Lunar Rescue, Begin!
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| "Lunar Rescue, Begin!" "月面レスキュー、始め！"
("Getsumen resukyū, hajime!") | ||||||
| Production company | Sunrise Yomiko Advertising TV Tokyo | |||||
| Airdate | July 2, 2003 | |||||
| Written by | Shin Yoshida | |||||
| Directed by | Taiki Nishimura | |||||
| Animation studio | Sunrise | |||||
Once again the arrival of Machine Robo Rescue means somewhere is struck by a disaster, while Jay finds out there might be more to his past than he thought.
Synopsis[edit | edit source]
After their mission at the International Space Station, Shuttle Robo and Machine Commander arrive at the Moon, and soon arrive at the massive Moonbase. Honda Sohachi is transferred to the base's medical facilities, and with the inspection not due to start for a while Chief Bitou tells the cadets they can tour the facilities first. However, Stealth Robo and Jay are lurking outside. At Alice's suggestion the cadets stage a version of The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter rather than visit the base's museum where she plays Princess Kaguya. Jay meanwhile enters the museum and becomes fascinated with a picture. An old man nearby tells him the picture was taken from Mars, confusing Jay. The man tells him the mission to Mars that took the picture disappeared without trace ten years ago after the ship was struck by a meteor storm on its' return journey. The rescue teams found a sole survivor - a baby in a life capsule and the tale triggers memories for Jay. Meanwhile the cadets have donned spacesuits and are exploring the surface of the moon when the ground begins to shake - a rockslide has buried the nearby Moonbase 13 mine. They set off to help, with Makoto informing Rescue Headquarters. Shuttle Robo is launched to join the rescue effort, disrupting Jay's reverie. Alice and Kai fall through a section of the Moon's surface and are separated from the others, however.
Makoto takes command at the mine, ordering Taiyoh to wait for Shuttle Robo while the others begin searching for survivors. He notices Alice and Kai are missing; the pair have survived the fall thanks to the lower gravity but are trapped far underground, with no reception on their K-BOYs. The practical Kai begins to work out how they can get out while above Ace and Lin enter the mining base. The Shuttle Team reach Taiyoh - only to come under attack from Stealth Robo. Jay has also headed inside the mine but falls through the ground as well as the facility continues to collapse. He discovers the Mars probe ship and has further visions, beginning to realise he was the baby onboard the ship, with his parents among the crew. Alice and Kai also discover the ship, finding Jay undergoing a breakdown. They are interrupted when Stealth Robo, struggling to fight Shuttle Robo without Jay, crashes down as well. Inside Moonbase 13, Ace and Lin find two stranded workers, but the section they are in develops an oxygen leak. Jay meanwhile has been recovered by Stealth Robo, and asks him to destroy everything on the Moon. The resulting explosion blows Alice and Kai back to the surface as Jay summons Hyper Stealth Robo, and Taiyoh responds by doing the same to call upon Hyper Shuttle Robo. However, Jay's fighting skills are impaired as memories of his mother clash with his belief that he is a soldier of the Disasters. The latter seems to win out, but not before Hyper Stealth Robo is defeated and knocked out into space. This allows the miners to be successfully evacuated, while Alice and Kai believe that they have seen an alien after getting surprised by Stealth Robo - much to the amusement of everyone else.
Featured characters[edit | edit source]
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Machine Robo Rescue | Disasters | Others |
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Notes[edit | edit source]
Continuity notes[edit | edit source]
- Jay appears to have inherited his hairstyle and headband from his mother.
Real-world references[edit | edit source]
- The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter is a famous story from Japanese folklore, and is perhaps best known in the West as being the basis for Studio Ghibli's The Tale of the Princess Kaguya in 2013. Alice casts herself as Princess Kaguya, Daichi and Lin as the bamboo cutter and his wife, Taiyoh as a horse, Ken as the narrator and Makoto as a tree.
- The museum on the Moon contains NASA spacesuits, Neil Armstrong's historic footprint is seen preserved by a glass case on the moon's surface and the base of the Apollo 11 land module is also seen - drawn much more accurately than it was in "The Gift", for that matter.
Foreign localization[edit | edit source]
Singapore
- Title: "The Moon's Rescue Mission Begins!"
- Original airdate: ?
Home video releases[edit | edit source]
- DVD
