The Plan to Assassinate Dr. Nambu is the 31st episode of Science Ninja Team Gatchaman.
Plot Summary[]
Nambu's car is being chased by Galactor's Devil Star. But because of Joe, who seems to remember the Devil Star's rose bomb, they narrowly escape.
Everybody wants to fully concentrate upon protecting Nambu, since he's being targeted. But Joe cannot agree with them and leaves the villa. In order to control his anger, Joe runs his car around a racetrack. When his parents were murdered, he too nearly died by a rose-shaped bomb. He goes through a flashback and he thinks of revenge. Just then, he has to save a woman from an accident on the track. Before parting, they make an appointment to race on the track together the following day.
Meanwhile, Nambu boards the cross-continent train, along with Director Anderson's mysterious female secretary, in order to conduct an investigation. Ken believes that it's a Galactor trap and boards the train too. The remaining three team members hide and wait for the Devil Stars in their individual machines. Ken defeats the Devil Star members in the train, but the secretary, happening to be a female agent of Galactor, manages to flee in a disc-shaped plane.
Jun defeats the Devil Star members who want to destroy the tracks further ahead. Joe faces the last remaining Devil Star member, having found out the spot through a feather shuriken left by Ken in a map.
Their respective weapons clash, and the rose bomb pierces the Devil Star's chest along with the feather shuriken. They go past each other and behind Joe's back, the Devil Star's mask falls away. Her face is revealed to be the girl Joe was planning to race, which he never finds out as he waits for her at the race track the next day.
Staff[]
- Screenplay: Toshio Nagata
- Director: Hisayuki Toriumi
- Mecha Design: Kunio Okawara
- Animation: Masami Suda, Hiroko Inui, Hideaki Sakamoto
Voice Cast[]
- Ken: Katsuji Mori
- Joe: Isao Sasaki
- Jun, Joe's mother (uncredited): Kazuko Sugiyama
- Jinpei: Yoku Shioya
- Ryu: Shingo Kanemoto
- Dr. Nambu: Toru Ohira
- Berg Katse: Mikio Terashima
- Leader X: Nobuo Tanaka
- Lady Commander (Katse): Hiroko Mori
- Narrator, Joe's father (uncredited): Hideo Kinoshita
- Devil Star #2: Keiko Tomochika
Trivia[]
- In Battle of the Planets, the female commander was given the name Mala and was identified as Zoltar's sister, while in G-Force: Guardians of Space, she simply describes herself as an agent for Galactor.
Development Period[]
- As seen in the scenario draft for the episode, when it was written and envisioned fairly early on[1], the female assassins of Galactor were merely called "Galactor's Beautiful Ladies" (with Katse present at points as their "Blonde Captain"). It was also conceptualized as being directed by Hideo Nishimaki, until Hisayuki Toriumi was appointed instead. It can be figured that the entire reconstruction of the plot, as well as the focus on Joe and his past, was done by Toriumi to carry over the reference from episode 18 about his parents having been killed by Galactor.
- In this iteration of the plot, Dr. Nambu would appear to be killed in the opening scene, only for it to turn out to be one of his decoys. The Science Ninja Team would be ordered to track down the Devil Star ship, while Katse would learn that Nambu hadn't truly died and would have to escalate plans to kill him. The team would try but fail to destroy an underwater base that the Devil Star ships originated from, and then have to guard Nambu at his villa. Another decoy and the doctor's security team would wind up dead, and his cat Elizabeth would be abducted by the Beautiful Ladies. After Nambu and Jun would find Elizabeth, they would wind up realizing something wrong with the cat and discover that she had been implanted with a time bomb to go off soon. To shield themselves from the impending explosion, Elizabeth would be tossed into the elevator and sent upwards into the villa, blowing the building away with an explosive force. The doctor and team would be revealed to have survived in the basement, and the team would take off to track down the Devil Star ships again. Although Joe would want to destroy the nine Devil Star S ships with Bird Missiles, Ken would insist on using the Firebird Mode, which would immolate all the Beauties (while Katse and the Devil Star K ship would escape). In a final punchline, Ryu would apologize for the Phoenix being so hard and promise that he'd lose weight, while all Jinpei can think of is being hungry and wanting to eat cake, making the rest burst into laughter.