Gatchaman Episode 86: “Galactor’s Monopoly Operation”

BOTP Episode: “Super Space Spies”





“Due to world wide population increases,” the narrator tells us (while we view a scene of completely unpopulated mountains), “and an unstable climate, sugar production has nearly stopped.” (Guess Galactor won’t be rebuilding Ibukron any time soon.)

“So,” continues the narrator, as we see a couple people now –two mountain climbers to be specific, “the artificial sweetener, sugare [pronounced sugaré] is now being distributed across the globe as an alternative.”





One climber loses his footing and, with a cry, begins sliding down the steep rock face he was climbing as his companion, higher up, seizes hold of the falling climber’s rope. Unfortunately, the rope breaks, and the falling climber now digs his pick axe into the ice and snow in hopes of slowing or stopping his rapid descent.





However the man arrives at the bottom of the slope with something of a thump, as his companion calls “Are you all right?” from high above.





The fallen climber sits up and calls back that he is, in fact, all right and his companion tells him “Wait there, I’ll come help you.”

While waiting, he goes over to a nearby mountain stream and splashes some water on his face, but some of the water also gets in his mouth, and he’s clearly surprised by its taste.





“Wait –this is sweet. It’s sugare!” he cries.

And with that revelation, we now cut to the Crescent Coral Base, where happy fish swim peacefully. Inside, Dr. Nambu strides into a room and pauses to check his watch.





“According to a timely report I just received,” he announces, “Someone has bought up the world’s entire supply of sugare.”

We see who he’s announcing this to, as we get a look at Ken and Jinpei, in birdstyle. Ken stands up indignantly, hearing this news.

“Did you say they bought up the entire supply?” asks Ken. Yes, Ken, that’s what he said (perhaps someone’s spent too many hours flying a small plane without the protection afforded by headphones?)

“Boy, those guys gotta have some kind of sweet tooth,” snarks Jinpei.

Dr. Nambu thinks the buyers’ objective is uncertain, but adds “Something like this can only lead to one group.”

Ken mutters “SPECTRE?… KAOS?...” before settling on “Galactor!”

(Heh, someone at ADV, it seems, was a James Bond and a Get Smart fan –in the subs he hits on Galactor right away.)

Dr. Nambu concurs with his conclusion, while holding his chin thoughtfully.

Now we see that the whole Team is present, as they all ponder this information.





Ryu slouches back in his seat philosophically, saying (in the subs) that as long as he has food, he can live without sugare.

(Not consistent with his attitude in the Ibukron episode, really. In the dub, he says he has a year’s supply already stashed away.)

“It’s not just your stomach we have to think about,” retorts Jun indignantly to Ryu. She’s thinking about children who will be denied sweets.

“Yeah,” chimes in a scowling Jinpei, “If there’s no sugare in this world anymore I’ll just die! I won’t have anything left to live for!”

Joe, who has been listening to this rant with eyes closed and arms folded now turns and puts a squelching hand on Jinpei’s head.

“Don’t let your spool unwind, kid,” says Joe, shoving him down, as Jinpei protests “But Joe!”

Dr. Nambu cuts in, noting that Jinpei’s distress points to Galactor’s likely plan here –“An attempt to cause social unrest and panic.”

But now Jun asks what their grounds for involvement in the matter are, if Galactor bought all the sugare (as opposed to stealing it.)

“Well, just think about it,” replies Dr. Nambu, “Where would Galactor take all the sugare they purchased, hmm?”

Everyone pauses to think about this, and Ken answers first, smiling in understanding.

“They’ll take it to Galactor’s headquarters,” he says, “Won’t they, Doc?”

Dr. Nambu nods, adding “We suspect Galactor’s headquarters is a very large scale operation, with a population of hundreds of thousands, possibly over a million.”

Okay, that would be rather hard to keep secret, wouldn’t it?

But, we see now an image of numerous Galactor workers, all busy at an assembly line to construct machine guns.





One worker, weary and sweaty from riveting something on each gun as they move by on a conveyor belt, pauses to wipe his brow, as a gun-toting goon on a screen behind him suddenly yells “Back to work, slowpoke!”





These guys need a union, I think. Nevertheless, this is an interesting glimpse into where and how Galactor gets things other than its mechas.

“A majority of its workforce are engineers who are brought there by force from countries all over the world,” continues Dr. Nambu as we now see two such forcibly conscripted people –looks like a man and wife- waving to their child as they approach a playground surrounded by a high chain link fence (and guarded by an armed goon). A little kid runs to them happily, and the three then head towards their Galactor-provided housing as Dr. Nambu goes on “Their wives and children are probably there too, and for those children, sugare is absolutely essential.”





As he’s saying this, we see the kid sitting at a table, eating some kind of heavily frosted cake. Like episode 12, with Ibukron, this episode is really drumming up the importance of sugar and sweets for children!





Now we’re back to seeing Dr. Nambu, as he concludes “By buying up the sugare and taking it to their base, Galactor can supply their people while disrupting worldwide distribution. Perhaps their plan kills two birds with one stone.”





Joe scowls and punches one hand with his fist, angry at Galactor’s “dirty trick.”

So, Dr. Nambu wants them to fly to Snowy Valley, by Big Yellow Mountain –called “the roof of the world.”

Hmm, must be part of the Himalayas… In fact, the map Dr. Nambu points to looks vaguely like the shape of India.





Everyone is puzzled by this, but now Dr. Nambu explains, “It seems that when the snow melts, the water is sweet.”

Clearly the mountain climbers spread the word.

So now we cut to a scene of the God Phoenix flying over high mountains, and then Big Yellow Mountain appears on the view screen.





Jun thinks it’s magnificent looking, though Jinpei can only wish that it were all made of sugare. They land and everyone gets out to investigate an area at the foot of the mountain. For Jinpei, this entails making a snow cone and giving it a lick.





His face rapidly turns unhappy. “Hey, this is just snow!” he yells.

Ryu assumes the sugare is much higher up the mountain. Ken is wondering what sugare is doing at all in such a seemingly-deserted place. Jun wonders if it’s merely “a stopping place on their transportation route.”

Ken doesn’t think so.

Joe wonders if there was an accident while they were transporting the sugare, and as he says this, Ken spots a gleaming shard of metal in the snow.





Ken thinks something big might be buried in the snow there, and Ryu decides that he’s the best person to find out. He tries tugging on the shard.





However, it proves more difficult to move than he’d expected. Ryu loses his grip and goes flying backwards, crashing into Jinpei and sending them both tumbling into the snow, per their required comic relief duty.





Plan B entails tying a rope to the shard and using Jinpei’s buggy to do the tugging.

But, the ropes slides off the shard, which causes everyone to gasp as Jinpei’s buggy ends up nose-down in the snow.





So, a plan C is required, and it consists of Ken firing up the engines of his G1 jet such that they’re blasting heat directly at the shard.





The snow begins to melt, and it sure looks like something big is there…

Everyone continues to stare, and before long, a massive damaged aircraft is uncovered.

“It looks like a huge cargo plane,” says Ryu, but Jun notes that no one has reported any missing transport planes in this region.

Joe wonders if it’s a Galactor plane, and Ken confirms his hunch by noticing a red Galactor symbol on part of the wrecked plane.





Ken quickly contacts Dr. Nambu to tell him what they’ve found.

“Good –I want you to search it thoroughly,” replies Dr. Nambu’s voice from Ken’s bracelet.

But somewhere else, an underwater vessel is moving through water.

“Meanwhile,” says the narrator, “Galactor is also searching for the missing transport plane.”

And, boy, are they searching in the wrong place!

And, we get our first look at the Captain of the Week for this underwater Galactor mecha, and he is sight! It’s been a while, I think, since we had one this silly.

Behold Captain Tiger Shark:





Now, back at Yellow Mountain, some lights on a console suddenly activate inside the wreckage of the transport plane but the Ninjas are too far away to notice.





“When the plane’s transmitter is reactivated,” the narrator tells us, the crew of Captain Tiger Shark’s mecha pick up the signal.

A goon informs the Captain of the newly-found signal and he demands the coordinates. Receiving them from the goon, he activates a map and, looking at it, says “As I suspected…”

We don’t get to hear what he suspected.

We do get an on-screen Berg Katse though.





Katse’s been informed that the transport plane is on Big Yellow Mountain, but he’s wondering why it suddenly started transmitting a signal now. Captain Tiger Shark speculates some kind of shock reactivated the transmitter. Katse, lip curled in a sneer, retorts that he’s figured out that something’s reactivated it –he’s concerned that the “something” is other, non-Galactor people.

“It’s a high mountain,” muses the Captain, “There shouldn’t be anything up there except animals and birds-”

“Did you say ‘birds’?” demands Katse, “That’s it. It’s the Science Ninja Team.” He’s not pleased with this thought.

“How would they know to look up there?” queries the Captain, only to be told “They have their ways,” by a grim Katse.

Katse tells him to use caution investigating, and the Captain bows as Katse cuts out.

Next, we see some debris from the wrecked transport plane, on a table.





“Before he could do that,” explains the narrator, “Gatchaman and the others took all the plane parts that might be clues, and brought them to Dr. Nambu at the Crescent Base where they were being thoroughly analyzed.”

And Dr. Nambu is also speaking on a cordless telephone.

“Then, by asking the head of the intelligence department,” continues the narrator, “to run an ID check on the name of the person who shipped the sugare, he discovered that the one who had bought up all the artificial sweetener was the international dealer in death, Martin Gillman.”

We get an image of Gillman.





‘Then, by looking at the fuel gauge and the flight recorder in the transport plane that had crashed, Dr. Nambu deduced [by taking rulers to a map while the Ninjas watch] four possible points of departure.”

So now Ken’s G1 jet is speeding off across a sea, Joe’s G2 car is zooming along a road, and Jun on her bike is skimming fast across the surface of some body of water as the narrator explains that the Team has split up to search all four locations simultaneously.

Dr. Nambu studies a map. I guess that Big Yellow Mountain isn’t in India after all –unless Australia has somehow moved all the way across the Indian Ocean –Darwin, meet Mumbai.





Ken, we are informed, is investigating “Location A.” This entails looking sexy on a beach –whoo hoo!





But he “turns up nothing unusual.”

Joe checks out “Location B,” and unfortunately he keeps all his clothes on while doing this. Location B “is also a wash.”





And Jun, in location C, also finds no clues.





“Only D remains,” says a discouraged looking Dr. Nambu, putting a red marker on that location on his map.





And now we see Location D, where seagulls fly in circles near the waterfront and our favourite comic relief duo are pulling up in front of a fancy hotel in a limo.

A valet opens the limo’s door and out steps a pompous looking Jinpei, carrying a butterfly net, wearing glasses and garbed in traditional safari attire, pith helmet and all. He is followed by Ryu, wearing a fez and a suit (and carrying all the luggage).

Inside, they’ve been shown to their spacious room. “How do you like it, my fine Sirs?” asks a man who is perhaps the hotel’s manager.





“Just splendid!” says Jinpei (affecting, in the dub, an English accent).

Ryu, taking on the role of manservant to Jinpei, informs the hotel manager that Jinpei is “the Prince of Tuba,” adding “he’s very fond of insects and wishes to gather specimens for his collection.”

“Oh, so you’re the Prince of that country that’s famous for its sugare?” remarks the manager, “This is quite an honor.”

Ryu, flourishing grandly with his arms, now informs the manager that “he’ll spare no expense to obtain the right specimens for his royal collection –right, Prince Jinpei?”

Jinpei startles at Ryu’s use of his real name and makes a shushing gesture. Ryu, a bit nervous now, clasps his hands together and quickly adds that the Prince is looking for ants, and will pay “100 million” to anyone who can inform him where he can find ants.

The manager is impressed by the sound of this offer, though he briefly refers to Jinpei as “a kid” before correcting himself to “Prince” and he goes running from the room eagerly.

Wearily, Ryu closes the door behind him, leaning against it and then sinking down to sit on the floor. “I’m wiped,” he says.

Jinpei, likewise yawns and announces he’s beat. Recalling episode 50, where they had to suffer a hotel with fleas and lizards, I’m wondering if Ryu and Jinpei were determined, this time around, to get better digs.

But clearly word has spread of their extremely generous cash-for-ants offer, and a long line up has formed outside the hotel.





From the vantage of their high balcony, Jinpei and Ryu are staring in dismay, asking the manager if all the people lined up are there for them. The manager happily confirms this, as Jinpei and Ryu exchange glum looks.

“I saw them everywhere,” a man is telling a valet (who’s hastily taking notes), “There were ants in the place I keep my sugare.” Others are waiting close behind him for their chances to be heard.





Upstairs, Ryu comes into the room, where Jinpei is stretched out, relaxing, on the massive bed. He wants to know if Ryu got any leads downstairs.

Ryu complains that it’s pretty much all “bad information,” and wonders if their Location D is a dud.

“It’s not working, huh?” says Jinpei sadly, “Ants always gather around sweet things, so I though it would.”

Actually that sounds like a pretty good plan –or more than what Ken, Joe or Jun seemed to have, anyway.

“I guess I’ll get in the bath,” says Jinpei, disappearing into the bathroom. Just then, the manager (not bothering to knock or anything) barges into the room crying “We found someone! Someone who knows where there’re lots of ants!”

Ryu suspects another scam –someone making stuff up to get money- but Jinpei emerges from the bathroom, bath preparations interrupted, to hear the manager insist that this new informant is the real thing.





And then he beckons and this finder-of-ants comes into the room.





Smitten with her appearance, Jinpei is suddenly embarrassed to be seen wearing a towel and Ryu gasps.

“Nice to meet you, I’m May,” she tells Ryu. He blushes and manages to stutter out his name. Her eye glints briefly (the mark of evil!) and she asks if they’re ready to be shown the ants’ location.

Still blushing and smiling, Ryu says they are.





However, Jinpei is less easily taken in and is now regarding her skeptically (perhaps he noticed that glint) from the ajar door of the bathroom.

“Something about her smells fishy,” he thinks to himself, holding his chin.

Next, we see Ryu trailing admiringly behind May as she leads him along the waterfront and finally to a warehouse. Sure enough, Ryu pulls out a magnifying glass and stoops to study the trail of little ants that are crawling across the ground and entering the warehouse through a small chink in its wall.

Ryu, pleased, concludes to himself that “There’s got to be sugare around here somewhere,” and he stands up again.

“Thank you very much, Miss May,” says Ryu, “We’ll send you the money later.”

The fact that she accepts this happily and merely heads on her way, saying “Enjoy the ants,” ought to make Ryu a little suspicious. But no, he’s all smiles, waving after her as he walks –until he walks right into the warehouse’s door and bonks himself in the face.

And even then, he’s still smiling!




Commercial break!