Plot: After getting angry with Kyoichiro for ignoring her, Ammon is captured by TP Lady. She takes Ammon to China in the 3rd century BC to bring the infamous terracotta army to life in order to serve her and help her take over the world.
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Title Change: The Super Beauty, Ammon is changed to Bindi Master.
Entire Series Edit: I think I’ve seen this enough to call this right now – the opening establishing shot is either always replaced or has an additional establishing shot of the city added in the dub.
Ammon’s name plate is removed again.
Ammon refers to herself as Acchan. Since we don’t really have an English equivalent, she just refers to herself normally.
Once again, daytime establishing shot of the bureau exchanged for an evening one.
The dub has a pretty massive screw up right here. Rei explains that TP Lady is in China during the Qin dynasty, which existed between the years 221 BC and 206 BC. Jillian claims that Petra Fina is in China…..in the 30th century BC. That’s QUITE the difference there, Saban.
The specific city they’re visiting, Chengdu, existed as far back as 3000 years ago or the 10th century BC, but the site on which it’s built, the remains of the ancient city of the Baodun culture, date as far back as 4500 years ago or the 25th century BC. Technically, the official city didn’t exist until the 3rd century BC, which is when the Qin took it over.
Entire Series Edit: I think I can also say for certain that every time the kids go off on Ridon, Saban changes the clips to include Goodman yelling to them about something – usually about bringing him back a souvenir. This time, he tells them to bring him egg foo young.
Well, here’s a smaller screw up. When they leave, Pterry says they’re heading to the 13th century, which is closer, but still not right because, as we’ll soon see, the first thing they encounter is the Terracotta Army, referred to in the dub as just clay statues/a ghost army, which dates back as far as the 3rd century BC. The Terracotta Army was a form of funerary art, symbolically sending soldiers to protect the first emperor of a unified China, Qin Shi Huangdi, in the afterlife.
Putera says it’s odd because this period should have been right when the army was being made, but no one’s around. In the dub, Pterry doesn’t point this out.
Also, Qin Shi Huangdi’s Terracotta Army is incredibly fascinating. It’s always been one of my favorite pieces of history. Unlike what a lot of people think, they’re not carbon copies of each other. The statues were individual pieces produced from molds and stuck together. While the bases of many of the pieces are identical, they were shaped and decorated to make unique features. Each statue is so uniquely designed that it’s theorized that each soldier had a living counterpart used as a model, though that theory isn’t strongly accepted since doing that would be a huge hindrance on the production. Instead, it’s more accepted that the varying appearances were trying to encapsulate the many different types of people from the various regions in China which had been united while under Qin Shi Huangdi’s rule.
They have different hair styles, caps, builds, expressions, poses, beards, etc. In addition, when they were originally created they actually had a lot of beautiful and bright colors on them to differentiate themselves even further. The color faded over the years, however.
Here’s a picture of what a painted Terracotta soldier might have looked like.
(Image was posted to SmartHistory.org, but photo credit is listed as Charlie, CC BY-SA 4.0)
They’re not all soldiers, either. There are chariots, horses, archers, generals, waterfowl, musicians, political officials, dancers, acrobats and more. He basically had a complete society created for his tomb out of clay and bronze.
It took over 40 years for the army to be completed, and, from all we can gather through GPR, all of the pits and the tomb combined cover approximately 38 square miles. We’ve been excavating the pits of the tomb since 1974 and we’re still working to excavate it all. As for the tomb itself, that will likely stay hidden forever. The tomb is buried underneath a forested funerary mound. No one currently has the technology to safely excavate the rest of it without running the risk of damaging or destroying everything else down there. There’s also the very real risk of many unknown and known booby traps, and the high levels of mercury in the area. In addition, the citizens of China simply don’t want to disturb the resting place out of respect for the emperor.
There hasn’t been a lack of trying, though. Plans for excavation have been proposed numerous times since the discovery of the tomb. In addition to curiosity, proponents of excavation claim they want to open the mausoleum and start removing artifacts to actually help preserve them since the site rests on a seismic zone and grave robbers might get to the artifacts before they do, but the proposals are always shot down for the reasons stated before. Even the opening and excavation of the nearby tomb of the emperor’s grandson was rejected because they were concerned that tomb was so close to the emperor’s that opening it might cause damage to the main mausoleum. At best, we can hope we get imaging technology that gives us a peek into the tomb, but in the realm of actually opening the mausoleum and taking a stroll through there, I highly doubt we’ll ever be able to do that any time in the near future.
I’m getting really off-topic, but there’s no historical figure present this episode, so I thought I’d at least discuss the Terracotta Army because I think it’s really cool. Check out the links I provided to learn more. It’s very interesting, and I only covered a small portion of the topic here.
If I had more notes on this, it’d be that, obviously, in the show, the soldiers are all depicted as being exactly the same (quite simply designed as well) and, despite just being made, there is absolutely no color on them. I’m feeling pretty lenient here, though, because I don’t expect a low-budget kid’s anime from the 90s to animate an army where everyone has a unique design while also being statue-esque.
Dyna says “It went well, didn’t it?” And Mite responds “You said it!” In the dub, Dino asks how much longer they have to wave the fans, and Mite adds that his arms are tired.
Ah, so that’s why Ammon was with Vlad the Impaler. Because her powers are like a vampire that sucks the life from living things. Only she also has the ability to transfer the life energy to non-living beings to bring them to life as well. Cool.
They add the sound effect of bowling pins falling down when the soldiers get revived.
While both lines basically mean the same thing, Merlock says “I’m here to claim Bindi, Petra!” whereas Kyoichiro just demands Ammon be returned to him. The reason the dub line bothers me is because it treats Bindi like property instead of a friend.
Name Plate Removed:
Subbed: 
Dubbed:
Name Change: Ankoku is changed to Bindi-kon.
Flint: “Wowwee!” Wowwee, that sure is dated.
So they suggest that Genshi just turn Ankoku into a monster egg………doesn’t that imply that they can just shoot the fossilization beam from the start instead of going through a lengthy battle every time?
Toki-G: “If a Space-Time Monster is dominated by a dark heart, they can’t be turned into a monster egg.” Well…..That’s dumb. I mean, I guess I already explained why having that function would be dumb anyway, but the explanation as to why that can’t work is just silly. I thought the explanation would be that they have to be in their tiny forms in order to be fossilized because Ototan doesn’t have the power to fossilize something that big.
They insert an extremely brief flash of white when Merlock hits the rocks. Because that’ll sure trick kids into thinking he…didn’t…hit the rock?
Okay, the white flash thing is something I think happens a lot more than I’ve noticed because I keep seeing it now during this battle, but it’s so quick that I needed to notice it the first time to tell myself to check the rest of the time. It’s definitely not the first time I’ve seen this flash, but it was so quick that it’s literally blink-and-you-miss-it. This is such pointless censorship, if you can even call it that. It’s not like it cuts anything but a frame out, and I guarantee those frames didn’t show anything more violent than what was shown otherwise.
Sora: “The Terracotta soldiers….”
Tokio: “Combined!”
In the dub, Sarah points out that the combined statue is huge. Tony says “At least it’s not moving.” and because the opposite has to happen in order for that to be funny, the opposite happens, and we’re immediately shown the giant Terracotta soldier moving.
Originally, Mite grabs hold of Ankoku’s tentacle as its sucking the life from Dyna to try to yank it off of him while he yells “Hey, you have the wrong guy!” In the dub, for some reason, they changed it to having Mite hug the tentacle and yell “Oh thank you for not hitting me! Thank you!” Dude, your best friend is DYING.
Name Plate removed.
Subbed:
Dubbed:
Name Change: Super Ammon is changed to Bindi Master
Oh my god, Saban was being so lazy with Petra and Dino’s next lines. In the original, Dyna says “Ammon transformed and became….” while TP Lady finishes with “Super Ammon!” In the dub, they let Dino have all these lip flaps go silent and only let one word out, “Wow” while they load up all of Petra’s lip flaps with “Wow wow wow wow wow wow wow.” No idea what they were going for here, if anything, but that was awful. Please don’t do that again.
Oddly, though, Mite’s “You said it.” line is kept exactly the same in the dub. *shrugs*
Why exactly doesn’t Ammon remember anything of what happened? No other Space-Time Monster has suffered amnesia after being stamped/bad transformed. And even if she did, wouldn’t she still have her memories from when she was Super Ammon? The stamp was gone by then. This makes no sense. She just lost her memories immediately after transforming back into her normal form.
Also, doesn’t that kinda mean this entire episode was more or less pointless? Outside of Kyoichiro gaining a better appreciation for Ammon, I guess, the episode was also supposed to be character development for Ammon in helping her understand that Kyoichiro does care deeply for her, despite ignoring her earlier. Also, it may have helped her realize she was being a bit of a brat for running away just because Kyoichiro had to work and couldn’t pay attention to her. Wiping her memories just wipes any growth that she may have experienced during this episode.
In the original, Ammon says she’ll fight whomever hurt Kyoichiro, not realizing it was her. In the dub, Bindi’s basically worse than she was before because she says he better not be thinking about canceling dinner on her again or he’ll be sorry. He’s clearly hurt and very weak from an event you don’t even remember, but yes, bitch about your dinner plans….
They intercut shots of Tokio talking so they can skip over Kyoichiro’s explanation of his genetic trait. There’s no point in this. All this edit does is allow Tony to whine more about how he has no chance of being a Time Detective since Merlock’s a vampire (originally, he also included Genshi in his complaints, asking if normal people have a chance at being Time Detectives if the only two he’s seen so far are a caveman and a vampire). Originally, Kyoichiro assuaged Sora’s concerns by saying he doesn’t drink blood or do anything evil like a vampire. He’s just “slightly more immortal than the average person.” whatever that means.
Ammon’s lack of development here is highlighted when she slaps away Sora’s hand when Kyoichiro starts sweet talking her and holding her hand. *sigh*
In an odd edit, Old Timer kinda highlights that they edited out additional information on Kyoichiro. Originally, Toki-G said he’s happy all of them are getting along, and he’ll be counting on Kyoichiro and Genshi a lot from now on. In the dub, Old Timer says they’re taking the vampire news better than he thought, and there will be more time to actually discuss that later. I still don’t get why they didn’t discuss that now….I am wracking my brain trying to figure out why they cut that.
They add a white flash to Genshi getting hit in the head by Ototan, but this time they also noticeably remove Genshi’s reaction face.
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All in all, this episode is…..pbbbttt pointless. And cliché. How many times have you seen the plot where some immature character is being ignored by someone so they run away, get into trouble, and the person who ignored them comes to their rescue and everything’s made okay because of that? It’s a pretty tired old plot. And, again, cliche’s aren’t inherently bad, but they don’t do anything with this one to make it interesting or unique. In fact, they pretty much make it worse by having Ammon forget literally everything that happened so her bratty entitled behavior doesn’t stop or at least lighten up. Like I said, if anything, she got worse.
I never thought Kyoichiro was really neglectful of Ammon, so anything he learned seems superfluous. Their little moment together was sweet enough, I guess, but it wasn’t all that impacting. It was very much going through the motions of both this very plot and the typical plot the show always has of the Space-Time Monster being brought back to their senses by flashing back to good times with their friend. At least we finally know, for the most part, what Kyoichiro is….unless you watch the dub, where they withhold some information for no reason.
I won’t complain about the lack of a new Space-Time Monster this week because we never really explored Ammon’s powers during her debut, and, being honest, they’re really cool. Her bad transformation is alright, and her super transformation is……pretty…..but also really confusing.
How did we go from a snail who can transform into a giant hermit crab to a….very human fairy being? Also, what do snails and hermit crabs have to do with healing or sucking away life energy? What’s funny about Ammon is that it seems like her most powerful or useful version is her base version because Ankoku seems to focus more on sucking life from things and Super Ammon seems to focus more on healing/restoring energy while normal Ammon can do both seemingly just as powerfully as her other forms.
I also won’t complain about the lack of a historical figure this week because I got to research and discuss the super cool Terracotta Army…..What I will complain about, however, is that they destroyed many of the Terracotta soldiers. Dozens were smashed into a pile of rubble and no one cared. I understand that the Terracotta Army we know now also has a bunch of soldiers that were destroyed either due to age or damage from excavation, but still. I really don’t like when kids’ shows think it’s fine to act like they’re even slightly educational and then spit in the face of what they’re educating the kids about.
Also, despite this being the time period when the Terracotta Army was being built, there’s literally no one around. Not the emperor, not the workers, no one. It’s a completely abandoned area. It’s just weird.
The dub really didn’t have many edits this time around, except for the loads and loads of white flash ‘censors’ and some….very confusing edits like the lip flap thing with TP Lady and removing Kyoichiro explaining his clan’s nature. Because apparently Saban can never leave well enough alone.
Next time, we’re introduced to the Easter Island head themed Space-Time Monster, Moaiwa!
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The Anime Madhouse 