| Title: | Juusou Kikou Dancouga Nova |
| Episode: | 12: Final Mission: Fly High to The Future |
| Synopsis |
| Flash forward: a furious battle is raging between mechs on the moon, and it isn't going well for Dancouga and Team D. Back at where the last episode left off, strange objects are hovering over earth's capital cities and playing hell with the weather. Conventional weapons are useless against them. Back at the transformed Dragon Fang Island base, Team D is aghast at being told that they are being discharged. FS and Will's plan is that Dancouga will engage Will's "brother" on the moon using the combat data it has accumulated plus newly attained self-awareness. "Moon Will" is defended by the original Dancouga, and FS is certain that Team D would be annihilated if they accompanied their own Dancouga. The pilots pretend to obey their orders, but they have other plans. In fact, their superiors are aware of their conspiracy but allow them to carry it out; the mutineers even find themselves with an unlikely volunteer to help out. Dancouga was originally intended as a sort of Noah's Ark to save examples of Earth's life forms when the planet was destroyed. Will, however, is impressed by the spirit of Team D and it's friends, and believes they just might render that mission unnecessary... |
| Comments |
| This is one of the handful of shows which I enjoyed so much that I was seriously tempted not to watch the final episode, because I never wanted it to end. With many series, even if they were fairly good, I'm only too happy to finish them off and move on to something new. The flash-forward to a scene from the climactic battle confused me, and had me checking if I had skipped an episode somehow. When the battle finally did come about, snappy background music upped the excitement (as usual). I wish the animation of the fighting had been a little better; this is a relatively low budget show. It might have been a good idea to have at least mentioned the "original Dancouga" before now, because it's hard to hate an opponent who you didn't even know existed until this episode. I'm not sure what to make of Aoi-san's flashback to her troubled childhood. Moon Will was defeated in a surprisingly quick manner--what was that about "plasma"? The episode's ending was a bit dissatisfying, too; I was expecting a good joke or touching comment to wrap things up, but got the standard ED sequence instead. But for all my little complaints, this episode was good enough for me. I guess Dancouga Nova wasn't a particularly original series, but instead deftly used tried-and-true techniques the way they worked best--no doubt something that's not easy and shouldn't be sneered at. |
