Galactor's Witch Racer is the 27th episode of Science Ninja Team Gatchaman.
Plot Summary[]
The ISO gets a message from Lucy, one of the executives at Galactor, that she wants to reveal the location of their headquarters in exchange for $10 billion. Therefore, they contact Lucy by having Joe team up with her in the world custom car endurance race across Africa. The other four team members are going to act as guards for their scout.
After Joe gets into the car, he expects the information immediately, but Lucy says it's not possible until the rally is over.On the way, they are attacked by mechas camouflaged as animals. It is Galactor who have come to know of Lucy's treason. But with Ken and the other's help, they escape the attacks and continue the rally. As they approach the finish line, Lucy asks her old friend Joe whether they don't want to team up and takeover Galactor.
Evading all kind of obstacles, the team of Lucy and Joe win the race and get $100,000 in prize money. In the tea room, Joe demands that Lucy gives him the information as offered. When Lucy tries to answer, she suddenly starts to move strangely and finally breaks through a wall and falls to the ground where she explodes. She was a cyborg manufactured by Galactor, and a radio signal emitted by X caused her to self-destruct. Joe is taken aback by Lucy who is now nothing more than a pile of iron fragments. His anger towards Galactor is ignited again.
Staff[]
- Screenplay: Toshio Nagata
- Director: Setsuo Omura
- Mecha Design: Mitsuki Nakamura
- Animation: Masami Suda, Tomonori Kogawa, Akio Kikuchi
- Art Setting: Tsunehito Nonomiya
- Backgrounds: Teiichi Akashi
- Finishing: Yukio Inagaki
- Special Effects: Kiyoshi Asanuma
- Photography: Akio Hirayama
- Editing: Hajime Taniguchi
- Production Progress: Masaharu Kamata
- Production Manager: Mitsuo Sato, Minoru Uchima (Yomiko)
Voice Cast[]
- Ken: Katsuji Mori
- Joe: Isao Sasaki
- Jun: Kazuko Sugiyama
- Jinpei: Yoku Shioya
- Ryu: Shingo Kanemoto
- Dr. Nambu: Toru Ohira
- Berg Katse: Mikio Terashima
- Leader X: Nobuo Tanaka
- Lucy: Toshiko Sawada
- Galactor Captain, President, Attendant: Shin Kunisaka
- Narrator: Hideo Kinoshita
- Announcer, Soldier: Tessho Genda (as Mitsuo Yokoi)
Trivia[]
Development Period[]
- In the scenario period, there was no indication of Lucy and Joe ever knowing each other previously, with them meeting as strangers in the race[1]. This makes Lucy's comments of having changed her appearance and voice so Galactor wouldn't recognize her make more sense, along with there being no strange timeline questions over if Joe was actually racing at age 13. Ken and Jun would keep watch while riding the G-2, rather than in the Phoenix. Joe and Lucy would also be described as wearing racing suits.
- Lucy would be described as being able to look like an incredibly beautiful woman when in a nice mood, but then her face taking witchier expressions and compared to a "demon" when angered. Ken and Jun would suspect that she couldn't be human with her sharp shooting ability and determination, even calling her terms like a "rally demon", foreshadowing her eventual reveal as a cyborg. At one point, Lucy would meet Ken and Jun during the race and Ken would insist she tell them the Galactor base location right away, but Lucy would say that he'd have to protect her and Joe to the end of the race if he really wanted the information. Her passion towards Joe would also be made more clear during the later part of the race, with her insisting "From now on, Joe is my right-hand man." and "“I need Joe. Me and Joe, we can conquer the world. Win the rally.'' and asking "Don't you find me attractive?" to try to sway him.
- Rather than their final scene taking place at a restaurant, Joe and Lucy would meet in a hotel lobby after changing their clothes and Joe would give her the prize money, then start to leave to await her promised call to the ISO. Lucy would be described as staring at Joe with great passion before her self-destruct device activates, and attempts to yell out the location of the headquarters, but winds up writhing in pain and runs outside, exploding. Ken believes that "Lucy was a cyborg that betrayed Galactor because she had human emotions", but did not yet have his additional dialogue about cyborgs being single-minded. There would also be no final scene with Joe driving his car.