Zone Fighter Episode 22 – Gyakushuu! Suupaajikiro-wo Taose

aka 逆襲! スーパージキロを倒せ aka Counterstrike! Strike Down Super-Jikiro! aka Counterattack! Defeat Super Jiriko

1973
Written by Masaru Takesue
Directed by Masao Minowa

Jikiro hate bathtime!!

It’s time for another episode of Zone Fighter with Counterstrike! Strike Down Super-Jikiro!AKA Hikaru Gets a Girlfriend! Yes, the producers have noticed that Hikaru is a red-blooded Japanese male, but somehow doesn’t even look at the ladies, so they have one run into him this episode…literally! But don’t get too attached, she’s a one and done, and Hikaru even has a completely different “girlfriend” a few episodes later.

This episode takes place over the longest stretch of time that a single episode does, the exact amount I couldn’t determine, but Hikaru goes through two surgeries and recovery periods. Even with Zone Family super healing, at least two weeks goes by where a terror-beast is free to cause havoc and destruction.

That terror-beast is stupid Jikiro, now back in Super Jikiro form. Someone must have really loved that monster concept, as this is the second of three appearances of Jikiro, though technically he’s Super Jikiro (and thus a different monster according to the official stats.) Weirdly, when he pops up again, he’ll just be plain old Jikiro. That episodes opens its own can of worms about terror-beast identities that will be discussed when the time comes. What is important is we got a new version of Jikiro with a new red paint job and new magnetic powers that prove to be more than a match for Zone Fighter. At least until he has radical surgery. Super Jikiro destroys a huge boat in the beginning of the episode and is implied to be rampaging in Tokyo Harbor, possibly killing untold numbers and disrupting the Japanese economy.

Painting new colors on old toys seems to be the new trick of the Garoga Scientist, because there is also a debut of a Garoga Submarine, which looks exactly like a Garoga Fighter, except it has yellow trim instead of red trim. Big difference there! It doesn’t have immunity from being shot up by Zone Fighter’s flying underwater car, which is an oversight they should have saw the need for before the prototype was even assembled!

If you watch Zone Fighter just for the random appearances of toy store owner Takeru Jou, then this is a sad episode for you, because it’s the last appearance of the random character who took time away from characterization time for actual members of the Zone Family. We can only assume that he was murdered by the Garoga, and his head now tops Baron Garoga’s cane.

If you like shows with lots of surgery, people getting scalpels to the eye, and innocent people killed, then you’ll totally enjoy this episode! Don’t forget to drop by the Zone Fighter Splash Page for everything Zone Fighter.

Yes, yes, clocks running backwards. That means lunch won’t be until yesterday! (MST3K 4 lyfe, suckas!) This somehow makes people walk and drive backwards, probably because they are morons. Don’t bother to save those people if the Garoga attack, Zone Family.

A ship in the harbor is suddenly attacked by Super Jikiro! It bursts into flames and probably has a lot of dead people on board. Such a senseless loss of a good model of a ship.

Zone Fighter is there to fight! Super Jikiro can shoot bullets from his fingers, and has upgraded super magnetic powers! Zone’s meteor blasts are ineffective, and Zone is getting owned by Jikiro. Excuse me, Super Jikiro. The Gargoa Scientist is congratulated by Bargon Garoga for his efforts.

Hikaru is now driving his car (I guess he lost and is going to the hospital? Good thing Super Jikiro didn’t murder him like he does to every monster he fights) and he’s driven off the road by a woman driver! Huh huh huh, women can’t drive, am I right, fellas? Yuk yuk yuk! Hey, some 1960s comedian has hijacked this review! Get out of here, 1960s comedian! At TarsTarkas.NET, we say fuck the patriarchy!

Luckily for Hikaru, the lady is Junko Wakasugi, a nurse at the Space Medicine Research Institute, and she takes him in to get operated on. Instead of a real hospital. Hey, you got to burn through that grant money somehow! Hikaru is having flashbacks while under the knife, and the Zone family is worried that he’s off the radar after they saw footage of Super Jikiro’s rampage.

Next Hikaru is walking around the hospital in no shirt with bandages all over and showing off for the cute nurse. I guess he finally told his family where he is, as they go visit him in the hospital in the next scene. Not his parents, because why would they want to show up? Only his siblings are there to wish him a speedy recovery.

Which happens, because soon Hikaru and Junko are in the ocean looking for metal fragments of Super Jikiro (and he’s checking out her white swimsuit and summer hat) as the Zone siblings and Takeru Jou (who is wearing a black and white striped Hamburglar shirt) play in the background. Suddenly, two Garoga frogmen attack with spearguns! Junko is hurt on her arm, but the Garoga frogmen are driven off. Sadly, they aren’t real frog men, just scuba guys.

Hikaru patches up Junko’s arm, as the nurser is now the nurse. They touch each other and look into each others’ eyes for a long moment before Hikaru gets nervous and pretends to be stretching as she giggles. Hikaru cannot handle the human emotion known as love, which is why Junko gets junked after this episode ends.

Hikaru is going to have surgery at the Space Institute to become immune to the magnetic effects of Super Jiriko, because we need more surgical drama. Drama we get, because two of the doctors are Garoga agents! Dun dun DUN! They stab the head surgeon in the stomach!

His screams attract Hotaru and Akira, who catch the scalpels the villains throw at them and toss them back, each hitting a Garoga in the eye. The two Garoga teleport away. Junko must perform the surgery on Hikaru, with instructions from the dying doctor. I guess that’s the more sane solution than to not have the surgery and get the doctor a doctor, then do the surgery.

Now Junko is on a boat for some reason despite the fact Super Jikiro is on the loose, and her even involved in the special methods being used to take him down. She’s traveling to some sort of convention to present her and the dead doctor’s work, because that can’t wait a day. And she has memories of that one time Hikaru wore an awful awful awful but awesome blue blazer with white polka dots and gave her a necklace in the midst of all their laughing and merriment. She thinks about love a lot and stuff.

So of course she and the rest of the boat are hijacked by Garoga! The two goons who got scalpels to the eyes are there, each wearing an eyepatch in their human forms despite the human forms just being illusions and thus not needing eyepatches, but okay. They toss her necklace overboard…and we see it’s a transmitter!

Zone Fighter is a stalker creep!

Zone is on the way in the Mighty Liner in Submarine Mode, which is just like it’s flying mode except there is a fish tank in front of the camera. OMG, a Garoga submarine! Which is just like their Garoga Fighters except it has yellow trim instead of red. There is an underwater dogfight, complete with explosions and the vessels acting like they’re just flying, including loop de loops. It’s the most exciting enemy submarine fight you will see, because it’s ridiculous. Zone blows up the Garoga Sub, and Super Jikiro attacks.

Zone Grows big and fights him, to teach Jikiro he’s not so super after all.

Junko is about to be gunned down by the eyepatched Garoga, who first revert to their Garoga forms and don’t have eyepatches. Like I said earlier! Takeru Jou knocks on the door, dressed as a boat waiter and fights the Garogas. Uh, everyone was captive, what was the point of dressing like waiter, Takeru Jou? Also, how did you get on the ship? Were you hiding on the ship in case this happened, or were you spying on Junko for stalker Zone Fighter? This just gets creepier and creepier… Zone Angel and Zone Junior fight other Garoga on the deck.

Zone Fighter and Super Jikiro fight on the ocean floor, because one is a robot and one is a moron who forgot he can’t breathe underwater. Super Jikiro remembers this and tries to hold Zone Fighter under so he’ll drown, but Zone breaks free and just fights more? Zone must have oxygen deprivation, making him too delusional to get more oxygen and causing him to lash out violently at anything nearby. He does eventually go to the surface, but long after he should be dead.

Zone Fighter fires one of his wrist guns, Super Jikiro magnetizes the bullets and shoots them back, and Zone makes them go right in the barrels so it’s like nothing happened. Then Zone shoots his other wrist gun and blows up Super Jikiro’s arm and then Super Jikiro.

That’s the power of surgery, mother fucker! Get surgery today! DISCLAIMER: This post sponsored by the World Society for Surgery. Have lots of unnecessary surgery today!

Rated 4/10 (opening rings, frogman hop, dying doctor, stalker necklace)

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