Anime & Manga Battlegrinder Watches Zoids: New Century Zero, AKA The Adventures of Terrible People and also Naomi Fluegel

[Battlegrinder]

Wiki link: Zoids: New Century Episode 1


So, just to get this complaint out first, I'll note that the show has two persistent issues throughout every episode.
1. There is next to no consistency in how much damage various zoids can withstand or unleash. Sometimes they'll stand up to prolonged fire, sometimes they'll get knocked out immediately, sometimes they'll pound away at an enemy to no effect and sometimes they'll one shot them. Zoid capabilities are determined by plot, not the other way 'round. There are only two characters this doesn't effect, and that's because they consistently one-shot everything they engage.
2. Animations frequently get reused and recycled, sometimes several times per episode, which for a 20 minute episode translate to fairly heavy padding. To some extant this is understandable, this was, as mentioned, a show from 2001 where CGI animation was far more costly and time consuming, but still it's an issue.

A third issue is the frequency to which the protagonists (I hesitate to apply to term "hero" to several of them) take rather....morally dubious actions. That I will be keeping track of, for two reasons, namely that it's funny and because it supports a claim of mine.


With that out of the way, let's get on to episode 1.

The episode opens with a satellite/space station up in orbit of....whatever this planet is called, and firing a white pod down to the surface:




Zoids NCZ uses a mix of traditional drawn animation and CGI. They don't quite blend together perfectly, but it's relatively close, and both are very well done for the time.

While the pod is descending, we're introduced to our lead character, Bit Cloud:


He's a scavenger, picking over the desert for functional zoid parts. His current salvage run is interupted when the capsule smashes into the group nearby, before opening up to reveal it's cargo, a robotic judge/referee used to adjudicate zoid battles. Note that's battles in the sense of battlebots (or more directly relevant, Solaris VII) than war, these are sporting competitions.



This is a judge. It announces that the area within a 30 mile radius has been designated a zoid battlefield, and that anyone not involved with the upcoming fight should leave at once, presumably for their own safety given the sort of firepower zoids employ. Though as this warning is only given verbally and there's no effort made to set up an actual containment area and actively keep people out, it seems likely that people would accidentally stumble into ongoing fights on a regular basis, or be caught in one without knowing.

Bit, on the other hand, is inside one and knows it full well. And he decides to stick around, planning on scavenging parts off the damaged zoids in the upcoming fight. So he hops into his van and powers up it's cloaking device.



I'm not going to ding this as immoral, it's certainly reckless given that a stray shot could turn Bit and his van into a smoking crater, but it's a useful indicator of his character at the start of the series, and his possession of the cloak suggests it's not the first time he's done this.

Anyway, somehow goes unseen and undetected by the judge, who announces the area has been scanned and is clear, and that the fight can begin.

One side is the Tiger Team, piloting a trio of Saber Tigers, vs the Blitz Team, piloting a Shield Liger, Command Wolf, and D-Bison. The fight goes wrong for the Blitz team from minute one, when the Saber's gang up on and disable the D-Bison, piloted by Leena, before it can even get a shot off.


(She looks a lot nicer than she is. Trust me).

The command wolf, piloted by Brad, goes down even faster.


This leaves it a 3 vs one against team leader Leon and the shield Liger.


(Note the Xcom haircut)

Leon manages to knock out one of the Sabers by charging forward and sideswiping it with the Liger's energy shield. However, before he can figure out how to take out the other two, he trips over Bit's cloaked van, totalling it, and stunning his Liger (Bit was fine, as he'd hopped out of the van to pick up parts blasted free of Leena's D-Bison. This I'm dinging, as it crosses the line between scavenging and steal).

As Bit's prescene violates the rules, Leon calls it in, hoping to get the battle cancelled and rerun. The judge eventually agrees, but not before the remaining two Sabers catch up to the damaged Liger and cripple with prolonged gunfire, knocking Leon unconscious in the process. Too his credit, Bit does go help the injured Leon (so he's back to being morally neutral).



Back at thier hanger, the Blitz Team is in poor shape (The newcomers are Jamie (in red) the team's tactical planner, And Steve Toros (in the pale blue coat), Leena's farther, team owner, and mechanic). Leon's out of action, his zoid is even more out of action, leaving the team with just two pilots in two zoids for the next match. They mention another zoid, the Liger Zero, but also mention that no one can pilot it. Then Bit shows up, and is immediately captured by some sort of automated net launcher. This does not improve the team's mood, since despite his prior help, they blame him for messing up the battle and know that he stole parts from Leena's zoid. As for why Bit showed up....that's not exactly clear, beyond needing to get him introduced to the crew.

I'd say that meeting was a bit of a mixed bag, since while they do give him a meal, they also tied him up (fair enough, he is a theif), which doesn't bother him all that much, nor did it slow him down since he easily scarfed down the meal with just his feet.

(I'm not sure why Leena's so disgusted, he's even using silverware).

Conversion quickly turns turns to the giant robot in the room, the Liger Zero:


According to Leena, they got tricked into buying it, because while white Ligers are normally rare (it's not clear what makes it a white liger aside from paint, but paint can be changed...I assume this is some sort of toyline thing), the dealer failed to mention that it's extremely temperamental and won't let anyone pilot it, going berserk if anyone tries. She also mentions that parts for it are hard to come by and so it's difficult to maintain, something that does not bear out as the show goes on.

When Bit's done eating, she leaves him tied up in the hanger, worried he'll steal something if she lets him loose (and appearntly this is the only machine shop on not-earth that doesn't have hundreds of sharp objects lying around that could easily cut through ropes), despite Bit's claim he would never do such a thing.


Moments after she's out of earshot, Bit steals something.



And that's the attachment limit on this post, we'll finish this in part 2.

 

[Battlegrinder]

Well, ok, he only technically steals something. Namely the Liger Zero, which suddenly powers up, cuts through the ropes, and invites him into the cockpit. Then it roars and bolts of the hanger. Through the wall.



The Liger is actually intelligent, so it's on the hook for this particular bit of property damage. Hilarously, the team doesn't notice the escape until the next morning, so they somehow slept through the sound of an 85 ton robot roaring like a lion and then smashing though several feet of concrete wall. Leena's rather upset about his apparent deception, Brad's is just happy the Liger is gone.

Out in the desert, and presumably after several hours of running, Bit is about to calm the Liger down and convince it to let him drive it instead of just sit in the cockpit while it runs around. I'm not sure what he was doing during the rest of the night. Possibly just screaming helpless.



As the Blitz team strategies while traveling to the battle site, we finally we get a good look at Brad. At the moment, the Blitz is down to two zoids, but Leon reckons that the enemy team might be a bit weaker as well, since the Saber he took out is probably not back to full strength. It's not clear why that would be the case, since the Command Wolf and D-Bison are, and both of them were disabled after being shot to bits by the Sabers, while all Leon did was sideswipe one of them. If the Blitz team had time to repair two crippled zoids, surely the enemy could have fixed up one much less damaged one (particularly since unlike the blitz team and it's mixed composition, the Tiger Team only has one type of zoid and thus can share spare parts).

That guess appears accurate at first, as when the team arrives to the fight, they find themselves only up against two Tigers. Though given how thoroughly they got trounced the last time, I still don't like their odds. And indeed things go badly almost from the get go, as the Blitz comes under fire from the 3rd Tiger, which was hanging back and shelling them from long range, and the other two Tigers manage to get behind them during the initial barrage.



Enemies at the rear, under artillery fire, and unable to shake pursuit, things look bad...and then get worse, as Leena's zoid takes a hard hit and is knocked down and about to be taken out by close range fire from the Tigers (or possibly just only range fire since they weren't shooting during the previous pursuit).



Luckily, this is when Bit makes his dramatic reappearance, surprising everyone as he and the liger charge back into the battlefield. Since the Liger is already registered as a Blitz team asset, he just needs to register himself as a pilot for the team and he's good to go, according to the robo-judge. I can't imagine a real sports team being allowed to do something like that. Though Zoid battles will be far more absurd, as we'll see later.



With that completed, Bit immediately charges off after the 3rd Tiger, the one with the artillery gun, which is a fairly sound tactic from Bit. He's got a top notch Zoid, but no combat experience, so picking on the weakest target is probably his best bet (and it's noted as impressive that he even spotted it in the first place, which futher helps sell him as capable). The two other Tigers appearntly reach the same conclusion and take off after Bit, perhaps added a bit by Bit taunting them over the zoid to zoid communication system. Bit easily closes the distance and takes out the gunner by just jumping on top of it, a la the infamous Death From Above maneuver from battletech, something he resorts to because he's unable to find any other weapons on the Liger, forcing him to play a bit of cat and mouse (or cat and two other, meaner cats) with the remaining Tigers, until the liger zero suggests something:




The phrase "strike laser claw" has been the one thing I remembered about this show for 20+ years, even above the name of the show itself. Mostly because, as the liger's main weapon, this move gets used a lot.


Can't say it's not effective, though. Seeing his buddy get sliced apart distracts the last Tiger, just enough for Brad to get the drop on the him and take him out with a salvo from the command wolf. The judge declares them the winner, and Steve asks Bit to stay on as the Liger's pilot for the long haul as part of the team, which he accepts.




Final thoughts: I'd say as an opening, it's decent enough. Establishes the basic, basic rules of the setting, characterizes Bit and Leena pretty well and the rest of the team to a functional level, though they're all just a bit flat as of this episode, but they also only have 20 minutes to work with here. Action wise it's a bit weak and enemies teleport around a bit, such as the enemy tigers going from in front of Leena and Brad to behind them when the shelling starts, but aside from that it's ok.


Cast Morality Counter:
Bit Cloud: 0
Liger 0: -1
Leena Tores: 0
Brad Hunter: 0
Steve Toros: 0
Jamie Hemeros: 0
Leon Toros: 0

Kill Count:
Bit: 2
Leena: 0
Brad: 1
Leon: 1
Tiger Team: 2

Next Time, the formula for the show will settle in, we'll learn some more about the Liger Zero and Bit, and we'll meet the real Heroine of the series.

 

[Battlegrinder]

So, our first episode past the pilot begins.



The team is putting the Liger through it's paces, assessing what it can do now that' it's actually got a pilot that can control it. Presumably there's no Jane's Fight Zoids or similar publication. Of course, the real purpose behind this is to inform the view of what the liger can do. Which is "Go Fast", and precious little else. The liger can reach 200 mph with it's jet boosters engaged, but to reach that speed it gives up everything else (save for, presumably, durability). Most distressingly, it is very lightly armed, something that draws sharp criticism from the rest of the team.

Oddly, the team repeatedly say that it is unarmed, which is obviously wrong, as it has the laser claws. I originally thought they meant it lacks ranged weapons, but they seem fairly insistent it has no weapons throughout the episode, and zoids armed with melee weapons are far from unknown, so it wouldn't make sense to call it unarmed purely because it lacks range.

Leon is the only one that sees something in the Liger, and if anything he has the opposite problem, talking up the design's "unlimited protentional" that Bit will be able to to draw upon as he and the liger bond. Between that comment and the hair, I'm starting to think that Leon knows he's in an anime.

The narrative then jumps to a trio of mooks discussing their current opponent mid match....that sounds like the kind of thing you should probably plan out before you get into a giant robot fight. She's nicknamed the Red Comet, and she's never lost a battle (It's not clear if this meant as "never lost, ever", or something more reasonable like "never lost since she started fighting professional" or something that implies she has at least lost at some point in her career). Their attempt to hype her up to the audience via dialog is interrupted when she starts hyping herself up via action, quickly sniping out all three of thier mechs from extreme range:



The mooks were all driving something called Heldigunner, some sort of iguana based design though iguana's aren't noted for rapidly burrowing through the sand like this, so I'm not sure where that comes from. One by one, they're picked off, and then we're introduced to the warrior the mooks were talking about, the real hero of the show, Naomi Fluegel!




Seriously, she has a halo of light around her head in her first establishing shot (which doesn't look quite like this, it's a slow pan from her boots up, I just stitched several screenshots together to get a fuller picture).

And no, I don't know why she dresses like that, but it's apparently her day to day outfit as well, as she's still wearing it in the next scene when she's talking to some new pilots she's recruited to form a team:


(You can they're new to zoid fighting, because they dress like normal people)
BTW, that's new pilots as in "haven't actually piloted a zoid before". I'm again that's meaning in a zoid battle rather than literally never having been in the cockpit), but she reassures them that it's not going to be an issue and that they'll be fine.

Jumping back to the main team, they've been assigned Naomi and her two newbies as their next opponent, and it's established that she the undefeated champion in zoid duels (which I'm guessing is what the guy before meant when he says she's never lost a battle), and that it's odd that she's fight in a team. It's also made very obvious that the two girls she was talking to are just there as warm bodies to fill out the roster and that Naomi is planning on doing must of the fighting herself.....which actually makes her better in my eyes, because even thought her two teammates are just there as slot fillers, she's still being kind, supportive, and encouraging toward them despite having no reason to. Naomi get's a point.

Oddly, Naomi has set the rules for the upcoming battle, specifying that each fighter gets just six rounds of ammunition to fight with, further stacking the deck toward her, since other than Bit, she's the only person in the show that can consistently one-shot opposing zoids. An ammo load that low would presumably mean that many zoids with less powerful weapons would simply not be able to compete, and it's very strange that Naomi would be allowed to dictate the battle's terms like that (at least in a formal, organized, Zoid Battle Commission sponsored event, which this is).

We also learn that during previous engagements with Naomi, no one's ever gotten within a 1000 yards of her, which is a bit odd since contemporary tank guns can shoot 3 times that distance with ease, it's strange that zoid weapons are so comparatively inaccurate.



Given all this, it's no surprise that the team is not enthused about their chances, save for Bit, who thinks they have a shoot. I'm not sure if this is supposed to due to Bit's can do attitude and refusal to admit defeat, or Bit's total lack of experience leaving him unable to assess the odds, though I'm leaning toward the former. Bit's plan is, obviously, to just get close enough to Naomi that she can be engaged in close range combat. The professor agrees with this, with one change....they're going to send Jamie out in his Pteras aerial zoid and attack from above. Two people are not happy with this plan: Bit, for being sidelined, and Jamie, for being frontlined.



This is Jamie, we haven't really met him yet. Thus far, he's basically been sitting on the bridge of the Hover Cargo, watching the monitor and generally providing exposition for the audience. He's also a pilot....in theory, but given that he's the worst pilot on the team, he rarely deploys, and he only becomes a better pilot in an indirect way. You'll see.

In this case, he's right to be dubious about this plan, because it is a terrible plan, boiling down to "Let's hope that an experienced zoid pilot that's probably the best shot in the entire series has never faced an aerial zoid and is unable to hit a large, subsonic target (the Pteras is capable of supersonic flight. Jamie is not capable of flying it to that speed, however) flying around in the air with no cover". This is one of the worst plans the heroes have ever devised, possibly the worst plan overall.



Luckily, Bit has a plan. He hits up a contact of his from his junk trader days, and buys some Heldigunner parts for the Liger, which his contact has lucky just gotten ahold of. Given we just saw 3 heldigunners get blown to bits by Naomi earlier that day, and given that it's apparently quite common for dealers to scavenge zoids parts from wrecked ones, it's entirely possible that the parts Bit's buying are only available because of Naomi's actions.

Speaking of which, back at the....bar, I guess? Where Naomi and her team are meeting, trouble has arrived, in the form of some unsavory characters hitting on Naomi's new teammates, but oddly not Naomi herself.....I guess these guys just have terrible taste in women.


(I don't think this guy's a pilot, but his fashion since is a bit borderline, so maybe).

Naomi immediately comes to her teammate's defense, earning herself another morality point...and also possibly a beating, as while she's getting into a staredown with the goons, her teammates, in a remarkably poor show of loyalty, start looking for the exit.



In a further show of just how good a person she is, Naomi is incredibly bad at trash talk, as her main put down of the two is sarcastically commenting that "men are here sure are gentlemen" in a way that's clearly supposed to be a put down....but I don't think these two are the types that think of themselves as gentlemen. She also calls the first one "Baldylocks", even though he clearly just shaves his head.

And we've hit the image limit for this post.

 

[Battlegrinder]

I'd like to establish that I'm very certain that Naomi is a strong, independent women that doesn't need no man, she gets one anyway. For a certain value of "man", anyway.



Bit arrives, and manages take out both of the goons, in a sequence of events that was clearly supposed to be accidentally, but that both Naomi and I are uncertain of. I have accidentally hit people with something I've got slung over my shoulder like this, and you don't just not notice it happening, plus the way he stomped on the first guy's foot seemed very intentional:



Regardless of the script's intent, I think he did this on purpose, so he gets a point for it. Despite her even telling him her name, Bit doesn't recognize her, which doesn't really sound IC for him.



Back at base, Bit is busy installing the new guns onto the Liger, something Leena is not terribly keen on as the noise is keeping here awake.....despite her sleeping through that whole "85 ton robot smashing through a concrete wall" thing last episode, Brad's also up, as is Leon, who helps Bit install a few bits, and the two talk as Bit fits the massive cannon onto the Liger:



This talk gives us a bit more insight into Bit, and a great deal of additional questions. During his wandering as a junk dealer, Bit had a dream, a dream to build a zoid of his own with the parts he gathered....though this dream has some fuzzy bits. He precise goal was to gather the "best" parts and then get the "best" zoid he could, and combine the two. Given that zoids should be rather specialized machines, I'm not certain how you could go about getting just "the best" parts and slap them on any random zoid, as there would clearly be some parts that are more or less useful for that zoid's given role. He does note that that plan has changed, since as far he's concerned he's already found the best zoid.

Another thing that comes up during this conversation is that Bit understands the Liger's various roars and can talk with it, something that he doesn't regard as unusual. Leon is far more experienced and does know that this isn't normal (and the fact that Bit doesn't know that raised a few questions about how much he really knows about zoids). In this specific case, the Liger is unhappy about the added weight of the new gun, which is a bit odd given that it doesn't appear to be a particularly heavy cannon by zoid standards.



As the battle starts the next day, Brad and Leena are facing down Naomi and her teammates, with Jamie back in the hover cargo ready to launch. Naomi's gun sniper is naturally red, because the red one is always better. This deployment is somewhat odd, because Naomi is easily within alpha strike range of both opposing mechs, and while she obviously plans to open up some distance before engaging, she actually would have a hard time doing that as the command wolf has the same top speed as her mech. And since Jamie is hanging back at the hover cargo and not already airborne, there's clearly no need to deploy at close range like this.

The Blitz team treats Jamie as if he's supposed to be some sort of secret weapon, but as established in the first episode, the mech and pilot rosters for a zoid team have to be filled with the commission ahead of time (well, the Zoid roster does), so Naomi should know what the Blitz team have.....and indeed she does, responding to some taunts by Brad with an observation that they're team only has two zoids on the field and is obviously planning something.



Leena is immediately concerned that Naomi is, you know, capable of basic math and has figured out some of their plan. First law of battle, no battle plan surives contact with the enemy......though a few seconds later, we see this plan didn't even survive contact with friendlies, as bit shows up to fill out the team, filling the spot that Jamie was supposed to take. It's also at this point that Bit realized that the Naomi Fluegel he meet was the Naomi Fluegel, as opposed to someone else that just happened to have the exact same name as the legendary zoid pilot he was scheduled to fight. Leena and Brad are not happy with him scuttling the plan:



I do like the little pop up holograms pilots use to talk to one another in the cockpit. They remind me a lot of starfox's pilot to pilot intercom, though I'm not sure sure the reference is intentional.

Dr Toros attempts to stick to the original plan, ordering Jamie to launch and "deal with the warrior registration". It's not clear what this means. Given that there have been cases in the series of surprise pilots showing up to a fight, presumably it's not required to disclose which warriors a team is deploying, and so in a case like this where Bit is already on the field despite orders otherwise, they'd have to do something on the paperwork side to force him off the field. Conveintly for the plot, Jamie and Dr Toros forget that the judge can be contacted from the hovercargo.


Even more conveniently, Jamie is unable to launch, because Leon anticipated Bit's actions and sabotaged the hover cargo's launch system, grounding Jamie. In addition to being morally dubious, I'm not sure this was needed. Leon is the team leader and respected by everyone, he could have just ordered Jamie to stay back and let Bit try.

Oddly, Bit then sends in his warrior registration, even though he already did that in the last episode, and none of the other warriors on the field had to do this. I assume this was done for narrative reasons, to inform the audience that Jamie cannot launch now, it's up to Bit.

With that, the battle begins, and Naomi bolts for the high ground, while the Blitz team just kinda sits there, not following for some reason (I'm starting to think I'm far more tactically minded than this show's target audience). Leena fires 2/3s of her allotted shots in an attempt to hit Naomi, but misses. Bit steps up, targeting her with his fancy new cannon and locking on:


He then fires, scoring a direct hit.....on the rock face like 40 meters away (I'm not sure why the liger has a pop up gunnery targeting screen when it doesn't have any guns).



I'm really curious what the writers think the term "Lock" means. I dunno, maybe he forget to calibrate his targeting system or something.

 

[Battlegrinder]

Bit maintains his fire, pockmarking the cliff face and slowly walking his fire up the mesa toward Naomi, with his 6th and last shot landing right at her feet, and jettisoning the gun once it's empty. It's strange more warriors don't do that sort of thing, opening each engagement with some detachable one-shot ordnance pods to try and score some early damage and then closing in once it's been expended.

With their opening gambit a total failure, Brad and Leena bolt for the cover of the forest, while Bit runs off.....somewhere else. Naomi takes the time to switch her zoid into sniper mode, a fairly involved and slow process that involves flipping the command chair around so that the pilot is lying on thier stomach facing the rear of the zoid and the firing controls for the main gun, which itself deploys by having the tail straighten telescope out to turn the tail of the zoid into a massive sniper rife, the zoids massive talons anchoring against the recoil:



It's odd that the gun sniper got some much thought put into how it works and transforms and what all it's various little dino bits will actually do, while most of the hero's mech are just "let's take a critter of some kind, make it out of metal, and put a gun on it's back".



Though I think having the pilot operate the main gun with a targeting system that's got a scope and shoulder stock and trigger might have been taking the idea a tiny bit too far.



In a nod to realism, it turns out that the heat signature of a 230 turn battle robot is too high to be concealed by a small forest, leading to Leena being spotted and sniped out immediately.



We cut to Brad, sitting in his command wolf with his eyes closed, concentrating. He somehow manages to hear the sound of a branch snapping overall the background noise there must be inside his zoid, and whirls around, catching Naomi's two teammates and neutralizing them both. Unfortunately for him, the commotion gives away his position, and he's sniped out moments later.

That leaves us with Bit who has been......somewhere this whole time, ignored due to his lack of weapons. Luckily, Naomi has a handy little tactical display that shows where he is:



Unluckily the speed he's closing at makes it very clear that he would have scrambled up the mountain and reached Naomi's postion well before this point if not for the fact that he's piloting Schrodinger's Liger and therefor can only take action when the viewer is there to watch him. But whatever.

He is, wisely, dodging back and forth like a manic to throw of Naomi's aim, which buys him a little time, but eventually she draws a bead on him. She does comment that she's never seen a zoid with this kind of speed as she aims, but it doesn't appear to be causing her problems, it's more Bit's erratic maneuvers (also, there are several zoids with that kind of speed that she should have faced before). However, Bit's manuvers do cause her to shift her aim, and her mech, just a little bit closer to the cliff face. The cliff face Bit shot several times with a high powered cannon.



It gives way, and she slides down the mesa right onto ground level....but the Liger still has a bit of ground to cover, and she has time to fire one last round as the Liger leaps forward, a clean shot....but she's firing on the Liger Zero, which is a intellegent zoid, able to take action on it's own. Which it does, firing it's jet thrusters to push itself just out the bullet's path:


(it's clear the liger did this, both because a human wouldn't have had the reaction time needed, and because Bit explictly says so).

After that, the inevitable happens.




With this win, Leon feels the team is in good hands, and announces that he's going to go off on his own for a bit, go out and see the world, explicitly citing Bit as the inspiration for his decision.....which I think is probably not a wise idea, Bit should not be a role model. No one on this team is a role model (though as later episodes reveal that what he actually ended up doing was traveling the world fighting a bunch of zoid duels to sharpen his skills, really he's following Naomi's path. Which is good, everyone should do that).



As an episode, this one does a good job to set up the formula most will follow, the first 2/3s are some character stuff for the main team and the antagonists, while the last bit is the battle. As I noted, the actual tactics on this one were a bit rough, but it also feels properly earned. Bit got a lucky break, but it's clear that the win needed more than just that, it needed Bit and the Liger working together to win. It also establishes that Jamie is more than just a kid reading off of screens, which will come up later. A long while later.

The main downside is the way the episode is structured, Naomi got a lot of screen time that could have been used to flesh out Leena and Brad more, and while in this case I'm ok with that because that means more screen time for Naomi, most of the other antagonists are not as interesting as Naomi, and the team could really use that time to get fleshed out at the start of the series.


Cast Morality Counter:
Bit Cloud: 1
Liger 0: -1
Leena Tores: 0
Brad Hunter: 0
Steve Toros: 0
Jamie Hemeros: 0
Leon Toros: -1
Naomi Fluegel: 2

Kill Count:
Bit: 3
Leena: 0
Brad: 3
Leon: 1
Tiger Team: 2
Naomi Fluegel: 5

 

[Battlegrinder]

As the episode opens, we see a large, rhino type zoid blowing up a bunch of rev raptors, in what a robotic voice calls a training exercise:



I'm not really sure what the practical value of doing target training at point blank range is, particularly not with the massive rotary cannon used here. It seems like you'd almost have to be trying to miss targets at this range.



This is the Dark horn's pilot, and we're informed via his internal monologue that his name is "Harry Champ, a man destined to be king".....I'm not sure if he means that literally, because he very easily could be. As he's wrapping up the test, his eyes are drawn to something on his console...a picture of Leena, accompanied by music that's not quite ominous, but is at least somewhat unnerving.




The action then cuts over to the real Leena, in the midst of another zoid battle. Brad knocks out one of the opposing zoids, a helcat, while Leena lines up a shot on the leader, in a sabre tiger (this the first time we've seen a team of mixed zoids types other than the Blitz team). She's also ready to fire, when Bit jumps into her line of fire and chases the Sabre off. Bit warns her her that one of the helcats had been targeting her while she was tunnel visioning onto the sabre. Leena, still tunnel visioned on the sabre, demands Bit leave him to her to finish off....leaving herself open the 3rd zoid that was targetting her. She takes several hits, but returns fire and manages to drop the helcat....I think.



I still can't tell if the helcat is jumping clear of the scattered impacts, or taking a hit. This match also raises a number of questions about how zoid battles are supposed to be balanced, as the enemy team is badly outmatched here. Helcats are a light recon design that can't take a lot of damage nor deal it, they depend on a stealth system to avoid engagements, a stealth system these ones are not using. They're outclassed by every single zoid the Blitz team has, massively so, and the sabre is roughly on par.

Speaking of the sabre, Bit ends up taking it out, in what even I recognize as the cliche anime swordfight move where they cross blades midair and then land, the other guy walks for a few paces, and then suddenly explodes because he'd been hacked to bits midway through and didn't notice:




This is why I don't like or watch anime, all swordfights are likely legally obligated to end in like one of three ways and it is so boring to watch over and over again.

Anyway, as the battle ends, it turns out Harry has been watching the fight (I'm not sure how, given zoid battlefields are supposed to be cleared of other parties, and I doubt that jeep in the background has a cloaking device), as part of his stalkerish behavior toward Leena:



Given all zoid battles include a fair number of stray rounds flying about, particularly battles involving Leena and her "time spent aiming is time not spent shooting" gunnery style, Harry is either fearless or brainless, not sure which. I'm leaning toward the latter, as he somehow manages to conclude that Bit and Leena have something going on, based on seeing this interaction:



As you guys can probably guess based just on that facial expression, Leena does not have thing going with Bit, in fact she's quite upset at him for stealing "her" kill during the match (in slight fairness to her, she mentions losing out on target points, so this is a zoid battle rules thing and not just pure ego....just mostly ego, since unless kills are assigned more points for some reason, she didn't lose out by hitting the helcat instead of the sabre). Bit ignores this, instead his attention is focused on a particularly valuable weapon on the downed Sarbe, a shock cannon.



Bit ends up stealing and installing the cannon onto the Liger Zero, in order to have a ranged weapon that's a bit more useful than the massive cannon he tried last time. And yes, it's nearly certain he stole it. Official Zoid Battles are fought for cash, not salvage rights, you can't just yoink parts off of a downed enemy for your own use, and says he "liberated" it. (-1 point for Bit).

Leena is still mad about his alleged kill stealing, and also for his general attitude (by which she means "being better than me.....not that that's a high bar). And then to increase the level of crazy, Harry arrives, extremely mad about Bit and Leena and spewing accusation (As this interaction also makes it clear that Leena and the crew already know about Harry, I suspect this explains why they had a security system rigged up back in the pilot). Then Leena gets an idea. A terrible, terrible idea.



Deliberately aggravating your crazy stalker to use him against your teammate.

Leena loses her first point of the episode. It will not be the last.

 

[Battlegrinder]

Harry is crushed by Leena choosing someone else, and mopes over his loss back at his own base, which we see is loaded with rack after rack of Zoids. At this point, it's pretty clear Harry is That Kid. You know, That Kid who always had more money than you, That Kid that had more toys than you, That Kid that ended up flaunted his collection of stuff in front of everyone else, not always to be mean and rub it in people's faces, but just because they were proud of thier collection and wanted to show it off....but sometimes to be mean and rub it people's faces. You know, That Kid. We all had That Kid in our lives growing up (and if you didn't.....I might have some bad news for you).

In a not so subtle dig, it turn out Harry has no friends, with his only companions being a pair of robots he built and programmed . Ouch (and somewhat oddly. Harry's bank acount is best expressed by the mathematical phrase "finite but arbitrarily large", he should have loads of suckups hanging around him trying to get a piece of that). The robots, Sebastian (the small one) and Benjamin (the blue one), seem to be slightly more sane than Harry, but not so much that they attempt to talk him out of his obession, instead suggesting he get Leena back by challenging Bit. He likes the idea....a little too much, given the fit of manical laughter it provokes.



Back with the Blitz team, Brad fills Bit in on Harry's deal (IE, crazy rich dude, fights for fun, decently skilled, has a thing for Leena) as the two work out:



Brad correctly guesses Harry will try something, and warns Bit about getting involved, because Harry's crazy and you can't predict what he'll do. Bit brushes off the warning.

Elsewhere, Leena discusses her...."plan" with Jamie while the two are playing some sort of 3D chess thing. The gist of it that Leena sicced Harry on Bit to take him down a peg, as she thinks he's too cocky (though it's clear the real reason is that she's upset about being outscored on the battlefield). Her sore loser streak continues as Jamie wins the game, which she then "accidentally" knocks over and breaks.


-1.

Jamie pins the blame for her on Doc Toro's subpar parenting skills.


Given that Doc's busy Dark Helmeting it up at the moment.....yeah, I can buy that.

The next day, Harry changes Bit to a zoid battle over Leena, winner gets the girl, which Bit accepts immediately before Harry can even bring up the bit about Leena. Bit just wants to fight. Too her credit, while Leena enjoys the fantasy of men fighting over her affections (to a slightly unnerving degree, actually), it's at least made clear that her interest stops there, she has not interest in Harry whatsoever.....which given how insanely rich he is, is a credit to her character (but I'm not giving her credit for that to the tune of her getting points just for not being a gold digger).

Though at least Jamie manages to poke a few holes in her Helen of Troy phantasy by pointing out she's managed to arrange a fight between Bit and Harry where she's the prize, and that she hasn't thought through what that means. Bit winning, even if he's not actually interested in her, will just make him even cockier, defeating the whole point of this enterprise, whereas Harry winning is....well, the downside there is obvious. Jamie considers it a no win scenario.....unfortunately, he is wrong.

The next day, the battle begins, a so called "blind battle" in the ruins of an empty city. Visibility is limited and sight lines are short, so most of the battle is about finding the enemy, not fighting them. It's worth noting that in addition to being Harry's friends, Benjamin and Sebastian are also his teammates, piloting a Stealth Viper and Heldigunner, respectively. It's odd that robots are capable of piloting a zoid, because the Liger's intelligence as zoid is noted as being unusual, which doesn't quite makes sense if robots are smart enough to operate a zoid, there would presumably be a number of automated or machine pilots zoids in operation.



And while zoids can detect one other at close range, they either don't have IFF or it's disabled for this battle, so the risk of friendly fire is high, something demonstrated by Leena and Brad as they encounter one another coming around a corner and almost take a shot at a friendlies.

Predictably, Bit and Harry end up fighting, as Harry breaks through a building to flank Bit. Bit attempts to flee by exploiting the Liger's greater agility vs the Dark Horn, which he notes is bad at cornering.



Well, normally it is. Unfortunately, Harry's Dark Horn is tricked out with aftermarket upgrades, with additional high powered weapons (which he constantly fails to hit Bit with, despite being only 20 or so meters behind him).....and high capacity thrusters one the side of the zoid that let him drift around corners and keep pace with Bit.

Both Leena and Brad also find themselves engaged, each fighting one of the robots off by themselves.

Bit's battle with Harry has settled into a flight, as Harry pursues Bit across the city, constantly firing his thrusters to keep up as Bit ducks around corner after corner....oddly, he's insistent on only making left turns, at one point using the new shock cannons to blast through a wall to make a new left turn rather than take a street going right.

As for the other two, Leena manages to knock Benjamin and his stealth Viper, and after he taunted her about her aim earlier, targets his downed mech with her cannons and the clear intent to exact payback for that taunted....when she notices Brad's engagement with Sebastian a few blocks away, and decides to intervene....by intentionally targeting both combatants with an alpha strike, disabling them:


-1.

The expression on Brad's face when he radios her to complain and realizes that she intentionally fired a full salvo directly at her own team is priceless:



Back with Bit, the reason for the constant left turns finally reveals itself, as Harry takes one corner too many and his zoid's leg gives out.



As Toro explains to a mystified Jamie, the constant turning and overuse of the thrusters eventually overstressed the zoid, something that was exacerbated by the added bulk of the Dark Horn's extra guns, a tactic I really like as it plays into Bit's character and past. Bit knows zoid parts and what they can and can't do, and how to exploit their weaknesses.

Harry isn't down yet, his zoid can't move but is still online, and he vocally refuses to surrender the fight, a stance he sticks to even after Bit opens fire with the shock cannons and blasts off the Gatling cannon Harry had been trying to fire. Bit prepares to finshing him off with the laser claws, unaware he's made a fatal mistake.....he's within firing range of Leena, who alpha strikes both Harry and Bit, disabling them.



-1.

 

[Battlegrinder]

I suppose I could have wrapped up in the last post, but then you wouldn't have seen the last few shots of the episode.




Leena is totally thrilled, since she ended up being the only one to earn any kills this battle.....and to be fair, she did find a away around the no win scenario she was in, and I suppose Bit will be a bit more cautious around her in the future.



Look at them, look at their faces! And this isn't even the worst thing Leena will do.


Overall, I'd say this episode is.....um, wow. I liked Bit's tactics, it once again shows him to be a fairly capable warrrior, despite being new to the game. Brad's parts were fine, but he's not really developed any traits being "competent"....though since this episode marks the point where Leena's more negative traits come to the fore, there are worse things than being a bit out of focus.

As for Harry, he's ok here, but he wears out his welcome fast because his only too traits are "has loads of money" and "obsessed with Leena". He doesn't have anything else going either for or against him, so rather than being an interesting enemy, he's just annoying.

Cast Morality Counter:
Bit Cloud: 0
Liger 0: -1
Leena Tores: -4
Brad Hunter: 0
Steve Toros: 0
Jamie Hemeros: 0
Leon Toros: -1
Naomi Fluegel: 2
Harry Champ: 0

Kill Count:
Bit: 4
Leena: 6
Brad: 4
Leon: 1
Tiger Team: 2
Naomi Fluegel: 5
Harry: 0