Dougram in brief

Contents

Rationale

I wrote this because I wanted a better understanding of how the Japanese animation industry operated in the mature phase that followed decades of expansion and successful integration with the toy industry, when it had just begun to turn toward audiences other than children. I wanted to see how the medium of animation and the uncommonly high pressure of this industry shaped and distorted the writing of science fiction at the level of the plot.

I picked Dougram because it was largely new to me and I was already familiar with its director, Takahashi Ryōsuke. His next work, Votoms, had fascinated me as good writing in outline, over-extended in its implementation. Like Votoms, Dougram takes the half-digested example of Mobile Suit Gundam (1979) and attempts mass production.

A more personal reason is that my father once gave me a model kit of the Dougram itself after a trip abroad, long before he or I knew that Japanese animation existed.

Finally, I chose to write about Dougram because it is bad. Inconsistencies and direct contradictions in the plot pile up. To really grasp them, I had to take notes. In doing so, I got a clearer picture of similar flaws in Gundam, Space Runaway Ideon (1980), Votoms etc. These flaws didn’t kill the genre of mecha action, but like the Western, the genre did decline and lose a lot of weight, going from Dougram’s 6 cours (75 episodes) to the present standard of 1 or 2 cours (12-26 episodes, as of 2018) on about the same amount of thinking and writing.

Summaries

For notes on the names I use here, see Dougram nomenclature.

Episode 1: The Soldier of Light

    光の戦士 (hikari no senshi). Aired 1981-10-23.

Opening

The very first image is the series title, with percussion and brass matching the stark colours: white and red on black. The word “Dougram” is arranged trapezoidally to make it look huge. The music segues onto a more bluesy piano footing for a young man with thick black eyebrows, huddled up in a deep-green blanket, sleeping or thinking, wearing a pilot’s helmet—very similar to boxing headgear—with a large microphone on a metal extension. He is initially isolated on the same black backdrop as the title. The first words of the song indicate that his emotion is fear, but opening his green eyes in extreme close-up, he takes on a determined expression and stands in sunlight. This boy’s name is Crin, though names are not mentioned in the opening.

The music remains sombre as the camera pans over six of the boy’s fellow soldiers, all armed, but it loses some of its gloom when these soldiers—not the first boy—gather looking stage right, into the glare of the sun on a red backdrop. Match cut to seven white homing pigeons rising together over a tilting shot of the Dougram itself. To the more triumphant section of the song, the seven people all run across a desert, implicitly identified with the birds. Their enemies are never shown. The boy looks back over his shoulder and “sees”—another match cut—other people, not fighters, falling away into the initial darkness behind him. The suggestion is that becoming a guerilla fighter is allowing him to grow up but lose much along the way.

The last shot of the opening credits sequence is a continuation of the first. While the final line of the lyrics reiterates the title of the series, the wind plays dramatically with the standing boy’s green blanket, finally tearing it away to reveal that he too is armed. The camera now performs the equivalent of a complicated crane movement and change of focal length, first losing the boy completely to momentarily show nothing but the cliff face beneath his feet, then zooming out and changing its apparent elevation so as to keep the cliff face occupying just the lower sixth of the frame while revealing a humanoid vehicle, the Dougram, behind the boy. All six of his comrades run up and jump for joy while the boy fires into the air. Freeze frame, fade to black.

The Dougram itself does not have a clear role in this opening sequence. Nobody is shown piloting it, nor is it used. Nonetheless, its presence helps strike a balance between the epic and the dramatic. On the dramatic level, protagonist Crin is struggling emotionally, while at the same time, his companions seem paradoxically jubilant.

The episode proper

The first shot of the first episode is of two suns, the camera tilting down over the wreckage of a military vehicle, recalling the wreckage of the Yamato in Space Battleship Yamato (1974). The narrator reads a poem, likening the wreckage to a dead wolf and a dead lion. It is anatomically complete but posed in an awkward sitting position, like a man asleep at the bottom of a wet trench in WW1, uncomfortable but unwilling to lie down. It is not the same sitting position as that of the boy in the credits.

A red-haired woman approaches. As she looks at the wreck in apprehension, clutching a broken wicker basket, a ghostly image of the intact vehicle arises. The woman shouts “Rocky” and runs, tears in her eyes, to greet men in and around the apparition.

Cut to the episode title screen and from there to another desert. The characters from the previous scene are named by superimposed captions: Canary (the woman) and Rocky are in the driver’s compartment of a truck transporting the humanoid vehicle. Billy, Crin Cashim, Festa, Chico and Nanashi are all sitting on the bed of the truck, singing about the four cardinal directions of the compass, hence about freedom. Cut to a long shot where a lizard is watching them pass by. Cut to an establishing shot disguised as a shot of a second animal, a desert bird. Behind the bird, we see a rocky canyon, and then the truck approaching that canyon on the plateau above it.

The truck stops. The seven people dismount and walk comically to the edge, Nanashi almost on all fours. From their descent of the cliff wall to a railroad track through the canyon, we cut abruptly to a night scene in the desert, with a striking pale blue-and-yellow diagonal across the sky: Presumably two rings around the planet. There is a sound like crickets chirping, another careful inclusion of nature.

The night scene is a flashback within Canary’s larger flashback. A lone, bearded man on a motorcycle delivers a briefing. Pointing to a map, he says that despite their side’s low numbers, Dome City is within their grasp. However, the Federation base at Dancougar, if resupplied, would threaten victory. The seven people on the truck, here named the “Deloyer Seven”, are tasked with stopping a resupply run to Dancougar in Red Valley. The courier’s finger on the map in the sand creates little depressions lined on the cel. The expected opposition is two armoured escort cars, fifty soldiers and something else not named, because Nanashi interrupts, talking about a beautiful shooting star he just saw on his watch.

Night flashback over, Rocky conceals a remote-controlled mine along the track and repeats his order to the team while connecting his energy rifle to his backpack with a spiralling cable. Canary reports her radar covers a radius of 20 km, being limited by the “X Nebula”. Meanwhile, Nanashi is watching an antlion trapping an ant in a beautiful animation sequence, complete with airbrushed sprays of sand.

Cut to a Federation base. An air force captain named Miguelo is receiving orders by telephone from a grey-haired officer, captioned as Colonel Von Stein, who explains that while the resupply train is not a decoy, it is to be used as one for Miguelo to locate and destroy “the Fang of the Sun”, apparently a synonym for the Deloyer Seven. A dark-suited blond man beside the colonel is captioned as Lacoque, despite the fact that he says absolutely nothing. Miguelo’s uniform includes a white aviator’s helmet with a round red emblem resembling the Japanese hinomaru crossed by a red line: the rings around the planet, from the night scene.

A young woman named Daisy Ouzel is on her way to Dome City and gets catcalled by the troops on the resupply train. One of the soldiers is actually named as a character in the process, but he won’t survive the episode. She does not respond and goes to buy a ticket. While an elderly clerk tries to talk her out of it, recognizing her as an Earthling, a war reporter captioned as Lartav listens in on the conversation. He’s dressed in an ochre shirt and matching short pants, which makes him look a bearded, cigar-smoking April O’Neil.

Lartav chats with Daisy as a fellow Earthling, finding out she’s from Medohr. A classic metropolis, Lartav comments: Perhaps the ideal place to live. Just like her, he’s looking for a youngster from Medohr. He hops the train, leaving Daisy with a dramatic wind blowing through her hair. Appropriately, the eyecatcher follows, wherein Crin and Daisy seem to walk past each other without realizing it at first.

On the train moving into Red Valley, Lartav explains to a soldier that he doesn’t want to cover vain celebrities back on Earth. He wants to know “the truth about people”. “A fine thing to say,” counters the doomed soldier, “when there’s nothing out here but this heat and a bunch of murderers.” The soldiers all laugh, and laugh again when Lartav reiterates that he’s on Deloyer—the name of the planet—to write about human nature and find “the future of mankind”.

The mine stops the train. In the battle, the protagonists’ humanoid vehicle is captioned as the Dougram while it slides on its back down the cliff wall, apparently to wrestle the train. The defeat of the fifty soldiers, some of whom were speaking roles, is not expanded upon. The five minutes it will take for Miguelo’s squadron to reach the Red Valley are similarly elided.

We cut to the Dougram being pulled back out of the canyon, again on its back. It is hit with multiple missiles from Miguelo’s helicopters but is not harmed. The enemy’s three similar vehicles, captioned as examples of the Soltic 8, are similarly unable to harm the Dougram, and the converse is also true. Canary has to catapult a special weapon, the “linear gun”, down into the canyon for Crin to mount and use while he is being hit again. Hit with the linear gun, a Soltic drops and then seems to have its reactor or fuel supply explode as in Gundam. Chico hits another from below, prefiguring Armor Hunter Mellowlink (1988), while the third is literally wrestling the Dougram and gets torn to pieces. Rocky takes out the gunner in the squadron’s sole gunship and the rest retreat.

It is only now that Lartav crawls out from the broken train. There is no sign of any other survivors. Chico recognizes the reporter and uses the same nickname for him as did the Federation soldiers. Canary shows that the wicker basket, whose broken remains she finds in the opening scene, is used to hold a carrier pigeon, something Lartav finds ironically primitive. He tells Crin about Daisy, the clerk tells Daisy about the attack, and Miguelo—off screen and unheard—tells Von Stein about the failed operation to take out the Fang. Lacoque infers that failure from the silence. Saying “I suppose the lion’s cub is a lion too”, Lacoque informs another man, captioned as Donan Cashim. Donan seems frustrated by Crin’s opposition to him under some undefined time constraints. Inferring that Crin is Donan’s son and enemy would turn out to be correct.

The guerilla warriors repeat their goofy song of the four compass points while the visual cuts back to Canary in the first sequence as the apparently lone survivor at the broken and abandoned Dougram. The narrator, vaguely echoing Lartav’s sentiments, promises to pass on their story, switching to English to say “Not justice. I want to get truth.”

Ending

The narrator asks rhetorical questions over the preview of the next episode and then restates the English epigram, followed by a comment in Japanese: “Shinjitsu wa mieru ka?” meaning “Can you see the truth?” This aligns the narrator with Lartav, rather than Canary.

The music to the end credits is a clear contrast against the opening, centering on Daisy picking the petals of a flower while a man on the sound track croons nostalgically, again using a few English words: “flashback” (the narrative device that frames the series) and “slow motion”, the mode of trick filming often used to add a sense of weight and mystery, especially to special effects sequences.

Episode 2: The First Shot

    始まりの銃声 (hajimari no juusei). Aired 1981-10-30.

At the Deloyer 8th Military District HQ, staff officer Colonel Von Stein kills Lt. Gen. Dunrock after Dunrock refuses to go along with an implied coup. Cut to Earth, identified by a superimposed caption with a date: SC 152. Rocky, captioned with “Deloyeran” in parentheses, leads a motorcycle gang doing stunts. He invites Crin, an Earth native, to join them amid some racial tension.

At the Cashim mansion, Donan says his upcoming trip to Deloyer has a 20-day itinerary. Rahvin Cashim, captioned as the eldest son, praises his brother-in-law Reik for getting the Federation Council to hold a meeting on Deloyer. Incidentally, though they look similar, Reik is not the man on the motorcycle giving orders at night in episode 1. Royle Cashim, the second son, shows no sympathy for the apparent cause of Deloyeran independence. Donan himself states that Earth’s economy is dependent upon Deloyer, regardless of the politics.

Lacoque, here working for Donan in his mansion, announces a phone call that informs Donan of full support in the Federation. Lacoque adds that even the Prime Minister will be seeing him off. Reik is speaking to Daisy at the dining table, saying Crin is late. She is the only woman with a name at this dinner: The other wives and daughters are unidentified for now.

Crin is partying with the bikers: Rocky, Festa, Beagle, Anareg, Shopper, Tackle, Billy, Chico and Nanashi. The latter does not know his real name. They sing a nonsense song about not knowing who (or what) your parents are. Just as they’re about to hit the town, they’re attacked by armed vigilantes in white KKK-style hoods. Crin is knocked out and left behind.

A Deloyeran “nobody” in a green suit helps Crin recover. His name is Basque and he lies about happening upon the brawl. He was eavesdropping before Crin even met Rocky. Basque, conclusively identifying Crin as yet another son of Donan, says he admires the boy’s father for trying to soothe the strained relations between Earth and Deloyer. Though Crin does not agree with Basque’s stated admiration, the relationship between Crin and Donan seems quite healthy. Back at the mansion, Donan ruffles the boy’s hair and gracefully pardons his lateness but expresses concern over the boy’s wound. Only Rahvin strongly disapproves of the boy’s rebellious attitude.

Lartav’s face appears briefly in a crowd of reporters who suspect that Donan’s plan for the meeting on Deloyer is to initiate the colony into the Council, giving it a seat of its own. Donan does not confirm this. For the journey, he will be attended by air force lieutenant Judea O’Hara. Donan comments only on her beauty, implying this is the reason why the air force chose her for the assignment.

Meanwhile, Basque exploits Crin’s confidence to infiltrate the spaceport, steal a Soltic and open fire on Donan’s passenger ship. He kills several soldiers in jeeps. They refer to the Soltic as “combat armour”. Lacoque and Donan are surprised, but Basque’s action apparently plays into their agenda. After Basque is killed by a better-trained sniper, Crin is shocked to recognize the body. Donan takes another ship to a station in Earth orbit.

Episode 3: The Upheaval on Deloyer

    デロイアの動乱 (DEROIA no douran). Aired 1981-11-06.

At the Federation military school of Medohr, in a combat simulator based on the Soltic, Crin has a flashback to Basque’s death. His instructor calls him home because the diplomatic party on Deloyer has been kidnapped by armed men. Rahvin sends Reik to deal with the situation, while Rahvin and Royle, evidently clued in to Donan’s scheme, calmly return to their jobs. Shocked at what he perceives as indifference to their father’s fate, Crin travels to Deloyer to help. Wondering what is going on, Crin thinks to himself that the attack at the spaceport (episode 2) was three days ago, meaning Donan’s trip and the message about the attack cannot have taken more than three days altogether. This in turn implies highly effective FTL communication.

At the spaceport, Reik is referred to as Captain Boyd. Lartav accidentally witnesses Crin failing to buy a ticket. Daisy helps him, paying for the trip despite her concern that his personality became opaque to her when he entered military school two years before.

The trip to Deloyer uses a “wormhole” generated inside the large space station shown in the previous episode. The one-way trip is to take 52 hours and 25 minutes², which implies that data travels much more quickly. Crin and Lartav get the same cabin. The reporter says he’s with APU.¹ Upon arrival, Deloyer is clarified, for the first time, to be the name of an entire planet. Violent electrical phenomena in its upper atmosphere are visible from space, as are the two rings.

Rocky and a part of his gang are stuck at the polar spaceport, having sold their bikes to pay for the trip. On Earth, a pole would be an unlikely place to put a spaceport, given that less energy is required to launch from the equator. While this is never discussed, the location of the port may have something to do with the rings. Rocky’s gang is seen pondering a map of the planet with numerous administrative divisions, each with a capital named in ASCII letters. The trouble, they say, is at Kardinal City. Rocky, disgusted with Earth, is not happy to see Crin.

On his own mission to protect Donan, Reik meets with Lacoque and a local colonel, who says he has been unable to confirm whether Deloyerans are in fact constructing a humanoid vehicle. Three gunships and at least two walking tanks attack the spaceport under radar cover of the “X Nebula” referenced in episode 1. Reik states that the planet has been inside this nebula for the past three months, suggesting this is why the rebels have taken this opportunity to strike. Reik says the nebula degrades the capabilities of all computers, and Lacoque explains that the influence of the two suns on the ionosphere also hampers telecommunications. While Soltics defend the port, Crin borrows a flatbed truck and rams one of the rebel tanks.

In a televised announcement, Von Stein declares that he has risen against 150 years of oppression and is fighting for independence.

Episode 4: A Real Cockpit

    実戦のコクピット (jissen no KOKUPITTO). Aired 1981-11-13.

Civilians fret over the closure of the polar spaceport. In a possible operation to free Donan and other hostages, Reik is taking five “Iron Combat” units, a company of rangers and three “Dewey” (or Duey etc.) gunships. Lartav seems wiser to the situation than most, claiming cabinet secretary Lacoque has been deliberately leaking the information that Lartav has been disclosing. The reporter asks Lacoque and Reik about the rumours of local humanoid vehicle construction, supposedly a model protected from the X Nebula. In that case, its absence in the current coup d’état is curious. Lacoque claims ignorance.

Crin and Rocky’s crew, still apprehensive toward each other, find that even train services have been suspended. They walk along the tracks and endure warning shots from wary soldiers at the next station. Billy suggests they hitch a ride with Reik’s strike team on Crin’s authority. Despite his experience with Basque, Crin agrees, but Reik rejects the idea. We see Soltics disassembled at the waist and packed into crates. Before departure, the rebels attack the spaceport again. Crin pilots a Soltic and refers to the enemy’s four-legged tanks as “Crab Gunners”: in a screaming panic, he tackles one of these so hard that it explodes after it shoots one arm off his Soltic. Crin regards this lucky development as a sure sign of his ability. Reik slaps some sense into him.

Episode 5: Wartime Exception #205

    戦時特例法205号 (senji tokurei hou 205 gou). Aired 1981-11-20.

Crin knocks over a female lieutenant while he is running to an inaudible and unproductive conversation with Reik over the roar of a massive Federation helicopter leaving the spaceport as part of Reik’s strike force. Left behind, Crin has a nightmare where his father is shot for refusing to cooperate with the rebels. He steals a Soltic on its flatbed truck, smashing through the perimeter fence.

Stationed with Reik’s command unit, Lartav and Lacoque argue over whether Von Stein will have moved Donan out of the capitol. Lartav finds the rebel leader’s behaviour thus far to be too straightforward for the typically wary Deloyeran temperament; Lacoque prefers to trust in the computer model predicting that behaviour.

Crin, listening in on the military channels, manages to follow the aerial transports and manoeuvre into the first battle between Reik’s strike force and a rebel Crab Gunner squadron in the forest on the way to Kardinal City, in the last hour of October 4. This time he acquits himself well in combat. Reik wants him punished, but Lacoque—claiming his concern is purely with skill—officially recommends Crin as a replacement for a fallen Soltic pilot instead. Crin is therefore promoted from cadet to warrant officer under the titular wartime regulation, getting a pilot’s uniform and a Soltic.

Episode 6: Rescue Operation at Dawn

    暁の救出作戦 (akatsuki no kyuushutsu sakusen). Aired 1981-11-27.

Addressing only the adult pilots, Reik briefs his men on the planned operation to free the hostages in the assembly building. Lartav and Lacoque clash again over whether the hostages will really be found there. This time, Lacoque adds the claim that he overheard a rebel talking about it, but Lartav won’t give in. Von Stein trained on Earth and made a lot of connections. He is a careerist, an unlikely rebel, and the uprising is going very well for the Federation thus far. Lacoque admires the journalist for thinking so critically when people’s lives are at stake, but admits nothing.

In the first appearance of professional mechanics doing basic maintenance work on the humanoid vehicle squadron, the adult pilots haze Crin and tell him to stay out of the way of the professionals, who can make or break a pilot.

Von Stein announces over the Kardinal City PA system that the hostages will be executed in 12 Deloyer hours, one week after the rising began. We see Donan arguing against Deloyeran independence with local diplomats. He insists they’ve drawn the wrong lesson from the end of colonialism on Earth: With Deloyer supplying 40% of Earth’s food, an irrational economic war is probable as a consequence of independence, yet as the deadline approaches, he concedes.

Crin nervously awaits the start of the operation, brightening when one of the calmer adult pilots tells him to take it easy. They fly in over Kardinal City on glider wings as the ranger unit sets off satchel charges. Crin fights screaming. After the rangers have stormed the assembly building, Crin abandons his Soltic to make it appear that he is guarding a bridge, and runs over to the building while Reik, Lartav and Lacoque are landing there.

This places Crin in the room when Donan reveals to Reik and the others that he has been working with Von Stein against certain Council members who, Donan says, really staged the revolt. Von Stein himself says he wants Deloyeran statehood with a seat on the Federation Council, not independence, and Donan decrees that it shall be so, starting on October 6. Von Stein will lead a provisional junta, and will therefore have the Council seat first, but there will no reprisals against the rebel soldiers. The instigators on the Council will not be executed either. Donan is surprised by Crin’s presence, but does not openly acknowledge him or address him, apparently to Crin’s dismay.

Episode 7: Guerilla Hunt

    ゲリラ狩り (GERIRA kari). Aired 1981-12-04.

Crin clicks off the Federation press conference where Donan, Von Stein and Lacoque announce their plan to crack down on the remaining separatists. Reik is shocked as Donan explains to him privately how this will prevent any real military resistance from forming. The mastermind hopes it will lead to the secret humanoid vehicle project. Crin sees the crackdown as the retribution that Donan promised would not come.

Chico, revealed as the son of a repairman, has fixed up a busted army jeep for the biker gang. The five of them finally make it to Kardinal City where Rocky catches an informer with a cartoon money bag in hand. The informer apologizes but keeps the money to feed his family, who are starving.

Canary, whose flashback this is, is introduced rudely serving drinks at a dive bar in Kardinal City. She hits a creep with her serving tray for touching her. He says he is another well-paid informer, but he might be “joking”. Rocky, himself a recognized local, steps into the fight. Canary is glad to see him.

Lartav meets with Samarin, the wizened mastermind of the true resistance, who acknowledges that the false start under Von Stein has hurt the independence movement, but the present repression will make it bounce back. After Lartav tells the leader about Crin, Samarin himself and an unnamed driver save the boy’s life from a summary execution, after Crin releases some guerilla prisoners by threatening to shoot a soldier.

Initiating the boy, Samarin tells him that while the Federation’s military power is presently overwhelming, and the independence movement must have military power to win, such movements win or lose mainly by other means. The pair drive to the dam where, in a secret underground bunker, Deloyeran engineers are still creating the Dougram. Crin cannot understand why he is allowed to see it, but for the moment, Samarin seems paradoxically individualistic for a leader of an ethnic independence movement, ignoring Crin’s own ethnicity, the source of his relative wealth and his direct family ties in favour of his individual beliefs and abilities.

Much later, in episode 74, Samarin will clarify his point. He will add that Crin’s origins make him particularly useful. As a boy of Earth, fighting the forces of Earth, Crin will show that oppression pits brother against brother.

Episode 8: The Betrayers’ Deloyer

    裏切りのデロイア (uragiri no DEROIA). Aired 1981-12-11.

Rocky sees Canary in an army jeep. She’s there because junta loyalists in tanks are battling rebels, and the rebel pilot of a Crab Gunner is Sergeant Deol, Canary’s brother. When they put her on the speaker to talk him down, she tells him not to give in. The loyalists kill him. Rocky knew him well. As Rocky was leaving, Deol told him not to forget the sea and sky of Deloyer.

Donan’s defence of the violence is that some popular dissent against government is a constant factor of human history, not a grave ill in itself, and that Deloyerans are Earthlings for all intents and purposes, the colony being no more than 150 years old. The guerilla hunt is Von Stein’s doing and an act of local government, not Donan’s responsibility. Crin urges him to respect the will of those who would still prefer independence, saying they will bear to be oppressed only until their own humanoid vehicle is complete.

A tail on Crin leads the government to Samarin. He views Donan’s argument for innate human equality as sophistry masking the oppression of the colonists, but he agrees that strife is inevitable even under a good government: The trick is for the dominant majority to listen to the clamouring minority.

When the government attacks, shortly before he is gunned down, Samarin orders the destruction of the Dougram’s blueprints. Rocky intelligently concludes that Crin is a traitor. Escaping into the river flowing out of the dam, Crin vows he will prove his innocence.

Episode 9: Recovery of the Dougram

    ダグラム奪回 (DAGURAMU dakkai). Aired 1981-12-18.

Destin informs the resistance men outside the dam that Samarin suggested they go to Bonar if something like the present setback should occur. They debate destroying the Dougram, which the government is hauling away. Bux, Rocky and Canary head to Kardinal City to do it.

Crin regains consciousness on a farm. The ex-bikers quit their jobs to join the guerillas. It is unclear whether Nanashi ever had a job, but he kisses Chico to celebrate. They converge on the Dougram, captured for study, where Donan is also interrogating a lightly wounded Samarin. A historian by trade, Samarin tries to make the politician see that his belief in the fundamental equality of Earthlings and Deloyerans is not a valid reason why Deloyer should be a state.

Rocky’s gang sees the Dougram breaking free and realize that Crin has stolen it back. They recognize that he is redeeming himself and assist his escape. Bux helps them get their stolen flatbed truck onto the river, away from the patrols.

Episode 10: Garcia’s Platoon Joins the Fray

    ガルジア隊参戦 (GARUSHIA tai sansen). Aired 1981-12-25.

So as not to fight Crin, Reik Boyd is transferred to PR duty while his sergeant major, Dirk, is detailed to a rowdy, rapey mercenary platoon that Reik despises.

Bux reveals to the gang that their destination, Bonar, is the intended site of Dougram’s mass production. He shows them a crate of new “E guns”, which they’re all childishly excited about. Only Festa wants a regular assault rifle. Chico gets the anti-tank model he used in the first episode: the “big E gun” (perhaps it’s “e-gun” and capital “E-gun” respectively). They also get the comm radios they’re seen with in the opening credits.

In another callback to the first episode, Daisy leaves her home in Medohr to go to Deloyer, alone. Her mother, her name now given as Romina, is anxious to get her back, but her father calmly accepts the exercise of Daisy’s will.

Hovercraft patrolling the river try to capture the Dougram, but Crin defeats them, revealing the Dougram is waterproof.

Episode 11: The Father Beyond Reach

    遠すぎた父 (toosugita chichi). Aired 1982-01-01.

Von Stein orders Garcia to take Crin alive. When Destin’s rebel column is held up by an engine failure on the forested river plain on the way to Bonar, Crin takes a motorbike back to Kardinal City to see his father. Destin and Canary are especially suspicious of the Earthling, but Rocky argues that he should be allowed to go.

At the airport, Daisy is searched as a possible suspect. She disbelieves the eventual explanation, that Crin is a guerilla fighter, until Reik meets her and describes the situation. She now becomes conscious that she loves the boy. Reik takes her to see Lartav as a possible way to reach Crin, but the reporter is not in his apartment.

Crin parkours his way into Donan’s office at the parliament building and finds the man completely firm in his conviction that the rebels are a rash minority. Screaming that it’s “goodbye for real this time”, Crin crashes out of his father’s third-floor window onto the concrete outside. Weirdly unhurt, the boy proceeds to escape from the numerous troops guarding the premises. In the process, Reik and Daisy happen by. Echoing Donan’s order, the girl begs Crin to return to Earth with her. Without saying goodbye, he drives past her on his motorcycle, down the steps of parliament, jumping a tank while she shouts out her love. Lacoque is disappointed that the soldiers didn’t just shoot the boy. “A lion’s cub is a lion too,” he tells them, as in the first episode’s prolepsis.

Crin returns to Destin’s company in time to pilot the Dougram against Garcia’s attacking platoon, saving the day. Canary is not impressed.

Episode 12: The Hesitating Gunsight

    ためらいの照準 (tamerai no shoujun). Aired 1982-01-08.

Sergeant Major Dirk tells the inquiring Lartav that he will indeed shoot Crin when he gets the chance. Government forces observe Destin’s delivery of the Dougram to a man named George at Fort Rock en route to Bonar. George is dismayed to hear that the rebel network around Kardinal City is now in tatters. He plans to rebuild it with Bux, but is hit in the government raid. Crin in the Dougram goes head to head with Dirk’s three Soltics, finding it hard to kill a man he knows until Dirk threatens Billy and Canary. Daisy is shocked to hear that Crin does kill. Victorious, Crin weeps, but joins the march of his comrades.

Episode 13: Raiding the Enemy for Supplies

    適補給隊から奪え (teki hokyuu tai kara ubae). Aired 1982-01-15.

Caught in a rocky desert without adequate supplies of food or ammunition and without any fuel—which comes in rods—for the Dougram, Destin orders the rebel company to leave the mech behind in the effort to escape Garcia. Rocky’s crew disobeys the order, using their radios to feed false intel to the enemy platoon. Garcia takes the bait, speeding off to attack a non-existent rebel workshop in a nearby settlement. Garcia’s support unit halts and camps where Crin predicted it would.

The rebels infiltrate the camp at night and steal supplies, but the nozzle on a particular piece of the equipment isn’t compatible with the Dougram. To solve that problem, Rocky abducts an enemy technician. The man shouts, causing a firefight, but later cooperates to save his life. With the support of the revived Dougram, Rocky’s crew steals a new flatbed truck for hauling the Dougram and sets off demolition charges among the rocks to delay Garcia’s returning combat units.

Fearing he will now be killed by the rebels for having outlived his usefulness, the captured technician hastily describes two urgent problems with the Dougram, which he says threaten its operation. The rebels themselves do not have the skills to know if he’s even telling the truth.

Episode 14: A Troublesome Prisoner

    やっかいな捕虜 (yakkai na horyo). Aired 1982-01-22.

Von Stein sends Garcia the reinforcements he wants, including two “Desert Gunner” vehicles. Still trying to delay his execution, the captured Deloyeran technician lets slip that the Dougram won’t be repaired at Bonar. Not being fed, he seems genuinely terrified as Canary puts a knife to his ear. Later, when Rocky delegates the execution to Festa, the unnamed technician cries, saying he isn’t a traitor but was simply drafted into the Federation army. The man bravely attempts escape on a motorbike, despite his arms being tied behind his back: the bike hits a rock and flips, flinging the man’s head against the ground so that Festa briefly thinks him dead. When the man comes to, Festa has softened, merely tying the man’s arms to a small log and bringing him along. The technician introduces himself as Huckle.

Gunships locate Rocky’s unit as they cross an open, sandy section of the desert. That night, the camp is hit with powerful artillery, but it seems Garcia is merely terrorizing them. The next day, Huckle saves Festa from falling asleep at the handlebars. As a reward, Festa offers the technician some water. Taking too much, the technician is kicked off the bike and into the sand, but Festa doesn’t leave him behind, returning a minute later to pick him up.

Sparked by a conversation about Billy’s ignorance of geography as a school dropout, the rebels begin to sing their song of the compass points, apparently implying that every Deloyeran learns it in the earliest years of schooling. Listening to them, Huckle laments that his superiors in the army viewed the outlaws with such contempt. He offers the reason why Garcia has not been attacking with his conventional humanoid vehicles: the walkers are not reliable in the sand. The Desert Gunners are six-legged, with broad, round feet, built specifically to overcome that problem. When they appear, Crin raises the Dougram. Its foot displaces the sand.

Episode 15: The Dougram Sinks Into the Sand

    ダグラム砂に沈む (DAGURAMU suna ni shizumu). Aired 1982-01-29.

After a skirmish, Garcia expects Crin and the rest to realize their disadvantage and surrender. Rocky offers this suggestion to Crin, knowing the Earthling is still likely to receive lenient treatment, but Crin refuses. Huckle is bitten by a snake and Festa sucks outs the poison. A second nightly raid of Garcia’s supplies is stopped by a guard dog. Lartav agrees to take Daisy to Bonar.

Episode 16: Desert Burn

    砂漠に熱く燃えて (sabaku ni atsuku moete). Aired 1982-02-05.

Outmanoeuvred by the Desert Gunners, Crin gives Huckle command of the Dougram and lets himself be carried to Garcia. He does it to allow Rocky and the rest to escape. To his surprise, and Canary’s, Rocky does not take the opportunity. Meeting Garcia and seeing the cruelty of his men, Huckle—who gives his full name here—soon changes sides, conspiring with Crin to bring the Dougram back to the rebels. In the penultimate scene, Huckle personally shoots and kills Oppé, Garcia’s lieutenant. Dying, Oppé drops his hand grenade—not primed—into the side car on Festa’s bike. The rebels set off across the desert once more, singing their song of the compass.

Episode 17: The Tenacity of the Reaper

    死に神の執念 (shinigami no shuunen). Aired 1982-02-12.

Huckle reflects on the high probability of facing a future court martial. Garcia, his platoon shattered, is relieved of his mission to capture the Dougram. He betrays the regular army forces who come to cart away his dead and replace him. In pursuit of vengeance, Garcia kills two Federation soldiers, stealing a helicopter and the Desert Gunner it carries, and forcing the pilot to work for him.

Reik, Lacoque, Donan and Von Stein review the plans for official Deloyeran statehood, to be effective one week after the meeting. The plan, read and presumably authored by Donan, places all branches of government under Von Stein for the time being.

Garcia mans the turret as his Desert Gunner attacks the rebels on their way to Bonar. He hits the rear axle on the truck, wrecking it, and gets in six hits on the Dougram with the main gun. Crin tries to pin his opponent in close combat, but is continually outmanoeuvred at all ranges. On the sand, the Desert Gunner is indeed the superior vehicle. With Festa driving beneath it, Chico hits the engine from below, eventually killing Garcia and his driver.

The normally grim Festa is embarrassed to be celebrated as the winner of the fight. He heads off alone on his bike, triumphantly jumping dunes, until the pin comes out of Oppé’s hand grenade, which landed in the side car in the previous episode. Festa is killed instantly. The narrator gives his full name and age (18) as the other rebels stare at the burning wreckage in horror.

Episode 18: City of Mirages

    蜃気楼の街 (shinkirou no machi). Aired 1982-02-19.

The mayor of Bonar is in a power struggle with Granfäld, his own chief of public safety, while the Grand Prix festivities open on his streets. Granfäld is on the side of the financial heavyweights that stand to gain from Von Stein’s upheaval. Huckle spouts technical data on a helicopter squadron approaching the city, implying the Federation is getting ready to crush the rebel-friendly city.

Infiltrating Bonar on foot, Rocky’s crew briefly joins the festivities without Crin and Huckle. Chico and Billy dance while Rocky chides Canary for not being a proper woman. Canary recognizes a man, Eddie, who was close to Destin, the rebel they’re supposed to meet, but they lose him in the crowd. Meanwhile, Daisy and Lartav meet at a café in the city.

Rocky finds Destin and reports Festa’s death. Saying he’s eager to start serial production of the Dougram, Destin has the others take him toward the busted hangar outside of town, where the vehicle is hidden. Destin is carrying a transmitter, which Rocky notices when Eddie comes up in a trailing pickup truck and shouts that the former company commander is a traitor. The army moves in while Eddie explains that Destin sold them out.

The rebels fight their way to a militarily vulnerable power facility near the city. It’s defensible only in that the army cannot attack it with heavy weapons without blowing it up. Granfäld decides to starve out the rebels. Eddie is despondent, showing Rocky a note of unknown provenance, which contains the claim that even Samarin has defected to the Federation.

Episode 19: Breaking the Siege

    包囲網を破れ (houi mou wo yabure). Aired 1982-02-26.

The power facility looks like an oil-burning power plant or refinery, but is apparently a soft SF equivalent, with “energy tanks” and a massive conveyor belt out of there. While Granfäld is still checking on the siege, his mayor meets with five men of finance—complete with suits and cigars—who explain how their past support for independence brought about economic sanctions against Deloyer. Now that statehood is assured, they expect the sanctions to be lifted and they will no longer support the struggle. With Lacoque listening, they urge the mayor to abandon his own support for the popular rebel movement. At the airport, Von Stein speaks only to Granfäld, a military academy classmate. The mayor is shortly informed of his own resignation.

Workers at the power facility escape to the encircling Federation forces. Rocky, Chico, Billy and Nanashi dress as workers to do the same. They leave Crin, Canary, Huckle and Eddie behind without a plan. Remembering one of Huckle’s nerdy rants, Crin proposes that they disassemble the Dougram to smuggle it out without a fight.

Lartav investigates the power struggle with Daisy in tow. Lacoque explains to Von Stein that he should initiate the Grand Prix ceremonies for symbolic reasons, to break moral support for the rebels of Bonar. When Lacoque exits to take a call, Von Stein mentions to Granfäld that he finds the scheming secretary unnerving. In the lobby, Lacoque spots Lartav and Daisy; he addresses the latter with uncharacteristic softness. The former mayor commits suicide, his blood spattering over his desk.

Canary’s attitude toward Crin seems to improve while they use the facility’s machine park to carry out their plan. The two of them get on the conveyor belt with the parts of the Dougram while Eddie dazedly takes off on his own and Huckle gets into a truck. Eddie insanely charges the main gate and is gunned down, allowing Huckle, who uses his army ID badge, to get through without having his cargo checked to match his cover story. Eddie’s death is bloodless but does show his clothes torn up by assault rifle fire, a realistic detail that is unusual for the style of the series.

At a party that night, Granfäld is named mayor and Lacoque instructs Daisy on her own participation in the Grand Prix ceremony, representing Earth. While they’re dancing he compliments her on her appearance, telling her to forget about Crin.

Episode 20: Grand Prix in Lying

    偽りのグランプリ (itsuwari no GURANPURI). Aired 1982-03-05.

Crin and Huckle reassemble the Dougram. Billy hears of their escape. Von Stein and Granfäld comment on the crowd waiting for his speech: Are they fickle, or intelligent and adaptable, or deceptive? Lacoque mentions speaking to Daisy’s father, the head of Ouzel Enterprises, and offers to make time for whatever she needs. Canary has scouted the grounds and lays out a battle plan: To attack from the front of the stands during the races.

The ceremony features Daisy representing Earth and another girl, with darker hair and skin, representing Deloyer, implying that Deloyerans are generally darker in spite of the mukokuseki character designs elsewhere. The general audience of Von Stein’s speech looks bored. One man, resembling Festa, shouts that he wants to see the races. Soldiers chase the man, angering the crowd, but they’re angry about the delay until Canary steals the PA microphone and tells Von Stein that he and his speech don’t belong here. The crowd seems to side with her. Lacoque orders the live broadcast replaced with reruns before the Dougram appears and fires at a giant portrait of Von Stein. Some in the crowd cheer while others flee. Huckle guns down soldiers as he flees with Canary. Crin battles Federation Crab Gunners and Soltics, dodging their attacks by jumping, another feature Huckle has described.

With the battle raging in full view of the stands, there is an obvious risk to public safety. Lacoque gets on the PA and announces that the races are cancelled, but the drivers agree amongst themselves to start anyway, for the fans. They do so while the battle is still being fought a few hundred yards away. Granfäld accepts responsibility, but Von Stein blames Lacoque. The Dougram is rescued by rebels in four six-wheeled buggies, led by J. Locke, a handsome rogue with an eyepatch who was eyeing the proceedings earlier. Making their own escape with another stolen trailer, Rocky’s crew is followed by the rabble-rouser who looks like Festa. The narrator concludes that the date is SC 152, February 23rd, the day the act of Deloyeran statehood was proclaimed.

Episode 21: A Calculated Ambush

    計算された奇襲 (keisansareta kishuu). Aired 1982-03-12.

Locke’s crew meets Rocky’s. The more charismatic rebel, who resembles Che Guevara in his red scarf but has an “ẋ” symbol on his beret instead of the communist “★”, explains that the story of the mayor’s illness is a cover for his suicide. Samarin has been captured, but he hasn’t defected.

Rocky plans to use the opportunity of the mayor’s funeral to kidnap Von Stein, who’d rather be in Kardinal City. Lacoque is increasingly frustrated by Von Stein’s reluctance to be a useful idiot. Meanwhile, Federation army major Jackie Zaltsev, Von Stein’s favourite soldier, has his three Soltics stripped of their armour to increase mobility. He trains his pilots in a simulator that resembles an arcade game.

The mayor’s daughter, Mirinda, interrupts Granfäld’s eulogy, declaring him a liar. Canary puts a gun to Von Stein’s head and leads him away during the commotion, but loses him. Billy is shot in the leg. Lartav narrowly misses the chance to take a picture of Rocky’s jeep speeding away without the politician. Zaltsev coaches his three pilots from the air, until Locke chases them all away with long-range fire. The rebel leader uses the term “Fang of the Sun”, confirming it’s in wide use.

Episode 22: Raid Operation: Two Birds, One Stone

    襲撃作戦一石二鳥 (shuugeki sakusen issekinichou). Aired 1982-03-19.

A tabloid paper sells a popular issue with Lartav’s report on the Fang of the Sun. The man who looks like Festa introduces himself as George and turns out to be useful as a guide. This George, whose name sounds French, has no relation to George in episode 12, whose name sounded English. Rocky’s crew raids South City Base for fuel.

Lacoque despises traitors but puts Destin to work gathering information about the rebels. The man tortures a former comrade to death, panicking at the sight of his own hands covered in blood. Daisy quietly leaves Lacoque’s protection, and Lartav’s.

Episode 23: Guerilla Meeting at the Crosshairs

    ねらわれたゲリラ会議 (nerawareta GERIRA kaigi). Aired 1982-03-26.

While reading a book by Che Guevara, Nanashi hands Huckle a shock absorber from his backpack, precisely the part needed as a replacement for the group’s latest truck.

Numerous guerilla groups meet at a seaside villa in George’s Supa City. The Fang of the Sun is invited by Locke, after he has shown a new tractor trailer with what looks like a Howitzer. It’s a “turbozak”, special equipment for the Dougram, recently completed in an underground base near Bonar: A backpack for extended operations, providing both more power for the linear gun and a separate “linear cannon”, a heavy weapon.

Traitors have infiltrated the meeting. Supa City, like the Japanese Kure, is surrounded by mountains on three sides, and the guerilla guards all of these mountains. Von Stein therefore plots to attack the meeting from the air, coming in from the sea with a unit of red Abitate T-10 “Blockheads”, more advanced than Soltics.

Crin reunites with Bux at the meeting. It’s hosted by Harman Baker, a white-haired gentleman who wants younger men to run the resistance. There are twelve groups represented. Among these are named the isolationist “Deloyer Liberation Force” (Deloyer Kaihoutai), the non-violent “Eyes of Deloyer” (Deloyer no Hitomi) and the pro-assassination “Land Bond” (Daichi no Kizuna). An unnamed group argues that Deloyer must not cut off contact with Earth, because scientific information from Earth is too valuable. There is no mention here of 40% of Earth’s food being imported from Deloyer. Bux argues for a Maoist approach, starting with the countryside. Without Samarin, there is no unity.

In the attack on the meeting, the turned resistance fighters who revealed its location to the Federation are both killed by Federation soldiers. Huckle briefly pilots the Dougram to deliver it to Crin. The Federation forces retreat when they realize that the guerillas have an operational turbozak.

Episode 24: The Operation to Rescue Samarin

    サマリン救出作戦 (SAMARIN kyuushutsu sakusen). Aired 1982-04-02.

Bux’s men at a garbage processing plant receive a coded message among the trash, revealing a comrade’s planned date of escape from a military prison. Chico infiltrates that prison to make sure Samarin gets out with the rest. He contacts a resistance man named Willy on the inside, whose gang has prepared weapons for the escape.

In locating the professor and leaving a second coded message, Willy accidentally reveals the plan to the warden. The warden brings in Von Stein to trap the rebels, instead of trying to prevent the rescue altogether. Von Stein sends Zaltsev, who halts the armed uprising of the prisoners with a few Blockheads on the inner courtyard. Zaltsev also has the outside of the walls sprayed with poison gas, correctly intuiting that Crin, Rocky and Locke are climbing the walls without gas masks.

Episode 25: Raid on Balaf Military Prison

    潜入バラフ軍刑務所 (sennyuu BARAFU gun keimusho). Aired 1982-04-09.

Rocky recaps how he and the others were partially paralysed by the poison, falling from the wall and into the sea, but escaping. The government has raided the garbage plant, cutting off communications. Inside, Chico defiantly spits blood at his torturer.

Locke resorts to an overt attack, starting with time bombs tied to logs floating down the river towards the prison, and then infiltrating its cavernous sewer system, where all the grates and other obstacles can easily be removed by hand. Meanwhile, Zaltsev reports that his HQ is still debating where to send Samarin. Arguing with the warden, Zaltsev makes clear that pride and formal responsibility are irrelevant to him, but the warden cancels Zaltsev’s pragmatic order to have Samarin moved to a helicopter. Knowing this, Zaltsev still tries to bluff the guerillas that Samarin is in the helicopter, but Rocky and Locke call the bluff. The Dougram defeats the Blockheads, shoots down the helicopter and frees the prisoners, blowing open the main gate.

Locke faces Zaltsev but lets him go. When evacuated by his own people, Zaltsev returns the favour, ordering his pilot not to fire on the rebels on the ground.

Episode 26: How Far We’ve Come

    振りむけば遠く… (furimukeba tooku…). Aired 1982-04-16.

This is a recap of episodes 6 and 7.

Episode 27: Daisy on the Battlefield

    戦場に来たデイジー (senjou ni kita DEIJII). Aired 1982-04-23.

Von Stein and Lacoque argue over a map about the extent of anti-government sentiment, Lacoque claiming that non-militant resistance is dangerously high in the south-east and north-west of one continent. The map is markedly different from the one in episode 3. It includes more of Palmina, a larger continent to the east, with a land bridge to the round northern polar ice cap. Though there is no equivalent cap at the southern pole, the general shape and orientation of the land masses is more geologically plausible in this version. Donan allows Von Stein to go ahead with his plan of focusing on the Palminan wilderness, apart from trying to recapture Samarin. After the others leave, Donan is apparently struck by a minor seizure and takes medicine.

Back with Lartav, Daisy catches up to the Deloyer Seven on the road. Samarin has contacted the journalist to distribute propaganda as news, but doesn’t give him any details of a possible plan to create a parallel government. Daisy is introduced to the rudeness of guerilla life: Nanashi has her pour coffee into his cupped hands. Crin doesn’t want to talk to her, claiming he has changed too much. She reminds him that he is missed on Earth. Zaltsev unsuccessfully ambushes the Seven from atop a ravine and Daisy throws away a letter from her mother after reading it.

Episode 28: Plotting in the Shadow of Battle

    戦火の影の打算 (senka no kage no dasan). Aired 1982-04-30.

Daisy’s father, Morea, arrives to Deloyer along with Royle Cashim. Morea and Donan discuss their children. Separately, Royle and Samarin court a Deloyeran industrialist named Neruoda. Royle’s “RD Company” has invested heavily in Neruoda’s new processing plant for “stanium”.³ Neruoda offers financial support to Samarin’s rebels on the condition that they destroy the plant. Apparently, RD Company’s support of Neruoda amounts to something like a controlling interest in a merger. The destruction of the plant is somehow predicted to do more damage to this takeover attempt than to the economy of Deloyer, because Neruoda has a parallel plan to build an equivalent plant with Deloyeran funding. He is stalling on the joint project to get the local one done.

Destin, here unnamed, tracks the Fang of the Sun and gets punched in the face. Crin opposes Neruoda’s Byzantine plot until Samarin explains that the people will support the destruction of the joint project if they are told, by Lartav, how it furthers economic independence. Lacoque, informed by Destin of Samarin’s meeting with Neruoda, similarly believes that he can use propaganda to portray the destruction of the plant as doing reckless harm to Deloyeran workers. Von Stein tips the balance by personally ordering Zaltsev to protect the plant, against Lacoque’s wishes. Zaltsev tries his best to capture the Fang of the Sun alive without damaging the plant, but it burns in the battle. Lartav writes his propaganda piece with Daisy.

Episode 29: Lacoque’s Scheming

    ラコックの策謀 (RAKOKKU no sakubou). Aired 1982-05-07.

Neruoda delivers money to Samarin, hunkering down in a port awaiting passage to Palmina. Royle complains to Donan that the destroyed processing plant was his company’s first effort on Deloyer and will reflect poorly on the family name, but Donan chooses not to act. Reik Boyd also goes to see Donan before shipping out to Palmina. According to Von Stein’s plan, Reik will become the Federation administrator of the continent. His status as an in-law is here made explicit. Donan wishes to speak to Crin again, but says no more on that topic. Daisy is reunited with her father.

Neruoda’s plot has failed. He is pressured by business partners in Bonar, presumably from Earth, threatening a ban on the distribution of his goods. Lacoque offers to persuade these partners if Neruoda gives up Samarin. Zaltsev displays an openness to collateral damage, levelling many of the warehouses at the port to flush out the rebels, yet even with Neruoda’s information, he fails completely yet again as Nanashi spots soldiers posing as civilian sailors. Lacoque arranges for Neruoda to agree to fund the reconstruction of the processing plant, saving Royle.

Episode 30: The Day of the Crossing to Palmina

    パルミナへ渡る日 (PARUMINA e wataru hi). Aired 1982-05-14.

Zaltsev is relieved of his command and replaced with a Major Gilson, a younger man trained on theories derived from Zaltsev’s experience. Lacoque later comments that Gilson is just a new piece for the game board; his individual ability is not important. Zaltsev, for his part, has grown to despise Von Stein as a politician, no longer a doer.

Daisy, calling Donan to have him inform Morea that she will not return to Earth, accidentally learns of Donan’s disease: he seizes up while they’re on the phone. She explains her reasons while the old man sits recovering under a blanket on his couch: Daisy loves Crin for his ability to reject common sense (“what he knows in his head”) and act on hope. Daisy leaves him a letter, declaring her intention to do the same. Daisy also sees Crin, but nothing is said.

Neruoda confesses to his betrayal. Samarin’s reaction is to give back some of the capitalist’s money, but Neruoda refuses it, having become a believer in the revolution after feeling economic imperialism.

Zaltsev correctly identifies Samarin’s ship and attacks it. Only after a Soltic pilot realizes that Crin is taking hits instead of dodging, Gilson consents to fire missiles, but these are ineffective against the Dougram. When the Soltic is defeated and knocked overboard so that its exploding reactor does not damage the ship, Gilson finally orders the vessel sunk, but it’s too late. The rebels shoot down the remaining gunships. Zaltsev and Gilson retreat.

Episode 31: Palmina’s Hot Breeze

    パルミナの熱い風 (PARUMINA no atsui kaze). Aired 1982-05-21.

On arriving, the Fang of the Sun finds the government’s gunships firing on rebels other than themselves. Reik has not been informed of the crossing at all. He delivers a speech to his troops under a purple flag, resembling that of the UN and featuring yet another version of Deloyer’s geography. In his speech, he emphasizes the importance of Palmina’s agriculture to Earth and the unfairly low prices that settlers are being paid for their produce. He urges his troops to speak to the settlers whenever they can, forming mutual relationships and reporting back to headquarters on their attitudes.

The Fang of the Sun rescues a group of guerillas. One of them describes how they started as travelling performers, were asked to smuggle guns to the villages they visited, and eventually grew to hate the administration enough to join the movement. Together they break through a mountain fortress guarding a major road and sing the song of the compass.

Episode 32: A Vigorous March

    血気はやる進軍 (kekki wa yaru shingun). Aired 1982-05-28.

Starting with this episode, there is a minor change in the opening credits sequence. Both shots of multiple supporting characters are replaced. Instead of the original Fang on an abstract backdrop there’s a pan across the current membership, now including George and Huckle, sitting and standing on a downed Soltic, immediately preceding the familiar tilt with Dougram and doves, though this is now followed by Crin opening the cockpit. The shot of people from Crin’s past floating in darkness is replaced by a shot of Crin, in a blue suit and bow tie, walking out of the fuzzy black frame of a “photo” of his family, including a portrait of a now-dead patriarch on the wall. In this version, both Daisy and Lacoque are entirely absent.

Guerillas and the army are both planning for an attack on Doga city, population 150 000. Samarin recognizes that the rebels, though they have a slight advantage in numbers, are disorganized, being accustomed to decentralized asymmetric warfare. He demands transitioning to a centralized army model with staff officers, but he is turned down. The attack fails catastrophically. Even the main guerilla leader who greeted Samarin as an old friend is gunned down.

Episode 33: War in the Villages

    戦火は村々に (senka wa muramura ni). Aired 1982-06-04.

Ouzel’s Medohrian trading company is represented in Doga. Following Medohr’s historical example, other trading companies from the seven states of Earth are also present here. Studying the aftermath in Doga, Reik learns that the rebels use weapons produced on Earth, with bogus Deloyeran branding. Visiting a company based in the state of Kohǒd, Reik—himself hailing from Medohr—is told that the weapon he presents is a pirate copy of a Kohǒd design. How unfortunate it is that the military’s highest commander on the continent is once again of his particular nationality, so prominent in business, says the Kohǒdian businessman. He points out that for his own part he likes to fill a need, implying he or others like him are indeed supplying weapons to the guerillas, for profit and to destabilize Medohr’s authority. Donan, in a similar meeting with the—here unidentified—prime minister of Medohr, is advised to release the councillors arrested in the coup. Their respective states have denounced their actions, but still want them freed.

Donan is frustrated that individual states still squabble with each other in an interplanetary conflict. The possibility of colonizing more worlds near Deloyer is the real reason why Donan favours statehood over independence. An independent Deloyer could claim these worlds for itself within five years, exacerbating the overpopulated Earth’s dependence on Deloyer for food and likely turning the economic situation entirely on its head. Earth is mentioned as having 8 billion people and its carrying capacity is dropping.

Crin notices a weapon from another Earth state, Mingas, in a young rebel’s hands. That boy is killed in his first battle. Crin fails to summon the courage to tell the boy’s father. Lacoque, shut out of Donan’s meeting about future colonies, advises Royle to have Ouzel’s company sell weapons too.

Episode 34: Weapons for Whom

    武器は誰がために (buki wa dare ga tame ni). Aired 1982-06-11.

Reik analyzes the macroeconomy. Palmina has 300 million people, 80% of them farmers, and less than one in ten of those own their land. The rest is corporate property, evidently a consequence of risk capital driving the mass colonization process. The prime minister suggests giving Lacoque something to run as a politician, but Donan doubts his secretary’s virtue. The butler reports this to Lacoque, who resolves to take matters into his own hands.

Daisy and Lartav arrive in Doga a week after the failed uprising (episode 32). A terrorist attack on the airport seems to result in a child’s death. Daisy takes the child’s toy, dirty from the attack, and helps out at a hospital, where she then applies for a job.

Samarin confesses to Crin that he’s buying weapons from states opposing Medohr. Destin later reports to Lacoque that Samarin’s purchase was from Kohǒd. Huckle fills in that even the Dougram is a product of Earth, or rather, 70% of its parts are, and Samarin reminds Crin that he himself is likewise from Earth: this outside support does not compromise the struggle for independence. Samarin then explains that he’s taking the Fang of the Sun to the Andy mine, a private venture jointly controlled by the aforementioned Kohǒd, Mingas and another of Medohr’s rivals, the state of Linea. These states will shield the rebels from direct Federation attack.

Medohr’s influence on Palmina is relatively slight. A landowner reminds Reik of this when he threatens autocratic land reform to resolve the legitimate complaint of working-class representatives. The landowners assume that any reform would be done with the aim of weakening Medohr’s rivals, dismissing motives other than state interest and profit.

Pondering the apparent impurity of the struggle, Crin has a bad day on the battlefield. The Dougram is knocked down, a legless Soltic almost getting in a point-black shot. George is injured looking for a Palminan dancer, Rita, who has practically joined the Fang since her appearance with the travelling entertainers-cum-guerillas in episode 31. Seeing Crin’s crisis of confidence, Samarin sends Crin to the hospital with George.

Episode 35: Field Hospital Reunion

    再会の野戦病院 (saikai no yasen byouin). Aired 1982-06-18.

Daisy discusses a dehydrated orphan with her supervisor. Federation soldiers enter to interrogate an injured man. Lartav rebuffs them, stating that Reik has declared the hospital a neutral zone. Federation funds pay for George’s surgery. Daisy and Crin meet again, speak briefly, and embrace, promising to be together some day.

Federation soldiers impressively locate the Dougram by extrapolating from Crin and Rita’s path back from the hospital. Under fire, backup pilot Huckle doesn’t have time to enter the cockpit before Crin returns. There is a symbolic cut from a Soltic shot in the chest at point blank range, its pilot screaming, to the orphan baby at the hospital, similarly screaming but no longer in danger. The emotion suggests a nod to Space Runaway Ideon (1980).

Episode 36: The Blocked Path

    塞がれた行く手 (fusagareta yukute). Aired 1982-06-25.

George is back from the hospital with his leg in a cast. In a sequence recalling The Wages of Fear (1953), a leading truck in the Fang’s convoy is suddenly destroyed by a mine. A fellow rebel, determined to also warn the Fang about nearby Federation troops, feverishly runs across the minefield, stepping on another mine. It’s a hybrid design: Powerful enough for humanoid vehicles, yet triggerable even by infantry. The Federation notices the blasts and sends a squadron to mop up.

Chico fires his rifle along the ground, plowing a straight path that Rocky and Huckle follow on a bike to a reach a Federation sapper squad and steal their mine detector. The stunt works, even though stone chips sent flying by the bike are enough to trigger more mines. The Federation squadron of 5 Soltics take on the Dougram, while Huckle operates the linear cannon on its trailer like an artillery piece.

Episode 37: Crossing the River of Choices

    選択の渡河作戦 (sentaku no toka sakusen). Aired 1982-07-02.

While the Fang crosses a fast and guarded river on the way to Andy, Huckle comments that the Dougram needs extensive repair. Meanwhile, Reik is pressured by terrorist bombings, possibly targeting civilian companies, instigated by Lacoque.

Episode 38: Blockade at the Andy Mine

    アンディ鉱山封鎖 (ANDI kouzan fuusa). Aired 1982-07-09.

Reik attends a demonstration of a new humanoid vehicle based on the Blockhead. Like the Dougram, it is protected against the X Nebula, and is similarly mobile and resistant to E guns. Reik meets with representatives of the Andy mine. Their nationalities are Kohǒd, Mingas and Rhodia.⁴

Samarin believes these three states will support the independence movement to get more favourable business relationships for their companies under the new government. The balance between public and private interests is not discussed, but apparently, half of the Federation’s states can be expected to support cutting the Federation’s territory in half, endangering the Earth’s food supply, in the interest of uncertain private profit. This suggests that undemocratic business interests and the vendetta against Medohr are entirely dominant. The companies apparently expect to have a similarly imbalanced relationship with an independent Deloyer, simply replacing Medohr as top dog. The fact that the business representatives Reik meets introduce themselves primarily by state affiliation, and are only three in number, suggests the same thing.

Reik goes unarmed to meet Samarin and the Fang, openly declaring that he opposes violence, and begging Samarin not to enter the nest of corruption at Andy. Samarin turns him down. Reik conveys a message from Donan to Crin, to pick a path and not regret it. Crin then defeats three of the new-model mechs. George proposes marriage to Rita and is rejected.

Episode 39: Breaking the Mountain Blockade

    封鎖山脈を越えろ (fuusa sanmyaku wo koero). Aired 1982-07-16.

Reik flashes back to when his wife, Sarah, first brought him to the Cashim household to meet Donan. Rahvin and Royle, sitting in, impugn Reik’s education at a second-best military academy, but Crin praises that academy’s wilder style and asks Reik to teach him some rugby moves.

Back in the “present” of the main-body flashback, Federation pilots—one of them named Hank—talk about avenging their Sergeant Marvin, one of the men Crin killed in the previous episode. They’d trained for two months, to no avail. One of them invites the rest for a barbecue at his house with his ugly wife. Another, Aaron, used to work at a rural Kohǒd funeral home, where his father still makes the coffins the old-fashioned way. They’re laughing nervously at the high demand Aaron’s father would see on Deloyer when the now one-armed Dougram is sighted on a mission to distract the Feddies while Samarin and the Fang sneak the trailer onto a flatbed ore train and into the mine.

In the battle that follows, Crin lands a shot in the cockpit of a new-model mech before its pilots, Heath and Evans, close the canopy. They are killed instantly, leading to horrified cries from Hank and the other men we just saw talking. Three shots depict the death of Heath and Evans abstractly: They fall, their bodies intact, at an angle across a pure white backdrop, then their faces fragment as if developed photos of them are torn up, also against a white backdrop, presumably the animation table. Cut to commercial.

Chico downs a Soltic while Crin has a tense battle with the last two avengers, Hank and Aaron—both of whom survive after taking a tumble—and their reinforcements. Samarin’s guide, Briand, leads the Fang to Andy.

Episode 40: A Soldier’s Rest, Part 1

    戦士の休息 前編 (senshi no kyuusoku zenpen). Aired 1982-07-23.

The camera moves in on the radio in Hank’s cockpit across multiple cuts, ending on a detailed shot of the control panel. Hank and Aaron hear Reik ordering a retreat, since the rebels have reached the mine. The Three States controlling it are now referred to collectively (三州, sanshuu). They deny knowledge of the arrival. Aaron is frustrated by the order, but Hank calmly offers him a “Sunrise” brand cigarette. Later, when they come across their comrades’ downed Soltic, Hank changes his mind and defies the order.

Reik orders a blockade of the Andy mine, which has a population of 30 000. Samarin introduces Carmel, the man who arranged sanctuary here. They have about 100 troops gathered on site. Lacoque orders Reik back to Kardinal over the sensitive matter of the blockade.

Crin wraps his control sticks in tape to improve the grip. He, Huckle and Rocky resolve to stop relying on luck, now that they have a place in Samarin’s force organization chart. Meanwhile, Hank and Aaron study the mining community from a nearby forest, locating the Dougram as rain storm rolls in.

Episode 41: A Soldier’s Rest, Part 2

    戦士の休息 後編 (senshi no kyuusoku kouhen). Aired 1982-07-30.

Crin defeats Hank and Aaron at the bottom of a mining pit, triggering an international diplomatic incident. The rest of the team underestimate the gravity of his resulting anguish. He falls asleep in the enemy’s cockpit, in the middle of the night, developing a fever from the heavy rain. Before waking, he dreams of Daisy.

In reality, Daisy is working confidently in the field hospital, and meets Lartav. He invites her to go with him to Andy and see Crin but she turns him down. He eats one of the strawberries Crin tried in episode 35. They were sour then, but have since matured. “Splendid”, he reflects.

Episode 42: In the Wake of Unrest

    動乱の航跡 (douran no kouseki). Aired 1982-08-06.

A recap of episodes 2 and 6 through 9.

Episode 43: An Arranged Breach of Faith

    仕組まれた背信 (shikumareta haishin). Aired 1982-08-13.

We check back in with Jackie Zaltsev, serving a month in confinement for his stunt in episode 30, which aired 3 months earlier. Locke is keeping tabs on Zaltsev to turn him, but the rebels gathered at Andy are receiving no messages from Locke, and none from Bux: No “telegraph, phone or telex”, as Chico puts it. Rocky and Canary pretend to be eloping newly-weds and take a plane from Andy to Kardinal City to re-establish communications. Rocky visits his brother’s junk yard, and Canary her brother’s grave.

Lacoque and Von Stein see Zaltsev to pronounce judgment: Demotion and a year in military prison, because they have bought into the guerillas’ deliberately careless courtship. Confronted with the false perception that he is disloyal, Zaltsev punches Lacoque and allows himself to be recruited after all. It was Zaltsev who disabled Locke’s right eye, but Zaltsev perceives that Samarin has changed his old enemy for the better.

While the Dougram does fight in this episode, it does not face enemy mecha and is not challenged.

Episode 44: Dubious Double Agent

    疑惑の二重スパイ (giwaku no ni juu SUPAI). Aired 1982-08-20.

Destin arrives at Andy and stages bank robberies with hired thugs posing as guerillas. Rita runs into him on her way to shop for groceries. It turns out they’re old friends, but haven’t met since before she joined the Fang. He tricks her, saying the Federation is going to attack a Kohǒd-owned part of the mine and make it look like the Dougram did it. The Fang walks into a trap as a result, but fight their way out. Canary gets her arm in a sling. The resulting headlines make Reik look bad, serving the interest of Lacoque, who controls Destin and muses that it’s almost time for his debut.

In a flashback from before he turned traitor, Destin gets on stage when Rita is doing a burlesque dance, and slaps her, stopping the show and then berating the audience for demeaning the girl, thereby violating the egalitarian spirit of the resistance movement.

Episode 45: A Shot to Scatter a Dream

    夢散らす銃声 (yume chirasu juusei). Aired 1982-08-27.

Lacoque mediates a lucrative deal with Royle Cashim for weapons from Earth. Royle believes the weapons will go into the hands of guerillas from the purported buyer, but the real buyer is Lacoque.

Rita tracks down Destin in his hotel room, where is complaining loudly and conveniently over the phone with Lacoque that he needs the booze to live with himself as a traitor. He agrees to pick up the weapons and get them to the mine. Rita, overhearing him, is crushed but does not reveal herself. Meanwhile, George defends her as loyal in her absence. There is a brief glimpse of Rita’s father in flashback, a depressed drunkard making his living off of Rita’s talents, terrified that the zealous socialist Destin will take her away.

Lartav meets Zaltsev on the train to Andy. Rita intercepts Destin shifting the goods as Lacoque told him to do. She proposes running away, but when Lartav also reveals himself, Destin concludes that it’s a trap. He shoots Rita. Lartav escapes on the train with the weapons in crates, and has the Fang stop the train to prevent delivery of the weapons to the mine, where Federation forces would use the crime as leverage against the three states. The crates go in the Andy river. Crin and Chico fight off a team of three enemy mecha. On the phone with Lacoque afterwards, Destin shouts at him to do his own dirty work.

Episode 46: Intrigue and Maneuvering

    術策と機略 (jussaku to kiryaku). Aired 1982-09-03.

Donan sends Lacoque to convince the Three States to cut their ties with the rebels. Lacoque promises leniency and gets the permission of the directors to send token forces into the mine. Lartav and Zaltsev part at Andy Station. Zaltsev goes to meet Samarin, who sends out trusted men to unify the various rebel forces. George is AWOL looking for Rita.

Lacoque’s token forces turn out to be some 500, a stratagem for enticing a guerilla attack, thence casus belli for striking at the mine in force. Zaltsev proposes using the Dougram to strike outside instead, at the surrounding forces, and Samarin adds that the Dougram should remain outside thereafter as a mobile force. The operation gives the Three States plausible deniability.

Episode 47: A Frenzy of Grief

    悲しみの縛走 (kanashimi no bakusou). Aired 1982-09-10.

Donan is returning to Earth, having failed to make headway with the Three States. George sits alone with primal screams, pondering whether Rita betrayed him. Lacoque meets with Reik, viewing memorabilia of his rugby career and watching him make his own coffee as a “hobby”. Lacoque claims that Donan called for a stern attitude against the Deloyerans, with continued reforms in some areas. Reik interprets this to mean support for the traditional economic inequalities in favour of Earth. He’s right. Lacoque proposes closing Daisy’s field hospital.

Zaltsev has organized an orderly evacuation of the hospital. One of three convoys leaving it is escorted by “Red Star” guerillas wearing arm bands with the communist symbol to the Andy mine. Daisy, whose work at the hospital was much appreciated, joins that convoy. The Fang of the Sun acts as a decoy to assist Red Star while government forces stay back to identify the smuggling route they’re using through the mountain passes.

Lartav meets Samarin at Andy, bringing him a fine wine and the news that Destin was briefly in town and killed Rita. After learning who Rita was, Lartav repeats this information to George, and tells him that the knowledge must be better than waiting for the girl to return. George, however, goes into a frenzy, attempting a suicide attack against the enemy force intercepting the hospital convoy. However, George isn’t killed, falling off his rigged motorcycle at the last moment and begging for his friends to finish him off.

Episode 48: Its Name Is the Liberation Army Strike Force

    その名は解放軍遊撃隊 (sono na wa kaihougun yuugekitai). Aired 1982-09-17.

George remains maddened by grief, attacking a river and a column of Federation trucks. Berated by Rocky for endangering them all, George opposes how the team is now simply taking orders.

On Earth, Donan’s doctor—an old friend named Neil—talks about unemployment as a political factor in Kohǒd and Rhodia. Over dinner with his family, the politician discusses with his other sons, Royle and Rahvin, the embarrassment of Crin fighting on the wrong side. Continuing this discussion in private with his wife, Fina, Donan says that Crin and he are not so different: the boy gets his independence from the father, while Royle and Rahvin have Fina’s attention to the opinions of others.

As a formally designated unit of a new Liberation Army Strike Force, the Fang is tasked with disabling a radio relay tower, needed by the Federation to counteract the X Nebula in long-distance communications. They carry out the order over George’s objections. “Revenge for Rita!” he shouts, gunning down enemy soldiers. After the battle, they are shocked to realize that there were only some 20 people at the tower, none of whom ran away or surrendered at the sight of the Dougram. A dying Federation soldier explains that his men at the outpost were following their own orders. Like the new Fang, they were cogs in a machine.

Episode 49: Wrinkles in Joint Operations

    共同作戦の軋み (kyoudou sakusen no kishimi). Aired 1982-09-24.

Donan meets Colonel Von Stein on Earth as an Earth Federation Council meeting approaches. The Three States are drumming up support for their campaign against Medohr. Donan surmises that the Mingas representative, here named R. Silba in writing, will be the easiest route to make Mingas break away from that bloc. Donan’s attempt at manipulation is completely transparent to Silba, who instead tries to talk Von Stein into breaking away from Lacoque’s influence and the Federation, boosting Mingas’s relative power against Medohr. Donan himself calls the representative of Medohr’s last staunch ally, reaffirming that relationship and making Donan’s idealistic speech to the Council a success.

The Fang will operate jointly with the Deloyer Liberation Force’s sabotage experts against a Federation base at Downton Hills. The DLF—somehow separate from the LASF—includes Davis, a blond and fair-skinned traitor Federation pilot from Deloyer, who doesn’t have a mecha. The DLF doesn’t approve of the fact that Crin from Earth pilots the Dougram, so Crin shows Davis how to do it. In combat, Davis panics and flees. Though he initially denies this, he still asks Crin to take back command of the Dougram, instead of fighting on foot with the rest of the Fang. Crying, Davis confesses that he abandoned his post as a Federation pilot because his courage failed, and now it has failed again. After another battle, encouraged by Huckle, Davis resolves to stay with the DLF, out of combat.

Episode 50: A Fighter’s Law

    戦う者の掟 (tatakau mono no okite). Aired 1982-10-01.

In a miserable rain, the Fang is ordered to remain at their location to ambush a Federation transport of weapons and ammunition. Rocky talks to Crin about Deloyeran cuisine, a hotchpotch stew heavily seasoned with garlic because the other ingredients are arbitrary and usually terrible.

Donan sees Neil. The prognosis is bad, in view of Donan’s ambitions: six months at most. He’s to lay off the cigars, but he won’t tell his wife, he says. Then he tells her anyway. Suspecting his next trip to Deloyer will be his last, Fina wants to go with him, but he dismisses the idea; it would only lead to media speculation about his health. They thank one another for this visit to Earth, and hold each other by the window of the old estate. Meanwhile on Deloyer, Lacoque tries out Donan’s chair, finding his medicine. His reaction implies it’s something quite dangerous, perhaps akin to warfarin.

Crin dreams about his father as a godlike figure smashing the boy to pieces. When the Fang’s transport arrives, the weather is better, but the transport isn’t the large convoy they were expecting, just a mecha on a flatbed trailer. When other guerillas attack it, the main convoy is diverted to another route. The Dougram wrestles the enemy mecha, saving the smaller team. Through the same motorcycle messenger that delivered the order, Zaltsev and Samarin condemn the Fang’s impractical decision to save the team over taking out the convoy. Rocky and Crin both claim responsibility for their failure, but the messenger doesn’t care.

Leaving for Deloyer, Donan says casually to Fina, “I gladly leave the rest to you”. She begins to cry and they have another intimate moment, Donan showing great tenderness. A little later, on the flight out of the Earth’s atmosphere, he is back to his stone-faced professional manner.

Episode 51: Visible Rifts

    見えはじめた亀裂 (miehajimeta kiretsu). Aired 1982-10-08.

At a Federation army base, Lieutenant Zana refuses to execute blindfolded rebel captives. It would be illegal. They have not had a trial, and HQ has not authorized the action. His superior officer draws a gun on Zana, but it’s clear that Zana’s men, uncomfortable with murder, would fight for him. Like 80% of Federation troops on Deloyer, they are themselves Deloyerans who’ve joined up for the pay. Zana is led away to the base guardhouse.

As fallout from episode 49’s intrigue on Earth, the Three States pull out of their active support for the guerillas. In a meeting, guerilla leaders consider a move to Grante, 300 km into the mountainous north of Palmina. It falls to the Fang of the Sun to scout for the safest route there. By coincidence, they come upon Birdy, Gōren and Jimmur, three of Zana’s men fleeing the military police in fear of collective punishment. The base sends humanoid vehicles of the Ironfoot model.

The deserters describe the Ironfoot as a candidate for a new standard. Lacking a head, having an artillery pod on the left shoulder, smoke launchers on the chest and a large cannon attached to the right arm, the Ironfoot looks like a cross between a tank and the Dougram. It even has the Dougram’s blue-grey-and-red colour scheme. The carrier helicopter for the Ironfoot looks lighter than the old Soltic carriers and can alternately take a container full of infantry into combat. Although Crin defeats both of the enemy vehicles at once, they do not explode from the loss of limbs or weapons, being merely immobilized and unable to balance themselves.

The three deserters tell their story and continue on their away, leaving the Fang. Back at Andy, Zaltsev reflects that their desertion mirrors his own but carries a stronger implication about the enemy’s morale. Sitting on the guardhouse floor, Lieutenant Zana waits quietly.

Episode 52: The Order to Attack Andy Mine

    アンディ鉱山攻撃命令 (ANDI kouzan kougeki meirei). Aired 1982-10-15.

Donan, arriving on Deloyer, orders Reik to attack Andy. Reik believes such an action would be seen as a betrayal of his ongoing efforts toward democratic reform, but agrees to do it. First, Samarin and the other rebels are given three days to disarm. Civilians are upset about the trains not running, as part of the military’s blockade. The Three States support Zaltsev’s feigned initiative to negotiate, but Samarin refuses, pretending to prefer fighting at a disadvantage to set an example. In truth, both keep up the appearance of weakness and disagreement to allow leaks through Three States representatives to create a sense of complacency at Andy, which is then replaced by panic as the ultimatum runs out. The rebels use the panic to escape as civilians. Ultimately, Zaltsev and Samarin drive through the barricade where the Fang has breached it, in the only battle at Andy that day. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Zana’s Deloyeran would-be executioners turn their guns on his accusers from Earth.

Episode 53: The Fuse of the Counterattack

    反撃の導火線 (hangeki no douka sen). Aired 1982-10-22.

The Fang and the leaders from Andy meet sappers preparing to delay their Federation pursuers, but the pursuers are diverted to Ulna, the rebelling base. While Samarin and Zana join forces, Samarin also leaks the news of the rebellion to Lartav at the APU press pool, circumventing the military gag order and rendering it moot. Von Stein and Reik argue for and against crushing the uprising. Lt. Roy Geider, one of Reik’s long-time adjutants whose full name is given in episode 54, visits the base and is rebuffed. Spontaneous celebratory gunfire within the base triggers a large Federation attack, which fails when the Dougram attacks from the rear.

Zana seeks to surrender to Samarin. Samarin instead welcomes him to the rebellion. Reik resigns, shocking Lt. Hans Dripp, the other adjutant. Reik says this latest failure has taught him that, although he was making progress, his agenda was hindered by his position as the ruler, i.e. by reactance.

Episode 54: Once More Toward Doga

    再びドガへ向けて (futatabi DOGA e mukete). Aired 1982-10-29.

At Ulna, Zana’s base, Huckle makes sure Billy doesn’t get a cigarette and Nanashi fails to learn to march. There are 8 Ironfoot mecha at the base and close to 100 other vehicles and ordnance. Crin gets a good look up close. Samarin speaks to the gathered troops, proposing a return to Doga, the site of the catastrophic defeat in episode 32.

Donan considers calling in reinforcements, remarking that there are no Deloyerans among the seven Federation armies on Earth. 80% of the 8th Army on Deloyer was formed from local populations and desertions continue. The 6th Army, under Brenner, garrisons the north pole. Von Stein argues against redeploying it, believing this would lead to more desertions. Instead, Von Stein proposes giving Reik’s old job of administrator to a unibrowed Lt. Col. Fritz Manon. Manon calls in a 24th Unit of pilots in fancy white uniform. Reik’s former adjutants, Hans Dripp and Roy Geider, introduce themselves to Manon, but he says he has none of his predecessor’s fine qualities.

The Dougram and two Ironfeet form a new 1st Squadron, taking on more numerous but antiquated and environmentally unfit enemy armour intercepting them on the way to Doga. Crin sweats heavily by the end of the open battle, which is when the 24th arrives. Zaltsev recognizes them as the elite unit normally guarding Kardinal City. They make short work of the Ironfeet but retreat before Crin’s panicked counter-attack.

Episode 55: Take the High Ground

    戦略台地を奪取せよ (senryaku daichi wo dasshu seyo). Aired 1982-11-05.

The revolutionary army is growing swiftly 110 km from Doga, joined by Deloyer-born deserters. Manon surveys the terrain they’ll have to cross, ordering missile launchers deployed on a lopsided outcropping of terraced rock overlooking a plain. Zaltsev anticipates this stratagem, sending the Fang with a squad of elite rangers who disrespect Canary. Eager to prove herself to these sexists, Canary joins the assault and briefly saves the life of a ranger. He dies a little later, with these last words: “The rest is up to you, babe.” In a further sexist irony, later still Canary herself would have been killed pulling an especially gutsy move if the soldier fighting her had not paused, shocked to notice she is a woman.

At the base of the rock, Crin faces the 24th once more. One of its pilots has been raising and lowering the hood of his mecha to get fresh air. In battle they do their dance routine and score multiple hits on the Dougram, eventually disabling its right arm. They retreat upon seeing the main rebel force.

In Doga, on Lartav’s recommendation, Daisy joins the staff of Dalloway’s home for orphans of the war.

Episode 56: The Battle of Stanray Plateau

    スタンレー高原の攻防 (SUTANREE kougen no koubou). Aired 1982-11-12.

The revolutionaries reach the Stanray plateau with 14 humanoid vehicles, including the damaged Dougram. Manon decides to sortie and attack them with a superior force of close to 100 humanoid vehicles, presumably fearing that Locke will arrive with reinforcements. Crin plans to fight but Zaltsev—arguing that the symbolic value of the Dougram is too high—gives him an Ironfoot instead.

Using pit traps and tanks, the revolutionaries catch and destroy half of the 24th. The other half destroys Crin’s Ironfoot. He leaps from the cockpit onto the Fang’s hovercraft in combat just before Locke arrives with more humanoid vehicles. Meanwhile, Huckle has completed repairs on the Dougram and Crin returns to battle, killing Brink and squadron leader Burrell, the last pilots of the 24th. The rebels continue their advance across the plateau. Inwardly mystified by his failure and probably unwilling to face his superiors, Manon stands unarmed in their way and is cut down, his subordinates unable to move him.

Episode 57: The Waving Flag of Liberation

    ひるがえる開放旗 (hirugaeru kaihou ki). Aired 1982-11-19.

The “Liberation Army” fights its way through the streets of Doga. Adjutant Hans Dripp refuses to be evacuated from headquarters, saying he wants to see what will happen to Palmina and believing Reik had the right idea. When Dripp surrenders to Samarin, the latter gives him three days to leave. There is no arrest.

Samarin leads a press conference on September 7, SC 153, announcing the formation of the Deloyer People’s Liberation Government (DPLG). The two governments now on Deloyer do not recognize one another. In response, Donan calls commander Brennan at the north pole base but gets a seizure before he can state his business. Reik visits his hospital bed. Donan has fallen into a coma.

There is a glimpse of Daisy’s work with orphans. Daisy finds Crin. They speak again, but nothing is resolved. He finds any war terrible, but he wants to see this one through.

Episode 58: Ambition Set Free

    解きはなたれた野心 (tokihanatareta yashin). Aired 1982-11-26.

Von Stein and Lacoque lock horns over how to proceed. By speaking to the assembly in Kardinal City Von Stein wins this round and calls in the 8th Army from the north pole. Quoting Douglas MacArthur (“I shall return”), Lacoque retreats to Earth where he visits the Cashim family. Rahvin’s political career is stranded without his father’s weight. Royle mentions privately that Lacoque has not been ordering his products—meaning weapons—lately. Lacoque perceives the family is doomed to insignificance without Donan.

Von Stein makes a speech to the army. Thanks to the DPLG’s wise decision to defend Palmina as a first priority, the Fang happens to be guarding the particular strip of beach near Doga where the 8th Army’s attack is spearheaded by amphibious humanoid vehicles. Nanashi anticipates the attack when a school of fish is washed up by the surf. Canary is lightly wounded handling a searchlight but they repel the spearhead and then see the fleet on the horizon.

Episode 59: Battle at Sea with Honour at Stake

    威信かける海戦 (ishin kakeru kaisen). Aired 1982-12-03.

The Federation fleet bombards the harbour at Doga and the beach where Zaltsev orders the Fang to continue guarding the coast for a larger amphibious assault. Lartav arrives, unprotected, taking several hits from artillery shells. He’s fine. He informs Crin, as he has informed the DPLG, of Donan’s illness. Later, Lartav also gets a truck for the evacuation of Daisy and Dalloway’s orphans.

The Federation assembly on Earth convenes to deal with Donan’s illness and the question of whether to send reinforcements to Deloyer. Before the meeting Lacoque pleads with the representative of the state of Tessio⁵ to propose that he—Lacoque—be appointed speaker for Donan, but he is rebuffed. Debate in the first session is heated but fruitless. Having thus surveyed the terrain, the secretary goes to see the representatives of the Three States, telling them to send no reinforcements to Deloyer. His argument is that Von Stein should be weakened in his struggle against the rebels. This would prolong the conflict on Deloyer but, treating Von Stein as a loose cannon, Lacoque argues that Federation forces–specifically the forces of the Three States—should be sent in only after one of the local governments has prevailed. Sugar-coating the offer, Lacoque suggests that he can help build up the position of the Three States in the interim, by revealing a scandal that implicates Donan. They urge him to reveal it at once, but Lacoque recognizes that doing so before he has been appointed would sink his own bid by association. He demands their votes and is appointed commissioner to Deloyer, the acting proxy of Donan Cashim.

On Deloyer, Zaltsev orders his commanders to arrange an agile defence in depth through outer Doga for the invasion, while the Dougram is air-dropped onto the flagship of the enemy fleet: Its now-empty carrier for humanoid vehicles. The Dougram, supported by three helicopters and light “Groundsearch” hovercraft, devastates the ship and thereby prevents the enemy from evacuating or relocating its vehicles by air. The defence of Doga is a resounding success. Collateral damage looks extensive.

Episode 60: The Light and Shade of Deloyer

    デロイアの光と影 (DEROIA no hikari to kage). Aired 1982-12-10.

Lacoque returns to Deloyer and presciently orders Von Stein to prepare for a rebel attack against the spaceport, whereas the governor had intended to defend Kardinal City. Carmel seems dissatisfied with Samarin’s next military push but says nothing. Huckle tunes up the Dougram and installs a shoulder-mounted missile launcher while Crin talks to Daisy again. With romantic naïveté she relays a riddle offered by one of the children in her care: What do you get when snow melts? Not liquid water, but spring.

Lacoque sweats over Donan’s hospital bed, tempted to kill the man. He almost stops the drip before Watkins the butler spots him. Telling Watkins, in a threatening manner, to take good care of his master, Lacoque simply leaves. He has leaked the Ouzel-Medohr arms-dealing scandal to the press. Rahvin punches his brother Royle over the story.

Episode 61: To the Port at the North Pole

    北極ポートへ向けて (hokkyoku POOTO ni mukete). Aired 1982-12-17.

A new map shows the land bridge from Palmina to the north pole in more detail. It is 20 days from Doga. There are two natural bottlenecks—isthmuses—along the way, on either side of the Karnak mountains. The Fang, along with Zaltsev, Locke and some of their men, blow up an emplacement en route in such a convoluted manner that it has Locke firing an assault rifle from the hip on full auto while hanging from a gondola by his other hand, over a ravine. He’s fine.

At a restaurant with a bar, soldiers mention that Samarin and Carmel are arguing over whether to negotiate with the Federation or make the military push. Destin, absent since episode 45, overhears one of them saying that Carmel will make an appearance that evening to argue his case. Destin sells this information to Lacoque, who calls Carmel at the named restaurant to introduce himself.

Episode 62: A Path Blazed

    きざまれた光る道 (kizamareta hikaru michi). Aired 1982-12-24.

Recap.

Episode 63: Spilled Black Drops

    落とされた黒い滴 (otosareta kuroi shizuku). Aired 1982-12-31.

The Three States sell a new type of humanoid vehicle to Lacoque, for the arctic climate. Von Stein, not wanting to lose face by calling for reinforcements, orders units selected from the 8th Army to set up ambushes for the LASF, adopting his enemy’s past guerilla tactics. He consents to deploy Lacoque’s new armour as well, at the pole. As a purchase apparently on behalf of the civilian government, Von Stein doesn’t count this as reinforcement. In Kardinal City, Watkins hears soldiers talking about Lacoque’s success. Nobody’s visiting Donan.

After passing a moose, the Fang’s truck is almost hit by accidental fire from another team cleaning a gun on the way north. Having taken cover with his neck hitting Canary’s thigh, Chico delays getting up until Canary self-consciously pushes him away. Later, after seeing migrating geese and thinking about Daisy, Crin is approached by Canary. Presenting a flower, she says sentimentality is unbecoming of a man. George ridicules her for taking a position that is itself implicitly feminine. Joining in, Chico puts on a show, acting out the part of Canary’s inner monologue: “Oh poor flat-chested me! If it wasn’t for all this shooting I could put on a fancy dress and lean on Rocky’s arm.” Struck, Canary eats the flower.

Emboldened by his contact with Lacoque, Carmel continues to argue that an open assault on the spaceport will be interpreted as a strike against Earth, leading to all-out war between the planets rather than the two governments on Deloyer. At the bar, Carmel meets with Destin, who pours tall drinks and promises peace talks. When Von Stein’s ambushes begin, Carmel agrees to work with Lacoque.

Episode 64: The Mud River Trap

    濁流の罠 (dakuryuu no wana). Aired 1983-01-07.

Donan awakes on November 23. Still weak, he is shocked by Lacoque and Von Stein’s inaction. Donan reminds Lacoque that Earth is overpopulated and dependent on Deloyer for food and raw materials. Only Watkins seems to notice that Lacoque is crushing his bouquet of flowers as he puts his spin on recent events.

8th Army ambushers take control of a large dam and open it to flood a straight and flat river bed just as the LASF is crossing a low bridge. The first warning that this is going to happen is when Nanashi tastes the river water and detects a trace of gasoline in it, spilled from the wreck of a jeep as a soldier of the vanguard tried to escape the Federation at the dam. The Fang retakes the dam, halting the flood and allowing the main force to repel an ambush.

Episode 65: Capture: The Silver White Fortress

    攻略・白銀の要塞 (kouryaku · hakugin no yousai). Aired 1983-01-14.

Choosing the highest (2 km) and shortest path, the main force of the LASF tries to cross the Karnak mountains in makeshift arctic gear. It turns out that the Federation’s special arctic humanoid vehicles are simply dressed up in giant coveralls, but their commander, Major Rudolph, correctly predicts Zaltsev’s urgency and therefore his path through the mountain range. The Fang sees a fighter named Doc, a member of the old Land Bond guerilla (episode 23). The Fang also remembers Doc’s friend David, who died three months earlier. Doc dies trying to cross the Karnaks. The LASF is initially repelled but Zaltsev later rallies, using the Dougram to attack enemy emplacements–screwed into place on high cliffs–from above.

Lacoque convinces Carmel that Earth is on the brink of commitment to total war. Daisy sees Lartav off to the north pole. She wonders what’s really happening on Earth. Supposedly, Royle Cashim was going to contribute some of his ill-gotten gains to her father, who has suffered economically from the arms-dealing scandal through no fault of his own. Lartav and the other journalists pool some of their own money to give to Daisy for her orphanage.

Episode 66: Raging Battle: Crossing the Karnaks

    激戦・カルナック越え (gekisen · KARUNAKKU koe). Aired 1983-01-21.

Questioned by Donan, Lacoque claims his deliberately poor defence of the pole is Von Stein’s idea. Increasingly irate, Donan orders the troops on standby at the pole to join the 8th, but Lacoque does not convey the order. Instead, he explains that the Federation is becoming resigned to the idea of a nominally independent Deloyer under Carmel, a Federation puppet, something fierce military resistance would only complicate. Reik punches Lacoque in the mouth. Donan collapses in a new seizure.

Major Rudolph’s defence of the Karnaks meets its predicted failure. Rudolph himself chooses to die facing the enemy, much like Manon in episode 56. He has time to motivate his decision, honouring Von Stein for resisting the Earth’s meddling and allowing the people of Deloyer to duke it out over their own future.

Episode 67: A Decision Scattered at the North Pole

    北極に散った決断 (hokkyoku ni chitta ketsudan). Aired 1983-01-28.

Rebel violence escalates in Kardinal City. Reik wants to send Donan back to Earth. It isn’t possible—he ends up in an army hospital at the polar spaceport—but Von Stein watches over the old man in the medical transport, soliloquising over how they turned Deloyer into a proper state. Echoing Major Rudolph’s sentiments, Von Stein says he will join the front line as a Deloyeran soldier born and bred.

The Fang battles quadrupedal tanks in the snow. Crin imagines hearing Daisy’s voice and remembers when they rode a snowmobile at a mountain retreat, where the adults all thought the young couple was in love.

Lacoque meets with Brenner, head of the 6th Army, and explains in detail why he is preventing reinforcement of the 8th, down to naming Carmel. Consequently, when Von Stein also meets with Brenner to give his own explanation for why the 8th fights alone, he hears of Lacoque’s plan. Meanwhile, Lacoque leaks false information to Carmel, saying there is an overwhelming force already stationed at the port. Furious, Von Stein punches Lacoque and vows to open talks with Samarin. Lacoque frantically convinces a few soldiers that Von Stein is turning traitor and has his helicopter shot down. He orders the incident reported as an accident.

Episode 68: The Men Around the Table

    テーブルについた者達 (TEEBURU ni tsuita monotachi). Aired 1983-02-04.

Despite the large number of soldiers present to hear Lacoque’s lie about Von Stein turning traitor, and the greater number who witnessed the helicopter being shot down, the murder of Von Stein is kept quiet. Carmel stages a coup, killing one of the loyalists (Jork) and arresting Samarin. Carmel’s faction then masquerades as the legitimate political HQ. The revolutionary army halts on his orders and stays immobile for days, within sight of the spaceport.

Holding talks with Carmel at the spaceport, Lacoque proposes a peace treaty with full Deloyeran disarmament, offering only political independence and an informal personal promise that Earth’s armed forces will withdraw in exchange. As a sign of good will, Lacoque agrees to a demand from Reik to let Crin meet Donan on his sick bed. Meanwhile, reinforcements arrive from Earth. Zaltsev, Locke and the Fang are mystified. Even Carmel is put off by Lacoque’s condescension, but his aides persuade him to sign.

Episode 69: The Death of Donan Cashim

    ドナン・カシム死す (DONAN KASHIMU shisu). Aired 1983-02-11.

At a press conference, Lacoque clarifies his intention to abolish the eighth state and recognize the independence of Deloyer under the DPLG. In response to a question from Lartav, Carmel claims Samarin will be along to take over negotiations after the preliminary stage. In reality, Lacoque plans to put Samarin in a PR foothold. If hostilities are renewed, Samarin will appear to be the villain. To weaken Samarin’s hold over the LASF, Lacoque is planning a provocation. Carmel is relieved to see Lacoque drinking alcohol, like a human being, as they talk the matter over in private. They explicitly mention tatemae, putting up a front where Carmel pretends to insist on Samarin being the head of state.

Locke goes to Doga to investigate Samarin’s silence. A helicopter arrives at the LASF camp to bring Crin to Donan. A soldier threatens him and reporters take pictures. Fina and Rahvin Cashim arrive from Earth, without Royle and Sarah. Donan wants to speak to Crin alone. Neil, the old doctor, advises Crin that this may be the last chance.

On his death bed, Donan explains himself. As the head of this family, he wants the best for it. As the highest political leader of Earth, he wants to protect all people from ecological disaster, saying humanity has devoured the Earth. While Crin does not presently want power, Donan supposes it would have a similar effect on him. Donan hotly denies acting out of self-interest. His illness has spurred him to work for the common good. He still rejects Samarin’s idealism as something counter to human nature. Crin is glad to hear his father’s motive was altruistic and asserts his own faith that people can live up to a higher standard. They hold hands, and Crin notices his father’s has grown thin. They remember a trip they took together in a sailship on Earth; the child’s first.

As he leaves the room, Crin calls in Fina. Within moments, Donan loses consciousness. Amid the commotion, Crin stumbles away. Alone on the tarmac, he sees his father in the sky, smiling and turning to leave. Crin weeps.

Episode 70: The Laying Down of Arms

    武装解除 (busou kaijo). Aired 1983-02-18.

Donan’s casket is carried onto a shuttle to be delivered to Earth. Carmel’s men bring Samarin to the spaceport and plead with him to accept his diminished role and order Zaltsev to disarm. Seeing the reinforcements arriving from Earth, Samarin bitterly contends that if Carmel had allowed the assault to occur five days earlier, the LASF could have taken the port.

Lacoque meets with Samarin and then orders the troops to surround Zaltsev’s encampment and provoke the LASF to break the cease-fire. A Major Schmidt commands the encircling detachment and orders Zaltsev, by radio, to disarm. Zaltsev demands to talk to Samarin and plans to make a visit to the spaceport, but firing breaks out and quickly escalates into an all-out assault. Despite hearing Lacoque talk about provocation, Carmel seems to believe—idiotically—that Zaltsev took the initiative.

Zana is killed. Samarin agrees to Lacoque’s demands, including the arrest of Zaltsev, requiring only that other veterans be free to leave. Samarin goes to sell the lie that they have won. Zaltsev understands him and is grateful for having had the chance to live purposefully for a while.

George fires madly into the air. Chico throws down his big E gun in disgust. Rocky wonders whether their fallen comrades will be satisfied. Federation soldiers take away the Dougram itself on a flatbed carrier. Samarin and Lacoque sign the peace agreement on November 18 and shake hands for the cameras.

Episode 71: A Triumphal March for Show

    粉飾の凱旋パレード (funshoku no gaisen PAREEDO). Aired 1983-02-25.

Most of the LASF troops accept peace and are flown home. Even Huckle believes they’ve won. Zaltsev enters military prison. Samarin sulks, believing the people’s expectations will be disappointed, as the Dougram is literally paraded through Kardinal City on its carrier in front of a cheering crowd. Some hold portraits of dead loved ones who fought for this. However, George, Chico and Rocky are not the only critics left. Some other veterans rush out of a bar to ask Samarin what happened. Getting no reply, they shout “Deloyer isn’t independent! Don’t be fooled!” As these rabble-rousers are beaten to silence, Samarin stops his car and makes an impromptu speech, feigning optimism about the forthcoming negotiations for the precise terms of independence, but also asking the people to be strict.

Rocky wonders what Samarin was trying to say. Bux, the old resistance man, fills him in: “He said we lost.” He also tells the Fang that Jork is dead and that Zaltsev’s sentence is 30 years, not the slap on the wrist the Fang had been led to expect. The Dougram will become a monument on a public square. The Fang resolves to take it back. George’s showman spiel keeps the guards occupied while Crin climbs into the cockpit. His batteries are empty but Rocky starts the carrier and drives away. The Fang sings the old song of the compass. They are pursued, and the Dougram’s linear gun won’t fire, but Locke saves the day and fills them in on Carmel’s betrayal and Samarin’s house arrest.

Destin is still hanging out with Olena, the restaurateur who ran the little place where he was reintroduced in episode 61. She doesn’t want him to take any more risks.

Episode 72: Heroic Rescue

    英雄奪回 (eiyuu dakkai). Aired 1983-03-04; I was not yet 1 day old.

Huckle and Nanashi meet Bux for new details on Carmel. Carmel’s men hear of this, since they’re having Bux’s hideout watched. Carmel orders him arrested, but the old smuggler is gone by the time the G-men arrive.

Lacoque shows both talent and grit at the negotiating table. He even thinks about Cashim’s overriding concern: The exploration of more planets needed to offload Earth, happening under Earth’s control via the polar spaceport. Carmel resolves to struggle through it and get the best deal he can for Deloyer.

Samarin is forced to attend a party for the political and business elite. Daisy’s father will be there. Daisy herself, who watched the parade on TV with Dalloway, goes to see her father at his hotel, but she is too early for his arrival. She learns from the clerk that the Dougram was put up for display and she goes to find Crin. The soldiers guarding the now-empty square treat her with contempt and display ignorance of the Fang’s involvement in the theft.

Back at the hotel, Daisy does meet Morea. He makes an off-handed offer of private donations to the orphanage and other charities, and says he wants to see her as a bride. Meanwhile, at the party, Samarin makes another strained speech and is quickly escorted off stage by his wardens. The Fang tails his car to the villa where he is being held, guarded by armless bipedal AG9s and other heavy weapons. Adding glider wings to the Dougram, they free the professor in a nocturnal assault. He thanks them but does not share in their laughter.

Episode 73: The Silent Leader

    沈黙する指導者 (chinmoku suru shidousha). Aired 1983-03-11.

Daisy goes to see Lartav, who seems to have gotten promoted. He speculates that an internal power struggle caused the sudden change of course, but he hasn’t figured out the details.

Seeing negotiations threatened by the Fang’s actions, Carmel applies a great deal of force. Outmatched, the Fang retreats with Samarin, while Bux and Locke hold off a second wave. In a glade, Samarin explains to the Fang that continuing the armed struggle will only upset the populace. He has settled for swallowing his own bile and accepting peace on Earth’s terms, reasoning that, by the time he was sent to the pole to sign the treaty, Federation reinforcements there were already overwhelming.

Chico refuses to accept this, thinking it betrays those who died in the struggle for liberation. George is more prepared to concede the point and Huckle insists that independence itself is good enough. In fact, Huckle identifies Chico’s and George’s plan to kill Carmel for his betrayal as terrorism. They still head off to do it, but they’re interrupted by more Public Order troops.

At the negotiating table, Lacoque proposes to focus Federation colonization efforts on planet Milanedo with exclusivity, throwing scraps to Deloyer. He has the Three States’s full support. It seems that Medohr has been eclipsed as planned, in which case the whole affair on Deloyer has upset the balance of power even on Earth.

Episode 74: Great Persuasion

    大いなる説得 (ooinaru settoku). Aired 1983-03-18.

Seeing Billy wounded in the leg (again), Samarin asks Locke to take him—“a man without a future”—to see Carmel. Locke tries to comply but has to break straight through the enemy line. In that attempt, Samarin takes a bullet through the chest. Bleeding, Samarin is let through to Carmel—with Locke still carrying his assault rifle on his shoulder—where he begs for the lives of the Fang and Locke’s men. Carmel agrees to call off the attack. Turning to go, Locke tells Carmel and his closest associates that he, for one, will be watching them for a very long time.

On the way back to the forest and the Fang, Samarin muses that his debt is too great to allow the Fang to die. They have retreated out of the forest near Kardinal City and into a desert region where it is harder to hide. Elated to find the Fang still alive, Samarin tells them that they must not choose continued struggle and death. He says it is better to work with the new government, towards a greater independence by peaceful means, but the Fang isn’t interested in such political realism. The professor then suggests they could instead settle one of the new worlds to build a better human society, as he tried and failed to do on Deloyer. He says his farewells and dies. Rocky immediately blames himself, howling in grief.

Episode 75: The Burned Remains

    燃えつきたあとに (moetsukita ato ni). Aired 1983-03-25.

Billy is back on his feet, but while Carmel pulled back the Public Order force, Lacoque sent in a Federation force instead. As the first wave of this force attacks, Lacoque speaks to its reserves, portraying the Deloyeran government as a newborn babe crying for sovereignty. “Knowledge is power”, he says, but he seems to mean “might makes right”. Carmel commits to a military confrontation, putting his foot down and remembering Samarin’s accurate prediction that he would come to regret a false peace.

Locke’s men are being killed as they and the Fang run out of ammunition. When a larger Public Order force returns and orders the Federation commander to stand down, that commander calls Lacoque, who tells him not to retreat, nor fire the first shot. On his way up the steps of the capitol to resolve the crisis, having passed a crowd of reporters including Lartav, Lacoque is confronted by Destin, who asks for a cozy position in return for keeping silent. However, Lacoque still despises the man. Called a parasite, the once-zealous Destin flies into a rage, shooting Lacoque in the back, then laughing madly as he is dragged away.

Lacoque dies. The Federation forces retreat. Carmel says to his Public Order officer that all the Fang has to do is lay down their arms and they will be free to go as heroes of the revolution. Bux and Locke immediately comply, heading off to bury their dead.

Crin refuses to leave the Dougram. It is everything to him, he says. The Fang march into the double sunset and rig the turbozak to blow, tossing their weapons onto the pyre of the machine.

Crin departs from Deloyer without contacting Daisy. He leaves a message with Lartav that he will return in six months. Lartav plans to stay for a while, and so will she. Cut to the Cashim mansion on Earth, where Crin returns to his mother’s arms.

In the desert, the wreck of the Dougram sits as if in thought, all paint blasted away by fire, sand and wind, ready for an older Canary to find it in the first episode.