Alright, our last set of one-shots before we get back to main storylines.
(CyborgGirl) Our first chapter of the volume is called Snow Carnival. Joe meets up with Albert in…..pbbbbttt…..wherever this is….Some town. The town is holding their annual Snow Carnival. While being a traditional time of fun and festivities, it’s also a time where legend states that a witch arrives looking for sacrifices.
However, Albert states that this witch is no legend. In fact, dozens of people from the village have died over the years during the Snow Carnival due to the witch. She supposedly lives high up in the rough snowy mountains, said to be impossible to ski on, but since Joe and Albert are cyborgs, he decided to call Joe down to help him investigate.
And Joe, apparently, is no skiing slouch. Look at this.
I know nothing about skiing, but that looks both very difficult and very foolish.
A blizzard comes out of nowhere, stunning the two. Even with their enhanced cyborg bodies, they can’t withstand such cold temperatures for too long, so they seek shelter in a nearby castle. Luckily, the castle is inhabited. Unluckily, the residents don’t seem too friendly.
They’re initially met with a young woman, Linda, and their dog, Andromeda. The dog viciously barks at them, but Linda takes some pity on them and says she’ll ask her father if they can stay until the storm passes. Her father, however, is colder than the blizzard outside and vehemently denies them shelter for literally no reason. He just says outsiders aren’t allowed.
His tune changes a bit when Joe saves his other daughter, Lena, when she falls from the top of the stairway, using his acceleration powers to grab her in the nick of time. Since the cat’s out of the bag with that stunt, they decide it’s better to be honest and reveal that they’re cyborgs.
Later that night, Lena comes into Joe’s room and wishes to discuss their cyborg nature. Lena explains that while Linda has been in good health her whole life, she’s been in poor health. Her father brought them up to this castle to allow her to recuperate.
Worried about where she’s going with this conversation, he bluntly asks if she’s considering becoming a cyborg to improve her health. She starts to say that she’s already done something when Joe hears someone eavesdropping. When he searches around, no one’s there, but he’s sure it was Linda (And it was.)
When he returns to his room, Lena has vanished.
A short while later, Lena returns to her room and is faced with a clearly angry Linda who believes Lena was in Joe’s room for the sake of getting physical with him. Linda tries to hold Lena and says she’ll do anything for her, but Lena rejects her. Linda explodes in anger and throws her down on her bed, accusing her of wanting to get with Joe since he’s the first man she’s seen since they came to the castle.
Lena tries to explain, but Linda just storms out of the room.
Before you ask, yes, this is actually going there. But it’s also not……But it also is again. I’ll explain in a bit.
Linda barges into Albert’s room and immediately offers herself to him, starting to take her shirt off, but he politely turns her down. When he mentions how different she is from Lena, she once again snaps acting as if he’d like Lena more. Then she storms out of that room too. When Albert’s alone, he sadly looks at his hand and says he doubts she’d care much for his inhuman body anyway.
As Linda collapses in tears, we cut to outside in the snowstorm where a man is trying to make his way back home. The ‘witch’ suddenly appears and beheads him. Seemingly using the broken glass from the window she broke, the ‘witch’ also beheads the man’s wife at their home. The last shot we see of this family is their baby crying alone in its crib.
…….past!Ishinomori, are you okay? Because JESUS. This chapter’s already been going a mile a minute, but this part took me off-guard. Holy shit.
The next morning, Lena wakes up from a nightmare to see blood all over her hands. She breaks down in tears, indicating that this isn’t the first time this has happened, and she desperately wants this to end.
Once the storm has cleared, Joe and Albert take their leave. Joe asks why Lena isn’t seeing them off, and Linda flippantly says the shock from falling from the balcony left her bed-ridden since she’s so ill.
They leave, and Lena cries at the window. Linda comforts her, tells her she belongs to her, and they share a kiss.
As I implied before, yep, these sisters are lovers. But this isn’t exactly what it seems…..but it also is. I’ll explain more later.
Albert and Joe stay at an inn in town. Albert points out that the town’s in a tizzy over another witch attack….and he says it with a big smile on his face. Dude, two people got beheaded and left a baby orphaned. Maybe shift your facial expression a tad.
Joe decides to tell Albert his suspicions about Lena being a cyborg, but even without learning of their conversation Albert expresses the he already had his own suspicions. They now believe that she’s both a cyborg and this mysterious witch who keeps attacking the townsfolk. They head back to the castle to investigate.
Meanwhile, Lena is being held by Linda in her bedroom, which looks kinda like a little kids’ room and a garden exploded. Linda suggests the two of them travel the world together. Lena asks if their father could come along, and Linda rejects the notion saying he can just stay at home and be lonely like he’s forced them to all this time. Lena definitely has more compassion for her father than Linda does, but Linda just accuses Lena of being the favorite child, saying their father doesn’t care at all about her.
They make up, make out, and then pass out due to drugged tea. Their father comes into the room saying it’s time to perform the annual ceremony, but this one will surely be the last.
As Lena’s put on an operating table, Joe and Albert burst in, shocked that her own father would turn her into a cyborg. Their father tries to shoot at them, but his shotgun is no match for them.
They learn that their suspicions are only partially correct. Lena isn’t a cyborg at all. She’s been getting healthy human organs to replace her ailing ones.
Lena seemingly bursts in, but Albert grabs and flips her, revealing her to actually be Linda in a wig to look like Lena.
I know I’ve said this a few times over the course of this review series, but I’m going to need you to be patient with me because this explanation is a lot.
The actual cyborg and witch is Linda. Their father has been taking her healthy organs and putting them into Lena to make her healthy while giving Linda cybernetic organs. He’d do these surgeries every year, coincidentally right around the time of the Snow Carnival, and he’d slowly drug them over a few days before the surgery.
As Linda became more cybernetic, it was becoming harder to drug her fully. She’d be half asleep and half awake, and, for some reason, during this time she would go into a killing frenzy and kill locals. When she’d awaken, she’d be covered in blood, but she’d wipe it all on Lena and make her believe it was her doing.
By her own admission, she hates Lena, but she’s also in love with her. She claims Lena is hers, which I guess is why she kept making her think it was her fault so she’d think she was a monster and keep coming back to Linda. Pretty fucked up, there, Linda.
…….Also, if you’re so ‘fuzzy’ when in this drugged killer state, how do you have the presence of mind to find and put on a Lena wig? What is even the point of that? Anyone who sees the witch dies, so it’s not like anyone’s telling other people an accurate description of what the witch looks like, then it somehow gets back to Lena and she flips out. It seems like that was purely for the sake of tricking the audience, which is weird because we only saw the witch once in silhouette.
Albert asks how a father could do such a horrible thing to his children. Linda explains that she’s not his child by blood. She was adopted at a young age for the sole purpose of giving her organs over to Lena to make her healthier.
And thus the ultimate incest avoider explanation – ‘we’re not really related.’
It all just boils down to how much non-blood but still technically sibling romances squick you out. She was adopted at a young age, they were raised as sisters, they call each other ‘Sister’……Sorry, still quite squicked.
They hear a rumbling and deduce that the gunshot from before triggered what I can only assume is the world’s slowest avalanche. Seriously, that gunshot was a while ago.
…..Also, loud noises don’t trigger avalanches. That’s a myth.
Joe and Albert escape in time, but the castle is destroyed, and Lena, Linda, and their father are killed. Joe and Albert later walk through the festivities in town lamenting on how the girls never got to enjoy the Snow Carnival themselves.
Well, that was quite a ride. Snow Carnival is a very interesting story. There are some very confusing aspects to it, especially in regards to the witch stuff, but I think it works quite well.
Although, I do have to ask, if Linda was perfectly healthy with cybernetic organs, why not just give Lena the cybernetic organs? Having cybernetic organs isn’t the same as turning yourself into full near-entirely replaced with cybernetic parts cyborg like the 00 Cyborgs are.
You can’t even tell that Linda has cybernetics. She’s even shown nearly fully naked, and there’s no indication whatsoever that she even had surgery of any kind. Her only problem with her cybernetics was they would turn her into a vicious murderer when she was half-drugged, which makes absolutely no sense. I think that says more about Linda as a person than the cybernetics themselves. She never said her brain was replaced, either – not like she can donate that to Lena.
Despite the incest-induced squickiness and toxic nature of their relationship, I do have to applaud Ishinomori for choosing to include a lesbian relationship in a manga in the 60s. He even included two kisses. He’s certainly not the first, but it still wasn’t at all common to depict lesbian romances back in 1960s Japan.
The toxicity of their relationship is likely partially due to their circumstances. It still doesn’t make it right the way Linda treats Lena like she’s her property, and how she tricks her into thinking she’s a murderer just to make her stay with her, but being essentially locked up with only each other and their father for company for over a decade or so has to mess with your head. Not to mention all of the forced surgery and cybernetic replacements.
It was both tragic and a bit overly convenient that the avalanche wiped all three of them out to end the story. I can believe Joe simply couldn’t save them either because, while Linda had some cybernetics, she still probably couldn’t survive Joe’s acceleration. And Lena and their father were purely human, so they had no chance……Even though, ya know…..Joe’s done that before. *coughcoughvolume9cough*
One other thing I feel the need to point out is, boy, the framework of the story seems very familiar. There’s some strange creature killing people in a nearby small village, the origin is some creepy castle, two of the cyborgs go to investigate and realize it’s not as it seems, and then the culprits end up dying as the castle collapses around them.
This is basically, beat by beat, The Song of Lorelei. Don’t get me wrong, obviously the details are vastly different from each other, but it’s just weird how the general story beats match up so well. Really makes you concerned about how much Ishinomori was struggling when he was trying to figure out where to go with this franchise.
Moving on, our next story is called Deinonychus. That’s right, MORE DINOSAURS! Yay!
…..What the hell is up with Joe’s fingers here?
Huh….Anyway.
Dr. Ross, a researcher in Montana, has recruited 009, 002, and 005 to help him capture a deinonychus that has been spotted in the area. The group wonders if dinosaurs could really exist.
………….Are you guys for real right now?
You’ve encountered SEVERAL dinosaurs at this point, and you’re asking if they could really exist? I mean, there’s never been an actual explanation given as to why these dinosaurs exist, but you shouldn’t be questioning if they exist at this point.
Dr. Ross is an old colleague of Gilmore, and by that I mean they both worked at Black Ghost together. However, since Black Ghost has been taken down, he’s seemingly reformed and has dedicated his research to paleontology. While they’re hesitant about Ross’ legitimacy, 009 agrees to go and recruits 005 and 002 as well since they were already in America.
Ross introduces the three to his assistant, Dr. Keeley, who is totally not a bad guy.
Also, look at his jacket. It’s just scribbles.
Joe gives us an update on the others, and they’re more or less doing the same jobs in the same places they were the last time they were strewn about – 004’s in Germany being a truck driver, 007 is in London being a vaudeville actor using his transformation abilities to make funny faces, 008 is in Africa being a freedom fighter, 006 is in his restaurant in Tokyo (Wait, wasn’t he in China before?) 003 is working on her ballet, and 001 is asleep.
The deinonychus arrives and gives the boys the runaround. Meanwhile, a pterosaur shows up and blasts 002 with sonic waves while a giant ribcage emerges from the ground and knocks out 005. 009 is now all alone, and it’s clear by now that this is a trap. Ross and Keeley are working in the background controlling the robotic creatures in an effort to kill the 00 Cyborgs…err, well, three of them anyway.
009 is able to avoid the onslaught of attacks by the two dinosaurs and a fully robotic tyrannosaurus rex skeleton, which is insanely awesome.
However, he’s ensnared by the sonic waves of the pterosaur. It seems all is lost until the pterosaur crashes into the T-rex skeleton, destroying them both. Keeley accuses Ross of destroying them on purpose and shoots him for his treachery. Keeley tries to take over in order to salvage the assassination mission, but 009 is able to get back up, destroy the deinonychus robot, free 002 and 005, get back to camp, and knock out Keeley.
Ross lays dying on the floor and explains himself. He honestly did reform, and he didn’t want to hurt them, but he had no choice. He reveals that the higher ups of Black Ghost are still alive, and they forced him to do their bidding. They’re rebuilding their empire, and they wanted the 00 Cyborgs brainwashed for the sake of using them in their push towards world conquest.
As he dies, Ross warns them of the impending danger.
…..Also, 009 closes out the chapter by saying “The robot that Black Ghost used was a fossilized dinosaur of evil.” which is one of the best sentences to ever exist.
This chapter was alright. I’m always up for more dinosaur fun (was Ishinomori a big dinosaur fan?) and that robot T-rex skeleton was more than worth the price of admission, but there wasn’t a whole lot to the story.
This is confirmation that Black Ghost is fully back in action, and they’re coming for the cyborgs, but if this was their debut plan…..they seem to be faltering. Just attacking only three of the 00 Cyborgs with robot dinosaurs? Granted, it did nearly work, but I feel like it shouldn’t have.
Ross’ story is pretty sad, though. The guy did terrible things, but like Gilmore he’s trying to do good to make up for it. He had to have known intentionally crashing the pterosaur robot into the T-rex skeleton would immediately get him killed, and he did it all just to prevent the world from falling back into hell under Black Ghost. Poor guy.
This next entry will be rather short – Ghost Island.
Five years prior, 009 had single-handedly stopped Doctor Friedkin from selling a lethal bacteria he was creating for an unknown buyer who presumably would have used it to kill many people. 009 also blew up his lab in the process. The details are unknown – the chapter starts out as the lab explodes.
Friedkin swore revenge, and five years later he invited 009 back to do just that…..and I mean, literally. He sent him an invitation that explained he was going to exact his revenge. That is hilarious to me. Like “Dear hero, I am now exacting my revenge on you! Kindly come to this address to be killed. No hostages or threats if you don’t do this, just please let me get revenge. Love, villain.”
When 009 arrives on the island that Friedkin’s laboratory was on five years ago, he’s met with a cavalcade of booby traps, but he avoids them all. He meets up with the other 00 Cyborgs (barring 001), whom he’s surprised to see because he didn’t tell them about this mission. He deduces that they’re part of the revenge plot. Friedkin must have invited them to put them in harm’s way and make 009’s mission more difficult…
…I mean, I guess? They can all more than take care of themselves, barring maybe 003. If anything, this would completely screw over Friedkin considering only 009 beat him last time.
Ya know, it would.
If they were the real 00 Cyborgs.
Yeah, it turns out they’re fakes – in the worst way.
Friedkin took the DNA of all of the 00 Cyborgs….somehow….and cloned them.
They’re ENTIRELY HUMAN versions of the 00 Cyborgs.
Fake 005 attacks 009 with an ax, which he’d never do. Not just the obvious of never attacking 009 in general, but 005 hardly ever uses actual weapons. He just uses his super strength and whatever he finds.
However, he’s relatively convincing. The jig is completely up when 006 shows up and also attacks….with a regular flamethrower….Are you even trying, Friedkin? 006 naturally blows fire out of his mouth – he has no need for an external flamethrower. Also, this fake 006 is stupid enough to attack with the fire while fake 005 is standing right behind 009, causing him to get wrapped up in the flames.
While the flames are really no big deal for 009 since it’s just a normal flamethrower (006’s actual flames would probably be too much for him) they burn fake 005 alive.
Fake 006 slips and falls to his death. I guess the flamethrower’s fuel tank exploded when he fell, because there’s an explosion and we see the fake 006’s arm fly into the air.
Fake 002 arrives, swinging down from the trees (002 can fly) to stab 009. After a short tussle and a fall into the water, 002 winds up with the knife in his own chest and dies.
Fake 008 arrives on a small propelled underwater vehicle with a full-face scuba mask and oxygen tank. Yeah, that’s not suspicious on 008…
The fake tries to harpoon 009, but he grabs the harpoon and stabs 008. Dead.
009 just brutalizes the fake 004 and 007, leaving the fake 003 as the lone survivor.
She tries to keep up the act, horrified that 009 killed their friends, but he points out the obviousness that was their fakeness. He noticed it immediately while fighting 005 – he was far too weak to be the real deal, and they all died far too easily as well.
Faced with only the fake 003, he resolves to kill her as well, shooting her in the chest with his Super Gun.
A new set of clones arrive, which I don’t even know why he bothered making a second set. Surely if the first set didn’t work, a second would have no chance.
Friedkin is watching from a helicopter, so 009 just blows past the new set….which is blowing up for some reason (Booby traps?) He stops in front of the helicopter and blows it up with his Super Gun, killing Friedkin and ending his assault.
When he goes back to his hotel room on the mainland, he finds all of the 00 Cyborgs. They say that they heard news of his death and came to investigate. 009 believes Friedkin told them that…for…some reason, but he’s suspicious that they could also be clones. They prove that they’re the real deal by showing off their cybernetics, and 007 ends the chapter by turning into Shotaro Ishinomori (showing an actual photo of him) and apologizing for showing his ‘plain’ face.
That chapter was….a chapter alright. I was actually very intrigued by 009 being forced to fight all of his friends and trying to not only find some way to counter their powers but also defeat them without killing them….However, the instant 006 showed up with his flamethrower any intrigue in that was lost entirely. I didn’t immediately think they were clones, but it was clear these fakes both weren’t the real deal and were also poor replications at that since they didn’t even have similar powers.
That was disappointing enough, but to later learn that they were just human clones was even worse. Friedkin is a terrible villain if that was his plan. It hinged entirely on both 009 not being willing to fight his friends or kill them if necessary and these fully human clones having the ability to kill 009, which, good luck. Even if he didn’t have the will to fight them, the guy has an accelerator. He could just run from them in an instant, and they’d never catch up.
Friedkin knew enough about the 00 Cyborgs to know all of their powers, but didn’t think it stupid and pointless to just make these clones play pretend? Like ooh, fake 002, swing in the trees! That’s kinda like flying! Fake 008, take this scuba gear. He’ll never notice! Fake 004, you have a trademark metal hand…so….uh….wear this glove. He’ll never notice! Fake 007….err….fuck it. Just take this gun.
Then we have the ethically questionable content in this chapter. 009 just did not give a single shit about killing those clones once he realized they were clones. There’s a big philosophical debate to be had about whether clones would actually be recognized as people, and these clones seem to be mind-controlled, but I still felt bad for them when nearly all of them died by Joe’s hand (Fake 006 killed fake 005, and the fake 006 just slipped while backing up.) The deaths were pretty brutal too. Fake 005 got burned to death, fake 006 exploded, fake 002 got stabbed in the heart, and fake 008 got stabbed with a harpoon.
Then Joe just straight up murders Friedkin. Yes, he was attacking him, but he wouldn’t have if Joe just didn’t go to the island. If he didn’t, those booby traps would never be sprung and he’d never face the clones. Like I said, Friedkin never threatened he’d attack someone or do something awful if Joe didn’t go to the island. He basically just said Joe would be a wimp if he didn’t take the invitation.
The 00 Cyborgs try their best to be pacifists when it comes to humans. The chapter even opens with Joe saving Friedkin from his exploding lab. I’m not saying 009 should just roll over and let himself get killed, of course not, but like I said, the dude has an insane accelerator. He could just run away, get the other 00 Cyborgs, and find a nonlethal manner of resolving this.
Let me be clear – I, personally, don’t have a problem with killing Friedkin – he’s a dangerous psychopath – I don’t even have a big problem with the clones dying, but this whole slaughter just contrasts to the non-killer Joe’s supposed to be. Usually, when a human enemy gets killed in this series, it’s by accident or they wind up killing themselves. Murder is typically a last resort.
Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, why didn’t Joe just invite the other cyborgs in the first place? At least a couple of them. It just seems reckless and dangerous for him to go alone when Friedkin made it very obvious that this was a revenge plot.
There are two spots that kinda saved this chapter. The first came when Jet told Joe that they went to the island because they’re nine parts of one, which I thought was one of the sweetest sentiments in the entire series…..but, obviously, that was ruined when it was revealed that Jet was a fake.
The second was the Ishinomori joke at the end. That caught me very off-guard and was pretty funny, but it contrasted quite a bit with the entirely non-comedic chapter.
This next story, Green Hole, is a bit weird. The story begins by explaining that there are two massive holes in Sarisarinama, Venezuela. Humans didn’t have the ability to really explore much of the holes. What they did find after a couple weeks of exploration wasn’t worth much, so they gave up. (However, 003 says an expedition of one of the holes revealed signs of human handprints. I’d think that’d be worth not giving up on after a couple weeks, but given the limited technology available to the public back then maybe it is understandable.) However, the powerful and curious 00 Cyborgs got wind of the news and decided to have an expedition of their own.
With the powers of 002, 005, 006, 003, and 009, the group was able to travel much further into the hole than the humans were. They eventually found themselves face to face with primitive humans who began attacking them.
The assault was halted by a mysterious woman who needs to ask herself why she even bothers wearing a shirt.
This woman, who is never given a name, is able to mind-control the cyborgs somehow, barring 009. He’s able to fend off the mind-control by using acceleration. However, he pretends to go along for the sake of protecting his friends and figuring out what’s going on.
While she puts the others to sleep, she takes 005 with her to a private location. 009 follows, and he overhears the woman refer to 005 as her lover, Agamun. She directs him to some weird machine with a green jewel on top of it that she calls the Green Fire and tells him to take it. Worried about what this could do to 005, 009 emerges from the shadows and destroys the machine, to the shock and rage of the woman.
She tries to kill him with an eye beam, but he manages to accelerate away from it. The woman then sics 005 on 009. He dodges 005’s assault and gets up close to the woman who has aged significantly in the time that has passed. Her mind control powers have one major cost – her youth. She’s usually able to restore her appearance with the Green Fire, but 009 destroyed it. She’s quickly aging, and her mind control powers no longer work on either the cyborgs or her primitive human minions.
Her only option is to flip the switch on the “Ultra destruction energy panel.” What’s that? I guess it’s just a fancy name for a story-ending bomb, because that’s what it is.
The cyborgs escape, and the woman blows up the hole, killing her and everything inside.
005 then recounts the story of these people since she shared some of her memories with him when she mind controlled him.
A long time ago, a spacecraft landed in this location. In order to protect themselves from the unknown alien threat, they dug themselves a massive hole. They dug a second hole to install another base, but then the spaceship exploded.
In order to escape the radiation, she escaped underground with Agamun and captured a group of natives for research purposes.
They found a device which produced green fire that stopped the aging of cells. However, too much time had passed, her lover died sometime along the way, and that’s it. The end.
I was onboard for much of the start. There are sinkholes in Sarisarinama that were discovered shortly before this manga was written, in 1961, so there’s actually a real world backbone to this story. I also liked that the cyborgs were seemingly just going on a fun adventure together. They didn’t think Black Ghost was involved or that there was anything nefarious about the holes – they just wanted an adventure together.
However, it quickly fell apart when the woman showed up. What even is she? She seems human, but she has mind control powers and eye beams. She also accelerates in aging if she uses her mind control powers. Were the mind control powers because of the Green Fire or was it just something she had? Because it sounds like she only used the Green Fire to reverse the aging effects of her own powers.
But then if the native humans from her time are more like neanderthals, then what is she really?
How did she survive all this time by using the age reversal effects of the Green Fire but Agamun seemingly died from old age?
What even is the Green Fire? Where did it come from? The alien ship? Is the destruction disk thing the same type of tech? Why does a purely “bomb the fuck out of this place” device even exist?
Also, you’re telling me a spaceship exploded in the area thousands or millions of years ago, and still explorers just shrugged their shoulders and said “Eh, there’s nothing worth finding around here.”?
Just, overall, a very strange story.
Our final story, Mysterious Star, is not translated anywhere, so back to the translation grind for me. Oh and 006 is here to make my job more difficult. Hooray!
(Twix) This chapter starts with a couple of fishermen witnessing a strange bright light right before their boat capsizes out of nowhere. The men are declared missing. After reading about it in the paper, Joe and Chang head to West Izu to investigate. Chang is happy because he gets to fish in a new place, but he doesn’t care for the cold and is getting sick. And yes, 006, the master of fire and high-temps, is bothered by cold.
This area of Izu is typically not traveled very often and isn’t open to the public.
They suddenly hear the cries of a boy named Yuji Hamada loudly cursing out the ocean telling some monster that he’ll get him some day. While the boy is a bit rude and hot-headed, he eventually tells Joe and Chang about the monster.
Local legend states that a glowing monster named Kaima lives at the bottom of the ocean. They even have shrines where they pray to pacify the terrible beast. If I’m translating correctly, he then says they offer sacrifices to the monster to keep him at bay, but sometimes he knocks the boats over and eats the priests offering the sacrifices. Yuji’s father was a victim of Kaima (Presumably one of the men from the starting pages), and now he wants revenge.
Hearing the story, Joe asks Yuji if he has a boat he can borrow to do some night fishing with Chang. Yuji says he can offer his father’s boat. Joe pays him for the rental, and he and Chang get dressed in their 00 Cyborg uniforms.
Knowing they’re going after the Kaima, Yuji offers the money back in exchange for taking him with them to face the monster. Joe vehemently refuses since it’s far too dangerous for a child. He can also simply rent another boat if Yuji’s going to be stubborn about it.
The boy runs off, and I guess the boys do indeed rent a different boat. That night, as they’re on the water, Joe comments that Chang has been working very hard since they last met. Chang proclaims that he has indeed been working hard since he knew they’d be facing enemies again after a long period of peace.
After several hours of waiting with nothing appearing or biting, the boys contemplate what the creature could be. Joe thinks it could be a sea monster or a giant squid while Chang thinks the glowing could indicate a giant jellyfish or a Saraggo sea eel.
After a little while longer, the boys consider hanging it up for the night until they realize that Yuji stowed away in a box on their boat….The boat, by the way, is quite small. Did they never once open that massive box on their boat the entire time they were out there?
Yuji apologizes for stowing away, but he couldn’t help himself but try to confront the Kaima. As if on cue, their boat is then engulfed in light and shot up into the sky.
The trio then wake up to find themselves in a snowy/blurry room with one window. Joe looks out the window to see the Earth slowly moving away, indicating that they’re on a spaceship. Slowly, the details of the room start becoming clearer. Joe says the ship is amorphous and is changing shape based on what they’re thinking. They realized they’re in a spaceship, so the interior turned into a depiction of what they think a spaceship interior looks like.
Chang tests out this theory by imagining a chicken. One appears before him, but he wishes the chicken were in a form he could eat. The chicken then changes to a fully roasted chicken that Chang happily eats.
The ship travels faster than light, and it’s soon clear that they’re heading for a distant planet. Joe theorizes that the ship’s fuel, like the interior, is based on mental energy – that’s how they were able to travel so fast.
Uhm….ya know what? Sure.
They land and peek their heads outside to see if the environment is safe. It has breathable air and seems very Earth-like, so it appears to be alright.
As the three depart from the ship to explore, Yuji wonders if his father was taken to this planet. They think it’s possible, but there are no signs of human habitation near where they landed.
Suddenly, Yuji spots his father and happily reunites with him. It’s a sweet sight to see, but Joe and Chang are suspicious. The timing is just too good, and it’s strange that he was so close to where they landed just wandering around in the open.
With a bright smile, Yuji brings his ‘father’ over to introduce him to Joe and Chang, but Joe decides to perform a test. He asks the man what his name is and demands Yuji not say it. After a pause, the man correctly identifies himself as Yuunosuke Hamada.
Yuji yells out angrily that the answer is correct, and that they have some nerve insinuating that his father is a phony. 009 suddenly whips out his Super Gun and blasts Yuji, much to 006’s shock. 009 calms 006 by pointing out that Yuji is fine. His Super Gun was on such a low setting that he was merely knocked out.
Directing his attention back to Yuunosuke, 009 asks for his address next. Yuunosuke falters and can’t provide an answer. 009 explains that this is proof he’s a fake. He was merely taking information about Yuji’s father from Yuji’s head before. Since Yuji is now unconscious, he can’t access that information from Yuji’s head.
The man is actually the same type of being as the spaceship – it can alter its appearance based on the thoughts of people nearby. It took the shape of Yuji’s father because he was on his mind at the time.
After muttering something about stars, the fake Yuunosuke melts into a weird blob thing. He disappears into the ground and emerges as a cow creature. 009 shoots it to ash.
Then a Frankenstein monster emerges behind them. 009 shoots it to ash.
Then Dracula shows up. 009 shoots it to ash.
Then a dragon shows up.
I get that the idea is that they’re reading their minds to create these creatures, but why are they thinking of these random monsters?
009 asks 006 not to think of anything to give him an opportunity to blast the creature. He succeeds in destroying the dragon.
Suddenly, a kappa shows up and kidnaps Yuji – this kappa was created from Yuji’s mind as he was waking up. The kappa vanishes, leaving Yuji behind. 009 is perplexed because they didn’t do anything to it to cause it to run off.
They all quickly realize that the ground is covered with human skeletal remains, and the bones are all collected around the base of a weird tentacle-y alien tree. From the skeletal remains, a bunch of weird white blob creatures emerge.
The tree sends out a painful telepathic wave to the three. They double over in pain until Yuji notices that one of the skeletons on the ground is holding his father’s weeding sickle (I’m pretty sure that’s what that is.) Yuji realizes that the skeleton in front of him is actually the remains of his father. Yuji explodes with grief, which weakens the psychic power from the tree enough for 006 to burn it down.
The white blob creatures start talking, and it’s here where it becomes difficult for me to discern what’s actually happening because the blobs speak exclusively in katakana with only a couple kanji.
They thank 006 and 009 for their help and encourage the burning of the tree. The tree was controlling them this entire time.
Again, forgive me for just kinda feeling my way through this ending – I think the planet has the ability to shapeshift, read minds, and create beings out of those thoughts. However, it has no mind or heart of its own to feel hate or the will to fight.
This demonic monster tree thing arrived on the planet and started manipulating it. Those blob creatures are residents of the planet and/or are part of it, so they shapeshift by reading hearts too. However, they were controlled by the demonic tree.
One of the shapeshifting blobs or part of the planet escaped to go get the help of beings that could feel hate and had the will to fight. They found what they felt was the perfect target – humans on Earth. They had plenty of hatred and a history of brutal wars and killing.
However, they didn’t take humans who could actually help them. I guess they just assumed all humans felt hatred and a desire to fight. They just kept taking more and more innocent people, specifically fishermen out on the sea, and brought them back expecting them to fight for them. The people they took all just felt fear, which caused them to fall victim to the tree.
009, 006, and Yuji board the spaceship to head back to Earth contemplating how pointless and selfish this whole situation was. 009 argues that it may have been so, but the planet and the beings on it may have had no other option.
He also points out that Yuji’s wave of intense hatred and anger towards the tree was what finally weakened the psychic hold and gave them the opening to kill the tree.
As they head home, Yuji clutches the skull of his father, and 006 contemplates whether Earth is the more bizarre planet.
This was a very interesting story, and my main issue with it is purely that I think it should have been longer. The concept of a planet that changes the shape of things on it, including creatures and people, based entirely on what it reads from your mind or heart is fascinating and provides many creative story opportunities, but it’s just in this lone chapter.
I feel really bad for Yuji, but I’m glad 009 and 006 were able to give him some closure and (seemingly) ensure that the fate of his father would never befall anyone else ever again.
To be honest, I thought this story would be a wash for the first half. I figured the monster would just be a typical Black Ghost creation or just a random monster 009 and 006 would defeat, but Ishinomori decided to take readers on one hell of a ride with this one. Not only did he bring them into the outreaches of space, but he also set the story on a really creepy planet with incredibly creepy inhabitants being invaded by an alien tree with tentacles.
This is the stuff I really love in this series. Just taking whatever you think you know and throwing you upside down and then chucking stuff like aliens and dinosaurs at you. I love it.
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The volume as a whole was probably the strongest the series has been since the revival. Granted, it’s still got some wobbly legs, but I did have fun with it, and that’s all I can really ask for. At least Ishinomori keeps trying to go the distance with being entertaining even if we still don’t have a linear storyline yet.
Next time, we get a linear storyline again! It’s the start of the Undersea Pyramid arc.
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The Anime Madhouse 