The first of the final episodes in the series, and it features an interesting mystery… The return of Hyper Zetton Deathscythe! How could this monster be back from the grave? Watch the episode on Crunchyroll, or read the spoiler filled summary below!
Summary:
S.S.P. discovers that there have been various sightings of Hyper Zetton Deathscythe, and with its appearances comes a mysterious girl that wears a blue ribbon. S.S.P. manages to discover the girl’s location at an elderly couple’s house, and Gai is already there adding to the mystery. The Zetton reappears, and Gai becomes involved in a fist fight with the girl before she collapses. The Zetton disappears, and the girl seemingly teleports to the elderly couple’s backyard. The girl, Maya, has become their adopted granddaughter, after they found her without her memory. During her time with the couple, she becomes eager to see the world. Gai stops by to see the girl, as S.S.P. returns to the house when the Zetton reappears and Maya loses control.
Maya is then revealed to be Maddock’s “spare” an artificial clone of itself cultured into one of the planet’s native species to insure its revenge. Maya tries to stop the Zetton seeking to remain an individual, to be real as Gai transforms to fight the Zetton. Maya is forced to sacrifice herself to save everyone from Maddock by removing her bracelet that controlled her and the Hyper Zetton; this angers Gai, making her turn into Thunder Breaster to defeat Zetton. Maya’s sacrifice is revealed to only be her memory, but the couple still adores the girl as if she was her own and tells her that she was traveling the world, however this is the home she’ll be welcomed back to anytime.
My Thoughts:
This episode was actually an emotional one, but had a cop out so the viewer would not be too depressed; seeing that the plot could have had a completely darker ending. Now, I sort of wanted the darker ending where the girl died mostly because Orb has been too uplifting and cheery, without any losses or sacrifices made towards humanly characters. Previous series have often had an episode or more that features the concept of death in various ways which helped to either further the development of the characters/plot or to add sense of realism in regards that sometimes not everyone can be saved. Prime the example is if one watches Ultraman Leo, its death toll is similar to that of Victory Gundam!
The most interesting parts in the episode consist of Naomi not becoming jealous of Gai interacting with this cute girl, and the Orb’s fight with the Hyper Zetton. Now, I state Naomi’s jealous not being visible in the episode, because for me it is a trope/attribute I personally find adorable about Noami’s character. Then as for the battle, it was pretty intense and felt pretty short, but when he allowed his anger to take control that is when things got interesting. Having seen Maya “die” caused Gai to revert from Origin form to Thunder Breaster was honestly a smart move by the staff, because one would expect that the more negativity he feels the stronger that form becomes due to Belial’s darkness. It was proved to add to the imposed realism that Maya sacrificed herself to stop Maddock, however it felt negated when it was shown she had survived and simply lost her memories again. Memory lost in any case is something to scoff at, but using that to avoid death is kind of terrible cop in my opinion.
In conclusion the episode was almost perfect with the ending being a grey spot; where either one enjoyed it, hated it or his/her enjoyment is simply in between. The entire concept of Maya and what a “spare” is did not need to be fully explained but had it been, it could have gave more reasoning to said ending. Some may chalk up this ending to the episode being a filler story, and I can loosely agree with that reasoning. Now, the next episode also looks to be a filler and features one of the odder creatures in the franchise Nova!
