips off her disguise and turns into Berg Katse. Katse announces that he intends to make the nearby volcano erupt, which will kill the children at the orphanage, but of course this protest means nothing to Katse. Jinpei gets away, and is chased by a giant Galack X, proving that Galack is a cyborg-- little better than a humanoid mecha. Ken and the other two are on their way, and infiltrate the base, just in time to save Jinpei from a giant drill.

The drill turns out to be a mechanism for causing volcanic eruptions, and the Science Ninja Team fail to stop it from doing so. Jinpei goes in G-4 to evacuate the children, while Ken is forced to battle Galack X. He eventually figures out that the glass eyes are the cyborg's weak point, and takes them out with the boomerang. But the lava is flowing down toward the streets. The only way to stop it is to block it with a Bird Missile, and without Ryu and the God Phoenix, there's no way to fire one... Then Ryu shows up, having left the hospital in the nick of time. As soon as the threat is over, he collapses again-- never having been well enough to go to battle in the first place.

Later, Jinpei supervises the boys as they help in the rebuilding of the orphanage. When Ken chides him for not doing any of the work himself, he replies, "Yes, but I'm being their coach."

(Note: The woman Berg Katse is disguised as in this episode turns out to be Katse's true appearance.)

Did not appear in BOTP

(under construction)

Title in BOTP: The Ghostly Grasshopper

(The captain and crew of the mecha were supposed to be robots in BOTP, and the scientist, whose name in BOTP was Kenton, was a crusty misnathrope who accused Anderson of putting on a show for the media.)

Joe is driving Dr. Nambu back from a conference when he spots a strange vehicle following them. He takes evasive action, but the enemy attacks. It is a masked woman with a rose. The car plunges into the river, and the woman tosses the rose. Joe, recognizing the rose as something deadly, evades it by separating the passenger compartment of the car from the chassis, turning the upper part into an underwater craft. The rose explodes the chassis, and Nambu asks how Joe knew that would happen, but gets no reply.

They return to base, and explain what happened. Ken and the rest of the team are of the opinion that they must glue themselves to Nambu's side to protect him, but Joe expresses the opposite opinion-- they must risk 100% danger to hunt down the Galactors and destroy them. He leaves, prompting commentary on his antisocial nature.

Berg Katse is informed that Nambu is not dead, and is ordered by Commander X to take the Devil Star and eliminate Nambu by any means possible. Aboard the Devil Star, a blond woman tells the assembled female assassins-- including the one who just made an attempt on Nambu's life-- that they are going to assassinate Nambu, and that she has a plan to lure him out where they can get him. Meanwhile, Nambu gets a call from Director Anderson. A red tide has risen over a submarine ranch in a certain area, and so Nambu is to go by train and investigate, with an investigator from ISO. Thinking it may be a trap, Ken decides that the team will stay by Nambu, to protect him. He declines to call Joe (rather vehemently) but leaves a feather in the map for Joe to find.

Joe, out racing, has a flashback to the deaths of his parents, who were murdered by a masked assassin exactly like the ones above. (They are never given a name in the show, but for simplicity's sake, most fans refer to the female assassins as Devil Stars, after the mecha.) Then he sees a girl who has crashed her car. He rescues her, and drives her to work, making a date with her to race tomorrow. She reports to a tall blond woman with a drugged-out expression, who hits her for being late. Joe gets home, and discovers he's been abandoned. At first upset, he then sees the feather in the map, and makes a decision.

Nambu, Ken and the others meet with the blond woman, who introduces herself as Anderson's secretary. Ken and Nambu board the train, while the rest of the team follow along in their separate vehicles. The woman summons the Devil Stars to begin the mission, telling the number 2 Devil Star that she is not truly a full member of Galactor yet, but as her mother was a Galactor, she is obliged to join. The team observe Galactor vehicles-- miniplanes from the Devil Star-- arrive, and have several fights with them, but fail in their objective-- the Galactor women manage to blow up the train tracks in two different places, destroying all the cars but the front one where Nambu is, and then blowing a hole in front of the train. Abaord the train, the woman shoves Ken out onto the other car, which is on top of the first part of the trestle to blow up, and then introduces herself to Nambu as his guide to hell. All the other passengers turn out to be Galactors. But Ken shows up, defeats the Galactors, and chases the woman out to the roof of the train. She escapes in the Devil Star, and the train plunges into the water, but Ryu is there with the God Phoenix, and saves Ken and Nambu.

The final Devil Star escapes, only to find her route blocked by Joe. They attack each other, but it's his that finds its mark. After he can no longer see her, she turns out to be the young woman he met before, saying, "Why can't the child of Galactors ever escape Galactor? Tomorrow's race would have been fun..."

Joe leaves the rest of the team, after the battle is over, to go keep his date. But she doesn't come, and he has no idea that it's because he killed her.

Title in BOTP: The Galaxy Girls

(In BOTP, the monorail, called the Solar Express, was supposed to be the first planet-spanning monorail, and the Spectran plot was to destroy it-- killing Anderson was just an afterthought. The woman captain was cast as Mala, Zoltar's sister, and although she didn't hit the girl, she was angry at her, mainly because "a young man {brought} you to our base." The role of Devil Star 2 was split in two-- the assassin who tried to kill Jason and Anderson was Yana, and the girl Jason befriended was Lani. Needless to say, Jason did not kill Lani, and 7-Zark-7 had "all the other passengers evacuated." Although still one of the best BOTP episodes in my opinion, this was cut abominably.)

The Science Ninja Team strike a Galactor base, upsetting Katse, and even further upsetting X, who won't take "the Science Ninja Team can't be beaten" as an excuse anymore--he insists that it's more than about time Katse found out what they look like in civilian clothes and attacked them then, since they're no more than ordinary people when out of Bird Style. Katse then announces to the mayor of the city of Lawnpark-- a city enjoying the fruits of the Mantle Project-- that he will be attacking the city in a few days. This confuses the Ninja Team-- the last time Galactor notified them ahead of time, they failed miserably. Why are they making the same mistake again? Joe and Jinpei think that Galactor has just taken the team for fools, but Ken, Jun and Nambu are sure that Galactor has some new plan.

They go to Lawnpark, and encounter the Gezora, the new squid-shaped monstermech, in the God Phoenix. It attacks, but then retreats, leaving the God Phoenix blinded by a cloud of black ink. The team return to civilian clothes and join the citizenry of Lawnpark, waiting for Galactor's next move. Katse, figuring that they've done this, orders his men to outfit themselves as regular citizens as well, and then report upstairs. Upstairs, they meet a woman-- the same one we saw in ep. #31-- who announces that she is the head of this base, and they are to obey her. Outraged, they demand to know who the hell she thinks she is, to which she replies, "Shut up! This is by Katse-sama's order. You are to treat my orders as Katse-sama's orders."

Ken asks all of them to yield their bracelets, saying, "We might just as well tell Galactor who we are as be wearing these." They determine to split up, and meet back at the wharf at six. Jun and Jinpei, off in a slum, hear a little boy yelling, "It's Galactor! Help! It's Galactor!" When questioned, he tells them that somebody gave him money to do that, and in fact he has no idea where any Galactors might be. Galactors dressed as pimps and drug lords (Well, they are!) upstairs in a building observe how Jun and Jinpei run to the boy. Moments later, they hear a woman's scream. The Galactors are apparently setting upon a poor, defenseless woman, who just happens to be their captain, but Jun and Jinpei don't know that. They save her and offer to see her home, and she insistently invites them into her mansion-- the Galactor base-- for dinner. Jinpei eats the food readily enough, but Jun is more suspicious, and only pretends to succumb to the drug. She and Jinpei fight off the Galactors, but are brought up short by the woman with the gun, who accuses them of being Science Ninjas. "Do you really think we're that great?" Jun says, laughing, saying that she is a Lawnpark policewoman. The woman does not buy it, and throws Jinpei and Jun in a dungeon. This upsets both of them quite a bit, and Jinpei tells Jun that it's all her fault, she's the one who wanted to investigate the base in the first place, and Ken was an idiot for taking their bracelets.

Meanwhile, Berg Katse boards the Gezora and takes it out against the populace again. He announces to the populace of Lawnpark that he's only doing this to get the Science Ninja Team, and that they're being cowards and won't come out and fight. They prove him wrong by coming out at this point, and isolate him from the Gezora. He tries to force them back with a gun, but they point out that he can't shoot all three at once, so he then says that if they come any closer their captured teammates will be killed. Ken tries to fake nonchalance, but it comes a little too late-- Katse is convinced that the missing two are in fact his captives. He gets away. The woman captain comes in to visit her captives, informing them that the absence of two members of the Science Ninja Team rather points to their identities. Jinpei fearfully remarks that the woman sounds like Katse, which is a slip-- the fact that they know Katse is enough for her. (No false egotism, here-- she knows the general public doesn't know her.) She is about to kill them, when Galactors looking for Katse-sama intervene, and she says she will tell Katse whatever it is. A transmission has been intercepted from the God Phoenix with five members, not three.

The other "two members" are a pair of lifesize dummies. The Science Ninjas are not sure whether or not Katse was fooled. Their investigations turn up a suspicious building-- in fact, the Galactor base-- and Ken discovers Jun and Jinpei there. But the Jun and Jinpei turn out to be dummies, and Katse's voice gloats that he is not stupid enough to be fooled by the dummies aboard the God Phoenix, and that by coming here Ken has proven Jun and Jinpei's identities. The actual Jun and Jinpei, Ken figures out, are aboard the Gezora, and he and Joe infiltrate and rescue them.

Katse intends to drop a plutonium storage building on a nuclear power plant, blowing up the city and the two prisoners, who will be left behind in the building. What he doesn't realize is that the substance of the Gezora can be corroded by the plutonium in the building. Ken calls to announce that all five members of the Science Ninja Team have always been together, and this time Katse falls for it. Then the team use trickery to get the Gezora to collide with the plutonium, destroying it. Commander X is very upset. The team return to Nambu, Jinpei disappointed that secrecy didn't permit them to meet the mayor and get lionized.

Title in BOTP: Curse of the Cuttlefish

(The woman captain was cast as the mysterious agent S-9, and while Zark made a reference at the end to the effect "I'm sure we haven't seen the last of her", she is never explicitly identified as Mala. Spectra's goal was capturing the Conway Tapes, which contain all the defense secrets of Earth, on the planet Arcturus, as well as taking out G-Force. There is no attempt made at the end to further deceive Zoltar-- once Princess and Keyop are freed, Mark doesn't try to keep it a secret that they were Zoltar's prisoners.)

Everywhere, people seeing a strange aurora go crazy, including Ryu, who is out fishing. TV sets are also affected by the strange radiation. Nambu is sure Galactor is at the root of it all. Ryu goes completely around the bend during the briefing, and acts like he's a cat. The others subdue him, and tests at the hospital show that his brainwaves duplicate those of a feline. Katse gloats, and sees himself ruling the world, but X tells him not to congratulate himself too soon. Their next target is Nambu, and that is sure to bring in Gatchaman. Nambu is attacked in his car. His driver crashes and dies, and Nambu himself is thrown free and knocked unconscious. When he comes to, he has the brain pattern of a great ape superimposed on his own, and does his level best to demolish ISO HQ-- Ken and Joe take him out only with great emotional difficulty.

Meanwhile, Ryu has recovered somewhat. Ken and Joe take him back to the place where he lost his mind. Still part "cat", Ryu is terrified of the water-- Ryu, who normally loves the sea! His terror angers Joe, who knocks him against the boat's engine. He gets an electric shock, and is cured. But Nambu's brainwaves are too irregular to risk shock; they must destroy the problem at its source. Gatchaman takes off in the God Phoenix and goes hunting for the Aurora Monster. They track it down. Bird missiles have no effect, as the aurora effect explodes them before they can get close enough to damage the mecha. After a fierce battle, one missile gets through, but appears to be a dud. Actually, Jun has equipped it with a timer, giving the team time to get out of range.

Did not appear in BOTP

(under construction)

Title in BOTP: Demons of the Desert

(under construction)

Title in BOTP: Siege of the Squids

(under construction)

Title in BOTP: Orion, the Wonder Dog of Space

(under construction)

Did not appear in BOTP

Galactor has discovered the spores to a prehistoric mobile plant, the Jigokiller, and has released it in Utoland and several other cities. The Jigokiller has two forms; when the weather is dry, it is an innocuous small flower. But when it rains, it transforms to a giant mobile plant that eats human beings, specifically women. One tries to attack Jun at the Snack "J", and she defeats it and takes pieces back to Nambu, who determines what the Jigokiller is. In the ensuing discussion, Nambu mentions a protective membrane, impervious to heat, pressure and poisons, developed for deep-sea exploration. Jun steals the membrane and goes out in a rainstorm to capture a Jigokiller, Jinpei following. But she underestimates the plant and is swallowed, and when Jinpei tries to rescue her he is knocked unconscious.

The next day, the male members of the Science Ninja Team take a small Jigokiller back to Nambu for analysis. Galactor attempts to stop them, but Ken stays behind and deals with the Galactors. Meanwhile, the Jigokiller containing Jun has been picked up, and the Galactors are keeping her inside the plant, trying to find out why it's not consuming her.

All the plants gather directly above the Mammoss Reservoir. They can be destroyed at a single shot-- but poisons can't be used, so close to the reservoir, so the only way to do it is by fire. The Ninja Team, believing Jun to be in one of the flowers, refuse-- but Ken finally agrees, knowing it to be his duty, and eventually the rest agree to help, unwilling to let Ken bear the burden of Jun's murder all by himself. Unfortunately, burning the flower causes them to revert to their spore form, and spread, and so the team believe they have killed Jun for nothing.

Everyone is depressed-- Jinpei is crying, and Joe's rage toward Galactor is even more intense than usual-- but Ken has turned icily cold, and utterly apathetic toward his work. To him, there's no point in being members of the Science Ninja Team, if duty demands that they kill their own. At first, Nambu seems very unsympathetic and cold toward them, but then we realize that Nambu doesn't believe Jun to be dead. The membrane she stole could have protected her from fire. Then Red Impulse shows up, and beats some sense into Ken. Shortly afterward, the captive Jun sends the team a Bird Scramble. They head for the city where the signal came from, searching for the Galactor base, and just as Jun is about to be killed for being a spy, they find the base and rescue her. Meanwhile, Nambu discovers that something in men's blood is highly inimical to the flowers. According to him, it's the Y chromosome, and the Red Impulse team take bombs with extracts of male blood and destroy the flowers with them. [Scientifically, this is ridiculous-- it makes a little more sense to assume it was male hormones that were killing the flowers.]

The "brain" for a new supercomputer is to be transported by Director Anderson personally to a high-security ISO lab. Anderson's plane has been outfitted like Air Force One, but for additional security, the Science Ninja Team is to fly escortin the God Phoenix-- a good idea, as it turns out, because Commander X has told Berg Katse to capture the brain component by any means possible, and the means Katse chooses is capturing the plane's stewardess and impersonating her. Anderson notices her "unusual brooch"-- a spider-shaped pin on her collar-- but thinks nothing of it. Later on, after the journey has begun and the brain component's case has been stowed away in Anderson's chair, Katse uses the spider brooch to kill the pilots and take over the plane by remote control.

Anderson notes that they're off course, and points this out to the stewardess, who laughs and pulls a gun on him. "That's right, Director Anderson," she says. "Give me the key to the compartment." He demands to know who she is, and she laughs in a familiar masculine voice. "The leader of Galactor, Berg Katse," she/he says. "Now give me the key." Anderson hands it over, but points out that it won't work until they're on the ground. He begins to nervously tap his armrest-- and a button on it that sends the Bird Scramble to the Science Ninja Team.

Meanwhile, the God Phoenix has lost Anderson's plane. Then the Bird Scramble comes in, telling them where the plane is as well as the fact that Berg Katse has hijacked it. The God Phoenix catches up with the other plane, just in time to get caught in the Galactors' tractor beam and pulled into the base. Seeing this, Katse laughs, and gloats that the Ninja Team are captured as well. She/he then turns to Anderson and orders him to stand up, so she can open the compartment. He says, "Shut up!" and ejects his seat from the plane, prompting Katse to throw her/his hat to the floor in fury.

Outside, the Ninja Team manage to rescue Anderson immediately, but in order to get the brain component back, they have to play an elaborate game of Keep-Away with the Galactors, each side in a mad scramble to get the component and keep it away from the other side. Finally they succeed and leave, as the base blows up behind them, and they bring Anderson and the component to the base safely.

Title in BOTP: Capture of the Galaxy Code

(As the name implies, the briefcase contained codes to galactic defense, not a computer component. The Anderson character, President Kane, was president of the Intergalactic Federation, not a part of Nambu's department. The stewardess didn't die, and for that matter, Zoltar used his "special powers" to "transform [him] into an exact likeness of the girl"-- the scene where Katse disguises himself is cut. The pilots were knocked unconscious, not killed.)

#51-#53: See scripts. In BOTP, #51 was Peaks of Planet Odin, and Mark knew from the beginning that the man was Cronos. Cronos had had his wife and son Timmy disappear here on Odin, and was looking for them, among other things. Supposedly, at the end he found them, but obviously the animation was not shown. There was no mention of Cronos being Mark's father in this episode, nor any mention of Mark's father at all.

Episodes #52-#53-- The Sky Is Falling! pts. I and II-- were almost identical with the Gatchaman episodes. The only differences were that instead of a country on Earth, the location of the X-3 (V-2) Plan was on another planet, Riga, and that at the very last minute 7-Zark-7 told us that Cronos had ejected "just in time". Otherwise, even the dialogue was remarkably similar.

A monster mecha attacks the Mantle Project again. Ryu complains that Galactor has been doing this kind of thing for over a year now, but the rest of the team are rather enthusiastic about kicking Galactor butt-- except for Ken, who says "Our objective isn't to destroy the monstermech. It's to destroy Galactor itself." He is despondent over the loss of his father, Red Impulse, and violently determined to destroy Galactor for revenge.

The team are assigned to watch over a conference at ISO. Ken is not there, having gone off earlier. He arrives outside the building and sits down on a bench by a fountain, and a drowned man's hand protrudes from the water, touching him and startling him. Ken notes the man's national emblem, and goes into the assembly to announce that someone there is an impostor. Furthermore, by looking at the emblems, he knows which one it is. He creates quite a stir, both with his unauthorized entry and with his announcement. His quarry uses an exploding cigar to get away, and takes off in his car, so Ken steals someone else's car (much to the dismay of the owner!) and drives off in it, in front of the rest of the team's eyes. There is a car chase, and a great deal of property damage as a result, for Ken is unwilling to let anything stop him from catching the Galactor. Eventually, Ken crashes both their cars, catches the Galactor, beats him up and takes him back to base, where he uses the third degree to try to get the location of Galactor's headquarters out of him. The rest of the team appear, and Jun begs him to stop. Ken says that they can't understand how he feels, and appeals to Joe. "You understand-- you suffered the same thing from them!"

Joe flings a feather at the man, cutting loose a rose that cuts his cheek. "That's how I feel," he says. "But when I look at you-- consumed with revenge as you are-- I feel like I'm looking into a mirror, and the sight makes even me sick."

Ken is disturbed by the fact that none of them will see his point of view, but it won't stop him-- he takes a fire extinguisher and sprays the man with it, until the man offers to take them to the headquarters. Nambu tells them not to go-- it might be a trap. Ken says that on the other hand, it might not be, and they should check it out. Nambu looks at him and says that forcing information out of the captive by torture makes Ken equivalent to a Galactor. Hotly, Ken says, "Compared to Galactor, you think what I did was torture?" and gets slapped by Nambu. "You've sunk to Galactor's level." Ken answers that if Nambu wants the peace to return, he'd better let Ken do as he wishes. The he turns to the team. "What are you all standing around for? We're going out!" They look back at Nambu-- who had given no such command-- and Ken shouts, "Didn't you hear my order? Let's go!" Torn, they follow him.

They head for a location in the Arctic. Ken berates Jun, Jinpei and Ryu for standing around admiring the northern lights, and goes directly to the base where the Galactor guides them. Inside, Katse is about to send his men out to destroy the Mantle Project when he learns of the arrival of the Ninja Team, with the captain of the base. Irritated, he announces a change in plan-- they are to eliminate the Ninja Team first. Joe notes that nobody is around, which strikes him as strange, but the man says that they're headed for Katse's private control chambers. They arrive, and find no one in the room. It turns out to be a trap, as walls slide up and reveal Galactors, and Katse. Escaping Galactor bullets, the Ninja Team run in exactly the direction Katse wants them to go, and fall into an ice-lined pit. Katse asks them if they're cold, and offers to warm things up for them-- by turning on intense heat inside the pit, which begins to melt the ice and fill the pit with freezing water. Then Katse and the other Galactors-- accompanied by the captain, who's now in uniform-- head out to destroy an ISO uranium refinery.

Ken suggests that Jun blow up one of the walls with her yo-yo. Joe points out that if the walls are made of ice, that will only worsen the problem, but Ken overrides him. Sure enough, she widens the hole and only makes the problem worse. Jinpei asks Ken what they're going to do, accusing him of getting them into the situation in the first place, and when Ken yells at him Joe backs him up. Ken says that they can't understand how he feels, having his father die at Galactor's hands, and Jun reams him out. "Stop saying, 'father, father'! Do you think you're the only one in the world to lose parents? Look at Joe, losing his parents. Look at Jinpei, who never remembered his. Look at me! You can't afford to be concerned with your own feelings like this-- you're the leader of the Science Ninja Team!"

More of the water comes in. Ken finally comes to his senses, and figures out that the only way out is the Ninja Whirlwind Fighter. Jun, Jinpei and Ryu are somewhat wasted at the end of this manuever, but there's no time to lose-- the monstermech is destroying the plant, and the Science Ninja Team must go to the rescue as quickly as possible. They engage the monstermech in battle (the bird missiles actually do some good for once), and destroy it. Katse escapes (abandoning his men to die, as usual), and the blast ends up damaging the God Phoenix as well. The team can only watch helplessly as Katse flies off, Ken still focused on his rage.

Title in BOTP: Raid of the Red Scorpion

This episode took the premise that Mark's father (he is not identified as Cronos) was killed at the Battle of Riga by an assassin named Garts, coincidentally the same man who appears in this episode. The car Ken stole was Mark's car anyway, and the guy was upset because he hadn't finished waxing it. Mark did not go quite as far with the Galactor as Ken did in the interrogation, but Anderson came down on him almost as hard (Anderson didn't hit him.) Mark actually apologized for his behavior, something I don't think Ken was capable of in this episode.

Title in BOTP: Attack of the Alien Wasp

(In this episode, Colonel Cronos, Mark's friend (he is not identified as Mark's father) has gone missing, believed dead. When he turns up, Mark of course gladly believes that it's his friend, since he has no concrete proof that Cronos is alive. He figures out that it's Zoltar because "Cronos would know that I don't drink on duty." (It was coffee, for god's sakes!) Anderson is suspicious because the information that Cronos gave them made no sense.)

The team is dispatched to a small European country, Monolinth, which is in the midst of a Mardi Gras-type celebration. The queen of the country, Flake, is a major ISO supporter, and Galactor has threatened to kill her. Aboard the plane, Jun sees the famous designer Carridon, whom she idolizes. Carridon's designs will be shown off at a fashion show, sponsored by the queen. Once in Monolinth, Jun is assigned to keep watch on the palace, while Joe and Ken watch from the outside and Ryu and Jinpei mingle with the populace to keep up on rumors. Ken and Joe have a run-in with women ninja in traditional ninja dress, and Ken realizes that if the enemy are this tough, the Ninja Team will need an equalizer. While he and Joe discuss the problem, Jinpei comes by on roller skates, and Ken decides that such equipment might give them the edge they need. The team go and practice in a roller rink; we get to see Joe's streak of practical humor as he "helps" Ryu learn to skate.

In the palace, Jun finds her way into Carridon's dressing room, and starts trying on clothes. Carridon catches her at it, and Jun is miserably embarrassed, but Carridon is not only understanding about it, she suggests that Jun might want to join the fashion show staff. Jun is thrilled by the idea.

In talking to the other women on the staff, Jun learns that Queen Flake is depressed because she hasn't seen any sign of the Ninja Team. Jun goes to reassure her that the Science Ninja Team are on the job; however, while she's gone, Katse and a team of Devil Stars break into the fashion show staff's chambers and disguise themselves as the staff, Katse taking Carridon's role. When Jun returns, the women fall into fighting stances, and Katse exclaims, "Who are you?" Confused, Jun says, "Don't you remember? You said I could be in the show tomorrow?" "Oh, that's right," Katse says, and laughs to cover his/her slip.

After Jun has made her debut at the fashion show the next day, Katse and the Devil Stars reveal themselves and attempt to kill the queen. The team defend her. At first, the team are getting clobbered; then they activate their Bird Rollers and easily defeat the Devil Stars (probably because the poor Galactor women were in shock that such a stupid tactic was working at all). Katse gets away. This is an episode without any mecha battles; all the battles are hand-to-hand personal combat.

Did not appear in BOTP (though, again, there are fans who think it should have)

ISO's Mantle Project-- a plan to obtain clean, pollution-free energy from the heat of the Earth's mantle-- has been steadily progressing, returning the earth to its natural beauty. Commander X does not appreciate this. Summoning Berg Katse to their secret base in a snowy mountain range, he orders him to destroy the Mantle project. At first Katse protests. "But wouldn't it be better to wait for the project's completion, and then take the results for ourselves? That way we could get the fruits of the project for nothing..."

Furiously, X calls him a fool, saying, "We're perfectly capable of living in pollution! Obviously you don't understand my plan yet. But that's all right. Before long, you'll know everything. And then, you'll..."

"Be killed?" Katse whimpers.

X tells him not to be a fool, that in fact he will be promoted to Commander Z and share X's rank. Filled with excitement over the notion, Katse banishes all doubts. But Katse was right the first time-- Z is X's code word for assassination.

Galactor attacks a city where the fruits of the Mantle Project are reaching maturity. The Science Ninja Team go to deal with the menace, the Jellyfish Monstermech, and are forced to use the Firebird effect. This plays directly into Katse's hands, and he releases a new Galactor weapon, heat-seeking explosives. The team bails out, but the God Phoenix is destroyed.

The Science Ninja Team feel that they have lost, but Nambu shows them the construction of a new God Phoenix. "You aren't the only ones who fight Galactor," he says. "Men and women of ISO are working around the clock to restore the God Phoenix." They must stand by until its completion, putting up with a media roast of the team for not stopping Galactor. (A bunch of men expressing the opinion that the Ninja Team are cowards get their comeuppance in the Snack J, as the team beat them up "by accident".) Finally, their new God Phoenix and assorted vehicles are built, and their personal vehicles have now each been outfitted with powerful weaponry. Each G-mech attacks individually, and the destruction of the Jellyfish Monstermech is the result. The Ninja Team are once more triumphant, and Katse vows revenge.

Title in BOTP: The Space Octopus

(This episode was cut to the point of pointlessness.)

People have been mysteriously dying, their bodies eaten away by a strange plasma. A brown-haired girl is in a taxi, trying to escape mannequin women firing the plasma. She abandons the car-- leaving the driver to die-- and runs for the hills, but is trapped on the edge of a cliff. Joe, driving by below, sees her peril, and rescues her just as she falls off the cliff. He brings her to the hospital.

Ken is upset that Joe never notified him, and suspects that the fortuituous rescue of the girl might have been a trap. Joe refuses to even consider the possibility, and takes off. Then they receive a call from Dr. Nambu. Jun is left behind to look for Joe, as the other three respond to the call. Joe, meanwhile, has gone to see the girl-- and seen her calmly leave the scene of a nurse's murder by the plasma. He follows her, and falls into a Galactor trap-- he is surrounded by mannequin women and a blond female Galactor (not the woman captain), and captured.

Ken, Jinpei and Ryu are summoned by Nambu to the hospital, to invesitgate the nurse's death. There they're told that the young woman Joe brought to the hospital has disappeared, and that Joe went after her. A small object was left behind at the site of the murder. Before Nambu can figure out what it is, the team-- Jun's back with them-- get a call from Joe, just as he's about to be captured. All Joe manages to tell them about his location is "a mannequins' graveyard"-- which, when coupled with the little white object, tells Ken where Joe went. The team split up to find and rescue him, but instead Jun and Ryu are also captured, despite the fact that Nambu warned them it might be a trap. Ryu manages to get off a warning to Ken and Jinpei.

The brown-haired woman enters a room where the woman Galactor captain is smoking a cigarette. She reports that she's captured 3 members of the Science Ninja Team, and the woman orders her to catch the other two. As she turns to leave, the Captain calls out to her.

"A moment-- Do you still want to leave Galactor, Maya? Your mother, your father, all your brothers and sisters-- they're all members of Galactor. And yet--"

"I have my own life to live! You promised I could leave after this mission!"

"So I did. Very well, do as you like. But you must first capture all the Science Ninja Team."

Ken and Jinpei arrive, and hear Berg Katse's voice congratulating them for falling into his trap. He sends them down to a lower floor, where they meet the masked blond woman. She shows them that she has the other three captive. Ken calls her pitiful, for she can never take off her mask and show her face to the sun, and so she has her mannequins fire plasma at the captives, then begin attacking the two who are free. In the midst of the battle, Ken and Jinpei rescue the others, who have all survived their plasma attack, and they fight and defeat the mannequins with a Whirlwind Fighter. The girl runs for it, and is pursued-- but she runs into Berg Katse, who pulls a gun on her. "You failed, Maya," he says.

"Katse-sama, one more chance--" she pleads, but it's no use. He shoots her, telling her, "Either way, you die. Fool, did you ever think you could leave Galactor alive?" and leaves. When the Ninja Team arrive, her mask and wig have fallen off, revealing her as the brown-haired girl Joe rescued. With her last breath, she begs them to escape. "Hurry...this base is certain to explode. I... I lied to you... I wanted to walk... in the sun too..."

Title in BOTP: Rage of the Robotoids

(The girl, Tina, was working for Spectra because they held her parents captive. At the end, she didn't die, and her parents were miraculously saved. The woman captain was cast as Mala, Zoltar's sister, in her second and last appearance.)

There are reports of the Abominable Snowman being seen in the Himalayan Mountains. Jinpei wants to go investigate it, but Ken dismisses it on the grounds that there's no reason to believe Galactor is involved. So Jinpei goes on his own, and camps outside with all the other would-be Snowman sighters. When the Snowman-- actually it looks like a giant gorilla-- finally appears, it starts smashing tents and killing everyone but Jinpei, who radios for help in a panic, but not for long enough that the team can figure out where he is.

When he comes to, Jinpei sees Galactors picking through the wreckage. They notice that he recognizes them as Galactors, and pull guns, demanding to know how he knows. Thinking quickly, as he always does, Jinpei says that Galactor's famous, and all his friends idolize them. Rather flattered, the Galactors invite him to join the organization, which means washing dishes and toting food to Berg Katse. While in the midst of the former activity, he signals for help with the Bird Scramble, and while engaged in the latter, he hears Katse apologizing to Commander X. "Katse, apologizing? Who's he talking to?" Jinpei wonders. When Katse hears him and demands to know who's there, Jinpei wheels in the food (dressed in a Galactor outfit several sizes too large for him). Katse accepts it happily, and tells him to leave it here-- "I'm busy now."

Later, the Galactors, after having discovered that Jinpei can fix cars, decide to shock him by showing him the Snowman mecha. He notifies the God Phoenix. X, observing that a Ninja Team signal is coming from the base, murmurs to himself that Katse is a fool-- a member of the Science Ninja Team is in the base. "It looks like I will have to take a more active role soon..."

Katse announces to everyone in the base that the Science Ninja Team has snuck in and it's their fault, but the Galactors who found Jinpei are too drunk to pay attention. As the God Phoenix attempts to come in at the secret base, and is strafed by side cannons, Jinpei sneaks aboard the Snowman and takes it out into the base, smashing up a lot of things. It stands up and smashes through the floor at Katse's feet. Katse shouts, "Who's in that mecha?", but drops the question when the God Phoenix comes crashing into the chamber-- or at least he thought it was dropped. As he runs for safety, Jinpei's clackers come flying out of the Snowman's eyes. Katse's ankle twists, and he falls, helpless.

"Hey, aniki!" Jinpei says to Ken. "Today's my big day. I, the great Swallow Jinpei, have captured both the Abominable Snowman and Berg Katse! Think I'll go up in the polls now."

Katse whimpers in terror and tries to back up against the wall as Ken approaches, a truly nasty smile on his face. "It's been a long battle, hasn't it, Berg Katse."

"D-dammit, oh sh-shit..."

"You're an expert at getting away," Ken says, grabbing Katse's collar and strangling him with it, "but how are you going to get away now? Go on, try to escape. Just try to escape me!"

"I c-can't breathe!" Katse strangles out. "Co-Commander! X-sama!"

Ken rips off the mask-- but they see nothing. Katse hurls himself back, hands over his face, showing nothing but a massive quantity of blond hair, and the image of Commander X appears. "Welcome, Science Ninja Team. I am X, Commander of Galactor," X says, as blinding light and sound and pressure force the team to their knees. "You cannot have Katse. I will not hand my beloved servant, Berg Katse, over to you." Then they all collapse, and X's laugh echoes throughout the mountains...

When they wake, Katse, X, and the mecha are gone. Ryu (who was asleep the whole time) laughs and says they imagined it, but Ken is sure that what they saw was real...

Title in BOTP: The Alien Bigfoot

(The interpretation of Zoltar's unmasking was structured differently-- after the Luminous One's disappearance again, Mark speculated that Zoltar might be a woman, because of the long blonde hair. Tiny laughed at the idea. Up to that point, the episode was essentially very similar. This particular episode is one of the most significant in BOTP, as it demonstrates the extent of the Luminous One's power, as well as hinting at Zoltar being a woman, since the episode where Katse was linked to a woman was structured totally differently. See ep. 88.)

Based on what they learned from Jun's shoe in ep. #74, Galactor has worked to develop a device that can zero in on the Science Ninja Team's transmutation frequency, to detect a transformation to Bird Style, and also a device, the Mechaziner, that can reverse the transmutation process...

The team are cheering Joe in a race. The race is almost over when Dr. Nambu calls them in. The others leave, but Joe refuses to come along until he's finished the race, which he is winning. The moment he crosses the finish line, he turns around and heads for home, transmuting to save time and make better speed. The Galactors, who have been searching for a transmute frequency spike, find him, and send a team out armed with the prototype Mechaziner. They force Joe to crash his car and detransmute it. Joe reveals that they haven't gotten him-- he got out at the last second-- but before he can attack them, they hit him with it. It's a glancing blow, but it still throws him back. Katse orders the men to retrieve their captive, but then the scientist who built the thing demands that it be returned for further testing. Annoyed, Katse gives the order to comply.

The team are sent to a town that was hastily evacuated before a Galactor attack, to try to find survivors. They put heat-seekers in their bracelets-- which means that when Joe finally does make it home, and tells Nambu about the menace of the Galactor device, Nambu can't reach the team. Apparently the Mechaziner bollixes up the bracelets for half an hour or so, which is why he wasn't able to call in before. Joe takes off to find the team and warn them.

In the meantime, Ken finds a woman sending a Morse code signal. Scrawny and dressed in rags, she tells him that Galactor murdered her entire family, except for herself and the baby she is clutching, falls into Ken's arms sobbing, and then gets up and runs. Ken follows her, saying, "Don't worry. We will destroy Galactor and avenge your family, I promise." Then he notices that the "baby" is a doll.

"Are you sure you can?" the woman says in Berg Katse's voice, stands up and strips off his disguise. Ken is attacked by Galactors, and attacks back. Katse takes over the Mechaziner from its pilot and nails Ken with it. But the two remaining members of the Red Impulse squad save Ken, pulling him out before Galactor can find him. Ken talks with the two-- Masaki and Oniish, who is mute. He then contacts Nambu, who develops a plan to save the team and destroy the Mechaziner.

The other three members of the team are captured, and about to face a Mechaziner "firing squad" when Joe shows up and saves their bacon. There is a battle, and all of them are about to fall when a mysterious figure in a Red Impulse outfit shows up. It turns out to be Ken.

Ken tells the team the plan. According to Nambu, if they can get Katse to fire Mechaziner too often, it will overheat and explode. They begin dancing in and out of Katse's field of fire, taunting him into firing the gun once too often. The scientist tries to warn Katse, but it's too late-- the Mechaziner blows up. Katse escapes (barely) and is pursued by the two members of the Red Impulse squad.

Title in BOTP: The Awesome Ray Force

More or less exactly the same, except that Masaki was supposed to be Cronos, whom he looks nothing like-- I had originally thought, seeing that episode, that "Cronos" was an impostor. Since this episode refers back to #74, it is the only BOTP episode that has anything vaguely resembling a continuity.

Joe has a nightmare-- once more, he remembers the death of his parents, and the mysterious masked woman that killed them. Screaming, "Mama!" he wakes. For some reason, he cannot remember what happened after the woman flung the rose at him...

ISO has lost contact with one of their deep-sea bases. Nambu and the team go out to the area above the trench where the base is, in one of ISO's vessels, and Ken and Joe are sent down to investigate in an experimental mini-sub, the Marine Saturn, while the rest of the team monitor equipment on the surface vessel. (Actually, the kana for the name literally spell out "Satan", but first of all, it's pronounced more like Saturn than Satan, and second of all, the connotations of the word Satan are all wrong for an ISO vessel. "Marine Saturn" makes a lot more sense.) Below, Galactors have invaded the ISO base, only to discover it is deserted.

Joe is discovering that every time he sees bright light, he is momentarily paralyzed. He tells Ken about his parents' death, how a rose thrown by the assassin exploded in front of him as he tried to kill her... and he remembers nothing more until he woke under Nambu's care. They arrive at the base and are fooled into thinking the Galactors are ISO scientists. Hearing Ken call his companion "Joe", the Galactors figure out that the young man is Condor Joe, which makes Ken Gatchaman. They trick them into going into the Galactor sub, where the two are imprisoned-- but Ken successfully steals the key and escapes.

Worried about his friend's apparent ill health, he leaves Joe behind and fatally damages the sub. Returning to Joe, he finds him utterly paralyzed by the bright light, and makes him stare into the flames, risking both of their deaths, until Joe finally remembers what his mind has been concealing from itself--that after the explosion, the Devil Star had told him to curse his father, who had dared to leave Galactor. Joe is the son of a Galactor. He tells Ken he'd just as soon have never remembered.

They escape in the Marine Saturn, and while repairing the damage the Galactors did to its battery, Joe discovers that bright lights don't bother him anymore. While escaping, they see the subs from the research center caught in the "Ghost Current", an area of thermocline that sometimes develops that can trap unwary submarines. The scientists all died before the current dissolved, and now their mechanical coffins float aimlessly in the sea. When Joe asks Ken what he's going to tell Nambu, Ken replies that as far as he's concerned, he's still Condor Joe... there's no reason why he should have to quit the team. Together they surface, and welcome the sight of the sun sparkling on the tops of the waves.

Did not appear in BOTP

Joe, in disguise, returns to B. C. Island, where he visits the graves of his parents. It was here that his parents were killed, so many years ago. An old man questions him, but Joe claims it's the wrong grave-- he was looking for someone else. Not fooled, the old man-- a Galactor-- sends the pictures his cane took to Katse, who notices that the man is a virtual twin for Giuseppe Asakura, the former boss of B.C. Island who died for trying to betray Galactor 10 years ago, and that he's wearing a very bad disguise (Katse, as a disguise artist himself, is sensitive to such things.) The son of Giuseppe Asakura was supposed to have died with the rest of the family, but Katse goes to B. C. Island to make sure. The governor of the island assures him that George Asakura did die-- a genuine doctor came by and verified the death. They check the death certificate, and learn that the "genuine doctor" was Dr. Kozaburo Nambu!

Upset, Katse has George's grave opened, and finds that there is no body in it. He is convinced that George is alive, and furthermore, that he is a member of the Science Ninja Team. B.C . Island is a training ground for Galactor men-- there's no shortage of them there, and the order goes out to all of them-- kill George Asakura.

After several battles, Joe is hidden away by a childhood friend, Alan, who is now a priest. Alan is working to get rid of Galactor on the Island through peaceful means-- he finds violent methods like those used by the Ninja Team distasteful, and in fact hates the Ninja Team as much as he hates Galactor. Joe learns the reason for this-- irnonically, Alan was engaged to marry a young woman who was the daughter of a Galactor, forced to become one herself-- and, as a Devil Star, was killed by the Condor. (The girl from ep. #31, in fact.)

Meanwhile, the Science Ninja Team has figured out where Joe went, and go to his aid...

Joe leaves and goes into battle again, ends up with only one bullet left, and takes refuge in the church. The Galactors, no great respecters of churches, open fire, just as the team arrive. They make short work of the Galactors, but then Alan arrives, with a shotgun. He demands to know which of them is the Condor-- which of them killed his fiancee. That's the one he's going to kill. Ken steps forward and lies, claiming that he's the Condor, since Joe is in no shape to dodge. Alan takes aim-- and Joe fires the last bullet in his gun, killing Alan to protect Ken. But there were no bullets in Alan's shotgun...

"You fool, why did you have to die? This island needed you, not me! You threw away your life, after telling me to forget my revenge... Why did you make me have to kill you?"

Head and body wrapped in bandages, Joe, together with his team again, bleakly watches Alan's funeral from a distance. Revenge seems empty now; Ken says, "We fight for justice, Joe... and without that, we act in vain."

Did not appear in BOTP

In the country of Huntwall, a man was picked up off a street corner and arrested for firing a rifle at various random people. He was a former high-ranking Galactor from the days before Berg Katse attained leadership of the organization. Now Nambu tells the Gatchamen that their assignment is to question him.

As they express their disbelief, he leads them into his office. This man has given Nambu valuable information. He shows them a dog-eared notebook-- the school records of a genius with a 280 IQ-- and hands a sheaf of photographs to Ken. The first is of a charming little girl of about 5, and Jun cries, "Oh, how cute!" But as the girl grows to adulthood in the photographs, she rapidly ceases to be cute anymore- until the final picture, a sinister girl of about 20, is recognizably the lady Galactor captain. As Ken mentions this, Nambu suggests that he read the back-- and the name written there is "Berg Katse."

The five of them speculate on the possibility that Katse is a woman, Ken unable to believe it-- he had fought Katse enough times to know that Katse's body has none of a woman's softness. On the other hand, it would explain Katses's paranoia about being unmasked... Nambu assigns the team to split up. Joe, Jinpei and Ryu will question the former Galactor, while Ken and Jun will investigate the lady Galactor captain.

Elsewhere, Commander X informs Katse that his secret is in danger. Katse takes steps, dispatching an assassin captain and some Blackbirds in a mecha.

Meanwhile, Ken and Jun talk to Professor Howard, one of the lady Galactor captain's professors from her university days. He tells them that she was a genius, but there was something strange about her- she had transferred to Howard's school under the records of a male... Birds outside Howard's window fly away at this pronouncement. Later, Ken and Jun are elsewhere on the college campus, looking down at the courtyard. They watch helplessly as a missile smashes past and destroys the building they just left, murdering Howard.

Joe, Jinpei and Ryu, in the God Phoenix, encounter a hydra-like mecha in the ocean near the prison and battle it. They do their best, but it doesn't look like their best will be good enough-- until Ken and Jun come riding to the rescue. The assassin captain leaves, telling his men to initiate the Zero Operation, and the Blackbirds blow up their mecha, to try to take out the Ninja Team. But of course, they only manage to kill themselves. Now Gatchaman has to go insure the prisoner's safety.

Meanwhile, the assassin has broken into the prison, finding and strangling his cowering victim. When the ninjas arrive, leaving Ryu with the ship, the Galactor informs them that they're too late. Jinpei hurls his bolos at him, and he crushes them in one hand- this is not your basic wimpy Galactor. Ken attacks, then Joe, and both get tossed to the side. Jun flings her yo-yo, and he yanks her to the ground with it. Ken hurls his boomerang, and the assassin catches and crushes it. Joe runs at the Galactor, aiming a punch, and the man grabs him, pulling Joe's own gun and pressing it to Joe's throat, snickering. The Gatchamen can only watch, helplessly horrified, as the assassin prepares to kill Joe-- but when he fires, the mechanism reverses, slamming him into the wall and snapping his neck.

The Gatchamen, unable to question the dead prisoner, think back to what Professor Howard had said-- that he had met a professor who had the same student at a different school, but the student was male. That other man's name was Professor Hume. They decide to go question him, and report to Dr. Nambu. Nambu tells them Professor Hume lives in the country of Inderia. They go there.

Meanwhile, a red car pulls up outside a tenement building, and the lady Galactor captain gets out. She laughs to herself in an ambiguous soft voice. Upstairs an old man, reading in bed, hears a knock at the door. "Who is it?" he asks, and the Captain enters, smiling...

Gatchaman arrive at the building where Hume lives. They see the red car parked outside, but think only that it's incongruous in this neighborhood. On the way in, they meet the old man, naked but for a towel around his waist, and ask him where Hume lives. He directs them to an apartment and goes outside, muttering to himself. They step inside the apartment, and Ken starts, "Professor Hume, we're the Science Ninja Team-" and stops short. The same old man is lying slumped over in bed, quite obviously dead. Outside, Berg Katse, now at the wheel of the red car, laughs and congratulates himself that his secret is still safe...

Confused, the Ninjas try to sort out what they've learned. Is Katse a woman or a man? For a while there they thought woman, but that old man disguise had no place to hide a woman's figure... It is Joe who puts it all in perspective, saying it doesn't matter what sex Katse is. Man or woman, all that matters is stopping him or her.

Title in BOTP: Tentacles from Space

(This was as radically different as it is possible to get. The man in the prison was a Professor Stark, developer of an energy formula, which was the burned notebook. The photographs-- at least, the last one-- was of a nightclub singer named Hana, who was a Spectran spy that Stark had gotten involved with. Stark had been sent to prison for Spectra involvement, and Corag, a big assassin from the slave world of Sigma Minor, was sent to kill him. He didn't succeed. There was no mention of Zoltar's secret at all.)

Ken and Joe get into a fight at the start of the episode. Joe is as obsessed as ever with killing Berg Katse, and is practicing with the Condor Machine, trying to "kill" a dummy of Katse with a "single shot to the head." Ken, on the other hand, has started to believe that violence can only lead to more violence-- even if they kill Katse, somebody else just like him may turn up.

Meanwhile, Dr. Finger, the Executive Scientist of Galactor, tells Berg Katse that Commander X has been thinking of dispensing with Katse and replacing him with Finger. Finger has a new plan, and if it works and he destroys the Science Ninja Team, he will be made leader of Galactor. As he leaves, Katse consoles himself with the thought that Finger is bound to fail, and in the meantime he can get some much-needed rest.

Finger parks his new monstermech, Matangar, on a volcano at the center of Micron Island, where Matangar's weapons can be brought to bear on any of the seven cities on the island. He announces to ISO that he will destroy a city every twelve hours until the Science Ninja Team surrender themselves to him. The team go, but Ken quickly realizes that their ordinary weapons will do no good against Matangar's super-armored surface. They'd be more likely to blow up the island than Matangar itself. So he orders Ryu to take multiple photographs and then go home. Joe can't believe Ken could have lost his nerve to this point, and later, in a darkroom, he and Ken nearly come to blows as Ken searches for Matangar's weak point. Then Ken finds it-- a miniscule air vent.

Nambu makes them a special weapon-- a bullet that can ignite the oxygen in the air (they actually said hydrogen, but anything can ignite hydrogen, and no battlemech is going to have a lot of free hydrogen floating about). But there's only one. It's up to Joe to fire it into the air vent-- a seemingly impossible task. But Ken says, "Joe, don't think of it as an air vent. Think of it as Berg Katse's head."

The real Berg Katse is getting impatient, waiting for the Science Ninja Team to clean Finger's clock as they've done to him so often in the past. Elsewhere, Joe manages to make the impossible shot. Rather than evacuating, Finger decides to go down with the ship, and try to bring the Science Ninja Team down with him. He has Matangar grab the God Phoenix and take it into the water. The God Phoenix can only withstand pressures of up to 2000 meters below water, and Matangar nearly brings it down that far. But Jun manages to blow a hole in Matangar's belly, pressed against the God Phoenix's top, and so the Science Ninja Team get away.

#91-#94: See scripts. #91-#92 were translated as a two-parter-- Invasion of Space Center-- which was fundamentally very similar (a few changes to note: when the missiles were sent against the first boat, to test it, Zoltar said, "Next time we'll use live ammunition", implying that they didn't actually blow the boat up, and Mark and Princess's conversation was of a much more personal nature ("you've always been my favorite, Mark"). #93, Save the Space Colony, made absolutely no mention of the destruction of Center Neptune-- it dealt with a Spectran invasion on a space colony. Other than the changes that this modification produced, the episode was basically similar. Zoltar was every bit as amusing as Katse, even more so in some instances ("I will give you wealth, power, anything, only don't hurt me!") #94 was not translated into Battle of the Planets at all.

On his 11th birthday, Jinpei goes to Mt. Jupiter, near where Jun found him, trying to learn about his past. He meets an old man, a former member of the Jupiter Ninjas, an organization in the area. It seems that eight years ago, Berg Katse took over the Jupiter Ninjas. The leader of the organization opposed Katse, and ended up dead, his three-year-old son disappearing. Jinpei wonders if he might be the son. Then the ninjas attack the house. The old man and Jinpei fight them for a while, but are overwhelmed, and must retreat to a secret compartment in the cellar. The old man, dying, tells Jinpei that the boy had a birthmark on his hand-- and Jinpei doesn't. So perhaps he's not the boy after all...

Meanwhile, the Science Ninja Team are in the area, and encounter the Jupiter Ninjas. They beat them (some wonderful fight sequences here), and ride back to their base, where they encounter Berg Katse, much to their surprise (and his!) Katse gets away. Jun and Jinpei pursue him into a secret tunnel, but he uses a special technique he learned from the Jupiter Ninjas to hide, so they go right past him. At the same time, the Jupiter Ninjas have combined into a mecha, which Ken, Joe and Ryu must fight. Jinpei is left melancholy at the end of the episode-- the old man is dead, and there's no chance he'll find out more about his past...

Title in BOTP: Chariots of Changu

(I didn't see it)

A Galactor monstermech is attacking, and the team are summoned. Each of them individually heads for rendezvous. But en route, Joe gets a severe dizzy spell. His car goes wild, and he hits an old woman. Of course, he feels it's his responsibility to take her home and make sure she's okay. This precludes his joining up with the team, meaning they can't fire the Bird Missiles. The monster they fight, Grape Bomber, has the ability to create false radar images, as well as to drop bombs of poisonous, corrosive gas. The God Phoenix barely survives the encounter, and must limp home.

Joe helps the old woman, who has a son his age that's abandoned his old mother, due to their poverty. Joe reminds her of him. As Joe leaves, he notices continuing dizziness, numbness, and distorted vision. "This isn't just not feeling good. There's something rotten inside me...." When he returns to the team, they chew him out for not being there. He gives no other explanation than "I didn't feel good," but is obviously upset to hear that they were nearly killed. Nambu assigns him to the next mission alone-- this mission being the capture of the young scientist who designed the Grape Bomber, Mikhail. (Phonetically, Mekkaru. The "more natural" spelling for this would be Mekkal-- on the same principles that turns Hontowaeru into Huntwall and Rafferu into Rafael, I am choosing to assign this the "English normal" spelling of Mikhail.)

Ken questions Nambu on this-- if Joe really doesn't feel good, should they make him do this alone? Nambu presents Ken with his theory on Joe's illness-- Joe has hated Galactor so passionately, for so long, that now, after discovering he himself was born to Galactors, he has begun to hate himself. If he can show a Galactor mercy and not kill the man, he might begin to resolve this self-hatred and improve in health. And just in case it doesn't work, Nambu wants Ken to follow Joe secretly.

The plan proceeds on schedule-- Joe is shot in a grape-bomb-shaped missile to to underside of the mecha, to travel with it to its destination. The Galactors, seeing the God Phoenix turn tail, report to Katse (while making fun of him behind his back) that the God Phoenix fled, but Katse is uneasy. "Those damned Science Ninjas-- they're planning something, but what?"

Joe finds Mikhail, and beats him up for his lack of consideration of others' lives. Mikhail was a poverty-stricken student, who couldn't get into any of the best colleges and couldn't get anywhere with his life. Only Berg Katse recognized his intelligence and gave him a break, funding his education as a Galactor scientist, and Mikhail is both grateful to Katse and dismissive of the deaths his Grape Bomber has caused. This attitude immediately antagonizes Joe. Desperately, Mikhail manages to get his hands on a gun, but hasn't yet drawn it when Joe draws his. "Go ahead and try to shoot, if you want to die so bad. But don't seriously think you can beat me. I'm Condor Joe!"

Joe lowers his gun, and Mikhail draws his. With a fierce smile-- obviously he was looking for an excuse to kill the scientist-- Joe prepares to shoot-- but then his vision goes out. Mikhail fires, and Joe collapses-- but he wasn't shot. He gets up, furious, ready to shoot-- and sees Ken holding Mikhail prisoner.

"If you'd killed him, it would have satisfied you for the moment, but later, you'd regret it," Ken says, flicking the bullets out of Mikhail's gun. "That's happened to both of us so often."

At this point, the doors slam down, and the gas from the grape bombs comes pouring in, as Katse laughs, announcing they will all go to hell together. Mikhail begs to be saved-- "I did everything for you!" But Katse is derisive. "You did it for yourself, Mikhail-kun. And now your research is finished, so I don't need you anymore." Then Mikhail begs Ken to save him. At first, Ken pretends he's not going to, saying Mikhail doesn't deserve to be rescued, after killing so many people. This gas is his own creation-- it's only fitting he should die by it. But he doesn't really mean it, and he and Joe do save Mikhail. The base blows up behind them, helped by a few souvenirs Jun planted, and they go home.

Joe goes back to the old woman, who tells him joyfully that her son has notified her he's coming home. Joe is happy to hear that, and as he leaves, he notes that there's no sign of his illness. Was it Nambu's theory that cured him? Meanwhile, upstairs, the old woman pulls out a picture of her son. "You're finally coming home, Mikhail," she says...

Title in BOTP: G-Force Defector

(The Mikhail character, Donald Wade, was supposed to have originally been a member of the Science Ninja Team, but defected. Jason and he knew each other fairly well, and didn't like each other at all. Jason knew when he ran over Mrs. Wade that she was Don's mother, and told Don when he met him, "You're breaking your mother's heart. She thinks you're on a special mission for our government." He did not beat up Don, nor trick him into pulling the gun, which turned out to have blanks in it anyway. Zoltar blew up the base, not the team, and Zark told us all at the end that Jason's illness was simply brought on by overwork and nervous tension.)

Berg Katse, in the Devil Star, demands to know if they've arrived at "secret base Beta" yet. When the answer is no, he orders his flunky to increase speed. With men like this, he muses, upset, it's no wonder it's taking him so long to conquer the Earth. Meanwhile, the Science Ninja Team are following the Devil Star to Beta. As they arrive, they are attacked by the base's gun turrets, and Joe is thrown against the wall. He goes to fire the Bird Missiles, but his double vision is back-- he can't aim. They receive several attacks, but still he doesn't fire-- not until after everyone has asked him what's wrong, and when he does fire, he causes minimal damage to the base. Jinpei asks him why-- "It couldn't be you took pity on the Galactors or anything--" but Joe gives no reply. (Presumably they got a new supply of Bird Missiles since ep. #94.)

The five infiltrate the base. There is a fight, and Joe is nearly killed, but saved by Jun. They defeat the Galactors, but then hear Commander X's voice-- "This room will be your graves. Die!" and they are trapped. Even the top is closed off. Sand starts to pour in, and their only hope is the Whirlwind Fighter. The first time they try it, Joe gets dizzy and falls out. The second time, they succeed in escaping, but Joe falls out again, and this time no one will believe that "it's nothing," as he keeps insisting. Ken orders him to return to the God Phoenix and wait this one out.

X is upset that they escaped. Katse starts to point out, rather smugly, "If a room like that could have held them, Galactor would have destroyed them ages ago," but X shouts at him. "Are you trying to criticize me? Instead of complaining, hurry up and destroy them!"

Ken invades a control room where some Galactors are complaining about the unlikelihood of success, and takes them out. He sees a vault door, and demands the key from one of them. The man is too scared to talk, but Ken finds the key anyway, and uses it, while Ryu knocks the guy out for "not talking like a man." The team find themselves in a room full of explosives, and make a plan for using them, while Joe indulges in a fit of self-pity. "What's happening to me?"

Ryu and Jun use a crane and a box of explosives to good effect, and Jinpei and Ken dispense the explosives off the crane. Things start blowing up, and a Galactor contacts Katse, begging him to run for it while there's still time. In a weird reversal of his usual pattern, Katse at first says he won't, not until he's killed the Science Ninja Team, but when there's an explosion in his chambers he changes his mind. "I leave it to you--"

"Wait, Berg Katse!" X's voice shouts. "The Science Ninja Team are looking for me. Use that to lure them into the underground drill." Katse does so, and the team see the letter X begin to blink on and off on a doorway. Of course they go in, and of course it's a trap-- the drill spins around, plastering the team against the sides, while it bores downward, and Katse gloats that they're heading straight for hell. Once the drill reaches the magma, it will all be over. "Not even you can escape, Science Ninja Team," he laughs, and he's right. Only Joe can save them now. A bird missile must be fired to block the drill's passage. There are only two problems with this idea: first, the Galactors have gone out in force to destroy the God Phoenix, and secondly, Joe still can't see straight. At the last possible second, his vision clears, and he fires the missile.

The missile stops the drill, but being a missile, it's going to explode. A terrifed Galactor notifies Katse of this fact, and they both run for it. Meanwhile, the Science Ninja Team use all their explosive capacity to blow a hole in the top of the drill so they can get out, and proceed to fling each other up the drill shaft as fast as they can. They get out, though most of the Galactors don't, and they rejoin Joe aboard the God Phoenix and head for home.

Aboard the Devil Star, Katse begs X for forgiveness. "Commander, I'm sorry, but... once again... uh... forgive me, please... please?" Silence. "Commander, say something, please..." More silence. "Just one word, Commander!"

"Moron!"

Relieved that X is still talking to him, Katse sags. Aboard the God Phoenix, Ryu notes that Joe has smashed a panel, and Ken, seeing blood on his friend's knuckles, thinks, "There's something wrong with him..." But what?

Title in BOTP: Strike at Spectra

(As the title suggests, this was a strike at a Spectran base. Mostly the same episode, although all the good Katse parts were cut.)

Ken is assigned to escort an important scientist, Dr. Makishimu, a member of the Mantle Project, who has uncovered a method for perfect geothermal energy. Their aircraft is downed by a Galactor attack, and lands in a crevasse in the ice below. Gas puts everyone to sleep, and we see needles injecting drugs into Ken's arm. Ken and Makishimu wake up, and find themselves apparently in the future; a future where Galactor has taken over the Earth, Katse is ruler, and the rest of the team is long dead. The only survivors are Nambu, a broken, senile old man, and Jinpei, who is now loyal to Galactor. Ken refuses to give up, and discovers that it's a Galactor scheme to trick Makishimu into giving up his geothermal energy equations. About this time, the rest of the team-- who have been tracking down their missing leader-- arrive. Ken and Makishimu are rescued, the base is destroyed, and Katse gets away-- but Makishimu decides to destroy the microfilm with the formula on it, fearing the potential for abuse.

Title in BOTP: G-Force in the Future

Essentially the same episode, but the Makishimu character was supposed to be a radical who resented G-Force interest in his work.

The episode opens with a simply wonderful fistfight between Ken and Joe, as Ken tries to interrogate Joe on the subject of his mysterious failures of late-- falling out of the Whirlwind Fighter, his inability to fire the Ultra Bird Missile, etc. Nambu interrupts them with a call on their wristbands. Jinpei and Jun are concerned about their injuries-- "Were you attacked by Galactors?" Jinpei asks, but Ken and Joe assure them that it was nothing. "Just a little man-to-man talk," Joe says. Jinpei and Ryu are immediately enlightened. Jun isn't.

Nambu tells them of an information leak at an ISO facility, and Joe is enthusiastic about going to take care of it, but Ken points out that the group of them together would stick out like sore thumbs. "Leave it to Jun and me this time." Joe is furious. "Is that what I get for the fight? That's dirty pool, Ken!" But Ken refutes the accusation, and Nambu backs him up. Ken and Jun will go alone. Before they leave, Joe gives Ken his airgun, admonishing him not to get himself killed. Recognizing it as a peace offering, Ken says, "It'll slow me down, but I'll take it."

They track the information leak to an addition on top of the building, and sneak in just as the Galactors inside are ready to return to base with their information. Ken and Jun are trapped and locked in, and end up being dragged along to the Galactor base. Recognizing that Ken and Jun might be on the Galactor mecha, Nambu refuses to send the Science Ninja Team to destroy it, claiming that the God Phoenix is being overhauled.

The Galactors deliver their information to Katse, and point out, after he's taken it, that he's forgotten something-- isn't he going to promote them? "Shut up!" he responds. "After I've analyzed the data, and if it's useful, we'll talk! Now go take care of your mecha!" They go back to the mecha, disgruntled-- "After we did all that work, too"-- just in time to hear Ken drilling through the door with Joe's gun. An attempt to capture the two ninjas fails miserably, though, as does an attempt by two other Galactors to find out what's going on, and Ken and Jun come out in Galactor costumes and force Berg Katse to yield the tape. They then escape the base, and end up in a marsh-- but Katse has announced to them that he's already copied the tape, so the one they've got means nothing.

Galactor mecha attempt to capture them in the swamp, and eventually, after a long battle, succeed. Just as Jun is about to be killed, Joe shows up and saves them, then takes on the Hebi-Cobra with the G-2 and defeats it. Ken's first word to him, after having had his life saved, is, "How'd you know we were here? Can't you obey orders for once?"

Jun remonstrates that that's no way to show gratitude, and Joe explains that he wanted to try himself one last time. He won't fail again. As for how he knew-- there was a transmitter in the gun he gave Ken. Joe is relieved that the dizziness and headache have not returned, and hopes that means they've gone for good, while Katse consoles himself over the failure to kill Gatchaman and the Swan by the fact that he's got the research data.

Title in BOTP: The Conway Tape Tap

(The information was information from the Conway Tapes, a set of tapes that had all of Earth's security on it. The argument in the beginning-- it wasn't a fight-- was because Jason was sick of Mark hogging the spotlight. Princess and Mark were taken to Spectra, which makes it interesting as to how Jason got there, and the transmitter was actually a "decoder" for the Conway Tape. Without the decoder, Zoltar could make no sense of the tape. This was the last episode to be translated into BOTP.)

NOTE: This episode synopsis is edited by Alara Rogers from an original synopsis by James Long, written for the anime room at NASFIC '90 ConDiego. I have added a few things and made a few wording changes, but several of my additions are based on James's script for this episode anyway, so I want to credit him with the actual authorship.

Relaxing in the Snack J, four of the members of the Science Ninja Team are surprised when they hear that Galactor is attacking R City with monstermechs. Wondering why Dr. Nambu hasn't contacted them to help R City, the four board the God Phoenix to head for the emergency. On board, Jun informs Ken that she can't get in contact with either Joe, their other teammate, or with Dr. Nambu. Concerned, Ken calls Director Anderson, who informs them that Dr. Nambu is doing official business for the ISO, and it's due to this that he hasn't contacted them. So on Anderson's orders, the group heads for R City, without waiting for Joe.

Meanwhile, Joe has gone to an unlicensed doctor for a complete physical, wanting to find out what's wrong with him (his illnesses in eps. #98-#99.) Since he doesn't want the others to know of his problems, Joe has gone without telling his partners. He left his bracelet behind, so he can't be identified as one of the Science Ninja Team. The doctor notices the tan line on his wrist and points out that leaving his wristwatch at home doesn't hide anything about his identity, then tells him to come back later for the results of the examination. Leaving, Joe just misses seeing a woman arrive at the doctor's office--a woman known by the Science Ninja Team to be a Captain in Galactor. She is there to use the office's equipment to check on Dr. Nambu, at his home above Utoland. With the Ninja Team in R City, Nambu is easy prey.

Unaware of what is transpiring elsewhere, Dr. Nambu continues his research. He has been following up the lead from ep. #88, linking the woman captain to Berg Katse, and has found the records of a student with a 280 IQ, who is sometimes a male student, sometimes a female. Now he knows the truth. But just then, his home is attacked by a Galactor monstermech, and he is taken prisoner.

Soon, returning to the physician's office, Joe arrives in time to spot the woman Galactor captain leaving. Changing to Bird Style, he follows her to a nearby woods, where she heads right to the monstermech that kidnapped Nambu.

Meanwhile, in R City, the other members of the Science Ninja Team are using their weapons to destroy the mechanical monsters. Realizing that their enemy is too weak to have been the ones that attacked the town originally, and too easy to destroy, Ken calls the others together. He realizes that these monsters were left behind to keep them busy while Galactor is carrying out their real plan elsewhere. Leaving the UN forces to mop up the remains in R City, Ken orders the God Phoenix home.

Meanwhile, Dr. Nambu awakens to find himself facing Berg Katse. He tells Katse that he's finally figured out what Katse is, and regrets that he is to be killed without ever having a chance to publish the research he's spent so much time on. Katse smiles-- "Come, Dr. Nambu, the world of research is like that sometimes." Then the two are interrupted by Joe breaking into the monstermech and attacking the Galactor soldiers inside, while at the same time radioing his partners and informing them of his location.

Nambu suggests that he may yet get to publish after all, but Katse is prepared for such an attack. He traps Nambu behind a plastic partition, permeable to light and noise, and shows him the Mechaziner, a gun that Galactor has designed to detransmute the Ninja Team's Bird Styles back to civilian clothes. (This first appears in ep. #76.) Using himself as bait, Katse lures Joe in where he can shoot him with the weapon, knocking him unconscious and revealing his true identity for all to see. Not wanting to take chances, Katse orders his soldiers to kill Joe on the spot. But they are stopped by the timely arrival of the Science Ninja Team, who quickly mop up the Galactor men. Refusing to give up, Katse prepares to use the Mechaziner on the others. But Joe awakens in time to see what Katse is doing, and fires into the Mechaziner's barrel, clogging it, just as Katse fires. This causes the weapon to explode, ripping off Katse's mask and sending him flying against the wall.

Joe approaches. "Now that you've seen my true identity, it's time for us to see yours. Prepare yourself, Katse." Katse struggles with Joe as Joe tries to turn Katse's face toward the others, but Nambu tells Joe to stop. "You won't understand just from seeing the face," he says. He explains that Berg Katse has been the woman captain at times, but is not a woman, either-- Katse is a mutant, combining male and female in a single body. Formed from male and female twins who were forced into one being in the womb, Katse is a mutant with the ability to change from male to female at will. As a side effect, Katse also became a genius with an abnormally high IQ, and became emotionally warped by being forced to flee from school to school, home to home, always hiding from the eyes of humanity. The one thing Nambu doesn't understand is how Katse came to be, the cause of the mutation-- he can't believe that radiation was responsible, for Katse's motherland is a long-standing neutral country.

Katse laughs, in both a male and a female voice, and turns his/her freakish face toward them, deliberately shifting it from male to female. "Dr. Nambu and the Science Ninja Team! Are you happy, now that you know what I am? Are you satisfied? But there's nothing you can do about it. That's right! Alone of all the world, I am a mutant born to the destiny of a conqueror! Alone of all the world, I am the one chosen by my god-- Commander X!"

X appears at this point, and reveals to Nambu and the others that he created Katse, ot serve as his hands and feet, his beloved servant. He tells them that the Earth is destined to be destroyed, and on that day, he will need Katse. Then he vanishes, and Katse flees. Ken goes to hurl the boomerang, but hesitates-- and when Joe asks why, he says, "I had a chance. But for a second, I could only feel sorry for Katse. He's been cursed with a body that changes in time. When he was a child, he must have cursed himself, his own body, never knowing if he was some sort of freak, always forced to hide... If X hadn't intervened in his life, he'd never have joined Galactor, or become their leader. Instead, he'd be a brother and a sister, living together happily."

But knowing Katse's secret doesn't end their mission. The next time they meet Katse and Commander X will be when the real fight begins.

Joe is on the racetrack, working out his frustrations as well as preparing for the next race. As he drives, he remembers his parents' deaths. His thoughts are interrupted by the arrival of Galactor, who have tracked him down. Captured, he is taken to Katse. At first, he tries to bluff that he isn't G-2; next, he insinuates that he might be persuaded to tell Katse something (after rudely wondering why Katse is still wearing the purple thing), but all he tells Katse is expressed by a punch in the jaw. He engages in a battle, and nearly wins, but Katse's shining a bright spotlight in his eyes paralyzes him, and the Galactors beat him up. Katse plans to take him hostage to stop the Science Ninja Team, and orders his men to hurry to Cross Karacolm.

Joe escapes from the mecha, and almost falls to his death, not having realized that the mecha was flying a considerable distance from the ground. He manages to change to Bird Style in time to glide to a landing, is nearly run over by a car, and faints. Taken to a hospital, he overhears the doctor telling Nambu on the phone that he has considerable brain damage, and is dying. "I'm sorry, but... a week, maybe... or at the most, ten days..."

Escaping through an open window, Joe walks aimlessly through the city for a while, knowing that the chance of his being able to see the destruction of Galactor prior to his death is unlikely. But he is determined to go on with the battle.

Of late, there have been earthquakes of increasing severity. Nambu suspects that a Galactor mecha spotted underwater may have had something to do with this, and dispatches the team-- but orders Joe to remain behind for a medical examination. Joe knows what Nambu will find, and can't bear that he should spend his last days in a hospital while his teammates are risking their lives against Galactor. He heads for Cross Karacolm, having heard it mentioned by Katse earlier, and is found out when he gets there. The Galactors tell him it is their headquarters, and so he must die. He tries calling Ken on the bracelet, to tell him he's found Galactor headquarters, but the Galactors shoot it off-- predictably, changing him out of Bird Style. The Galactor chief gloats, but Joe says, "Though I may be one and you may be many, I'm going to take as many of you bastards with me as I can!" He ends up taking them all out, but this being Galactor HQ, there's a lot more where they came from, and the last one had taken Joe down as well. "I'm tired..." he murmurs, and sees the team and Nambu once more in his mind's eye. Then they take him in.

Meanwhile, the team aren't doing so well...

The God Phoenix is captured in the tentacles of the Galactor monstermech, but manage to defeat it-- Joe had made them take the G-2 aboard, so they can fire the bird missiles.

Nambu tells them that since the quakes are continuing, the mecha was obviously a decoy. Galactor is planning something bigger, but he doesn't know what-- for now, all they can do is look for Joe.

Meanwhile, Joe is unconscious and near death in Cross Karacolm. X receives a report that a star called Selectro has suddenly disappeared, and is overwhelmed by it. "Selectro vanished? Why haven't they told me?"

Katse is unsympathetic. "Commander, what are you so upset about? A star, two stars, vanishing-- that's nothing!" But X is adamant. "That star is the most important thing to me." Trying to cheer him up, Katse points out that soon they will have Earth. X cannot be cheered up. "I have no ambition left, not with Selectro gone. But I must do this, now that I've decided to do it. The Earth will be blown up, just like Selectro."

"Commander! Don't get crazy! That's not what you said!"

X pacifies Katse, telling him he didn't mean it, Katse is going to get to conquer the Earth. But he doesn't mean it. As soon as Katse is out of earshot, he laughs. "Damned fool. I'll destroy the Earth, and then it'll belong to no one!"

Joe is brought before Katse, who, seeing his condition, has him sent to the lab to be "revived". Two Galactors ask for, and receive, the remains of Joe's bracelet as a souvenir of his defeat. Meanwhile, the team is asked to return from their search for Joe, and are told by Nambu the awful facts that ISO has discovered-- if the explosions keep up, the Earth will surely be destroyed. (They say that the Earth will be turned into a black hole, but this is just not possible.) At the Galactor base, men worry about the earthquakes, though Katse has assured them that the base can withstand up to Richter 9. One of them points out a much more reassuring fact-- Katse himself hasn't abandoned the base. The two Galactors are quietly reassembling Joe's bracelet. Later, the Science Ninja Team receive a transmission from Joe's bracelet, in Morse code. It says "Found Galactor HQ," which surprises all of them-- why would Joe send such important information in code? But Ken points out that even if it's a trap, it's a lead, so they go.

Joe is brought before Katse again, after having been given an injection to restore him a little bit. Katse wants him alive to use as a hostage, and decides he will show him "something" while he's still alive. What he shows him is the central device for the Black Hole Operation, telling him that the device has the capacity to blow up the Earth. Joe begins to laugh. "That's really great, Berg Katse. An enemy like me can always count on you to maintain your standards of evil..." Then he attacks, but the shuriken he aimed at Katse goes into the mechanism of the device. Katse orders him shot. Since the first blast doesn't finish him off, the Galactors prepare to fire again, but Katse tells them not to waste bullets-- Joe's already as good as dead. Then the God Phoenix arrives. Cross Karacolm's missile embankments shoot off the landing gear, and the team is forced to abandon ship.

They meet the two surviving members of Red Impulse, Masaki and the mute Oniishi. They, it turns out, were the ones who got Joe's bracelet. They tell the team that Joe has been captured, and try to take them to him, but Katse has had the rooms switched on them, and they enter a deathtrap. Masaki is killed instantly. Oniishi has time to spell out on Jun's palm, in palmsign, "I'm going to see the Captain {Ken's father}. I leave this to you, now... Goodbye, Science Ninja Team..."

The Science Ninja Team get out of the deathtrap using explosives. Somewhat singed, Katse vows to destroy them, while Ken vows not to let the Red Impulse squad's death have been in vain. No matter what, they're going to find the entrance to the headquarters.

A recap of the last episode: explosions from the Black Hole Operation, Joe's last stand against Galactor, his failed attempt to kill Katse. Lit by a spotlight, Katse laughs. "Don't struggle uselessly, Condor Joe!"

The mission: find the entrance to the Galactor headquarters. They can't use the bracelets unless it's an emergency, because Galactor can triangulate on the frequency. So a battle and a search begins, as the Galactors search for the Ninja Team and the Ninja Team search for the entrance to the base.

Joe, not yet dead, makes his agonized way up the stairs toward the exit. Berg Katse is already practicing the speech he'll give when he conquers the world, but is interrupted by Galactors who inform him that Joe has escaped. He is shocked-- he didn't think Joe was in condition to move, much less escape.

Anderson asks Nambu what they can tell the people of the world-- nations are clamoring for information. Nambu begs him not to release the truth-- it would cause a panic, and result in mass surrender to Galactor. Galactor wants to rule the Earth, and they live here too-- they must be bluffing. He asks Anderson to have faith in the Ninja Team, and wait.

Finally, after a long search, Jun discovers Joe-- actually, he saves her life, with his last feather shuriken. She uses the bracelet to call the others, and the Galactors now know her position. They surround the area and begin to close in as the five Science Ninjas unite for the last time.

"You stupid bastard!" Ken says to the dying Joe. "Why did you have to go off and do this? Why didn't you say a single thing to us?"

Joe laughs weakly. "Are you going to lecture me to the very end?"

Then he gives a dying speech to each of them, reprinted here.

To JUN: "Get together with Ken, get a relationship. Quit this dangerous business as soon as you can, and get yourself the happiness a girl should have...."

To JINPEI: "Don't bug Jun by being selfish. You know, the two of you have always seemed enviable to me.... you're just like a real sister and brother."

To RYU: "All I ever did was disobey you. I'm sorry... Finally I can apologize..."

To ALL: "Now go! If you don't hurry... Katse'll start his plan..."

Ryu offers to take Joe in the God Phoenix to medical help, but Ken knows it's already too late. "This is my order as leader of the Science Ninja Team. We'll leave Condor Joe here. All of us will invade Galactor headquarters!" He bends and gives Joe his boomerang. "Joe... forgive me. We swore we'd die together, but now we have to abandon you. Take this boomerang, at least. Hold it, as a memory of my feelings..."

By now, the Galactors have surrounded them. Ken shouts at them, "DON'T COME ANY CLOSER, GALACTOR!" More calmly, he continues, now that they're all listening, "I don't expect you to understand how we feel. Isn't this enough? What good will it do to shed any more blood? All you'll do is lose your family, be separated from your friends, for nothing! We haven't got time to deal with you. If you still want to interfere, we're prepared to get rid of you."

Then they head into the base, where they meet up with Berg Katse. Ken demands that Katse stop the Black Hole Operation. Katse replies that they have to surrender to him first, but Ken isn't having any today. He begins to beat Katse brutally, demanding that he stop the Black Hole Operation-- until they all hear Commander X's voice. "Don't waste your time, Science Ninja Team. My Black Hole Operation is steadily advancing. Look over there! That device is dropping bombs into the Earth's interior. By my calculations, in 30 minutes a neutron reaction will occur, and the Earth will vanish!"

Ken sends the other three to try to stop the device. He starts to go himself, but is held by Katse's plea, "Commander! That's not what you promised! You said you'd give the Earth to me..."

"I will give it to you... shattered to pieces, as dust in space! HA HA HA!"

Despairingly, Katse asks, "Commander, have you been lying to me all this time?"

X replies, "Katse, I was given certain orders, and so I came to Earth. But the world I was to return to... has vanished. I must return to Andromeda to find out why. This world has become useless to me, so before I go back, I will destroy it just as my world was destroyed. I do feel sorry for you, Katse, but the plans have changed." As Katse stammers in numbed shock, X continues, "Farewell, Katse. You've served me very well, up till today. At least I can thank you."

Katse runs at the screen, screaming, "COMMANDER!" It explodes, and a golden spaceship rises into the air. Katse cries to it, "Commander! What did you make me a mutant for, then? If this is to be my fate, I would rather have been a human... I would have been happier if I'd been born as a human, Commander X-sama!" Then he falls to his knees, weeping silently, by the edge of the lava pit that X's departure has left behind.

Jun reports that they can't get the machine to stop. Ken suggests throwing in all the bombs, but that doesn't work either-- and Katse begins to laugh, a broken, hysterical, mad laugh. "It's useless, Science Ninja Team! You can't stop that machine! I trusted the Commander, and I didn't put in any kind of control mechanism at all, at all.... Die! Everyone, everything, die, die!!" With a scream of despair, he leaps into the lava pit, and falls to his death.

Ken decides to try to get inside and stop the thing. "If I can just get inside, I might be able to do something!" But Jun stops him. "Even if you get into the machine, you'll only be crushed between the gears! If we're going to die, let us all die together! I can't bear the idea of dying separately and alone, like your father, like Joe..."

The four of them wait for death-- but the shuriken Joe threw into the mechanism before jams it, and it explodes, stopping the Black Hole Operation. The counter reads 0002... 2, Joe's number. Outside, they note that all the Galactors are dead. Jinpei trips over Ken's boomerang, but there's no sign of Joe's body...

At a press conference, Nambu answers questions about X. "We don't know if he was an alien or not. Perhaps that glowing shape we saw was a rocket with an alien inside, or perhaps the shape itself was a sentient, mobile being with a life of its own... or perhaps it was a computer." Regarding the question, "We'll have peace now, won't we?" he responds, "We don't know that, either. Galactor, certainly, has destroyed itself. But please, everyone, consider-- isn't there an evil, destructive spirit like Galactor sleeping in a corner of our-- and your-- hearts?"

Author Credits:

Pat Munson-Siter: Founder of "Bird Scramble!", the Gatchaman/Battle of the Planets APA, Pat has been active in anime fandom for years. She was responsible for the first Gatchaman Overview, which disseminated Gatch information to many hungry young fans, among them Alara Rogers. She has also written extensive overviews and episode guides for St. Seiya, Samurai Troopers, Sonic Soldier Borgman, Real Ghostbusters, and Tekkaman Blade.

Alara Rogers: Professional translator who has done "Roots Search" and "The Ultimate Teacher" for U.S. Manga Corps, Alara has had a Gatchaman overview article, based on Pat's, published in Animenominous. She learned Japanese in order to understand Gatchaman, and has an extensive library of translated Gatchaman scripts. Alara can be reached on the net at aleph@netcom.com.

James Long: The man with more Gatchaman stuff than Tatsunoko itself. James has been into Gatchaman fandom for many, many years, and translated the Encyclopedia Gatchanicca, a document with information about practically every character and mecha that appeared in Gatchaman I. He submitted a heavily detailed Gatchaman overview to Animag; this was hacked apart and rewritten without his permission, and was published in Animag with his name still on it after he requested it be taken off. James is one of the founding members of "Bird Scramble!"