Video.

Hello and welcome to are we there yet? In exploration and education and anime. I'm your anime idiot, patrick dugan.

I'm an anime expert, dana hollander.

And I'm brenda mccullough, your anime mecca. Steve irwin.

Oh, happy birthday.

Happy birthday.

Croiki indeed.

Rest in peace. And may his children continue continue his.

Cool shit, I realize. May they discover robo animals.

Tie it in.

I'm going to wrestle this big old mecha crocodile friki.

That's a big zoid.

I would actually watch the shit out of that show. I realize they're basically just the real life wild thornberries. That irwin.

Yeah, true.

Yeah.

Wow.

Because the wife is behind the camera. Anyway, animal.

This isn't a Steve irwin podcast.

Could it be the I wish.

We're starting that one next.

Yeah, perfect.

I'm going to think of a pawn the rest of the episode. I'll say it at the end.

Okay. We'll expect it. Well, this so this is dugan's birthday episode, right?

I need to double check the timing, but close enough.

I'm pretty sure we wouldn't be watching this show otherwise.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure this is why this is happening.

So, yeah, I'm calling the shots this week, and we are watching the only anime I remember watching as a kid, zoe's yay.

The very famous zoeys that everyone knows about.

Yes.

I have so much knowledge about this show.

You know, the franchise. You've seen all the movies starring duane the Rocket Johnson.

Of course.

They're probably going to make one.

I can't wait. So, yeah, this I remember this came out in, like, I think 2001 was when the English version was airing on tbs or whatever, the wb Kids or whatever network it was on at the time. But this was my jam. I had toys. I watched it. I don't remember most of it. So this will be fun.

This is my jam. I don't know what it is.

I just remember loving this show.

I don't know what this is.

How dare you?

I don't know what that means.

I know.

I'm so sorry. I wasn't a little boy, but I'm sorry. I'm sure plenty of girls watched zoids. I just wasn't one of them.

Yeah, we discovered that there are many versions of Zoid. We are watching the original Chaotic century first three episodes of that, which sounds.

Very cool and just, like, trying to look it up to find out which version we're watching. I don't know which ones I watched or if they all just bled together into this weird amalgamation of Zoid show. Because I did watch. I mean, that was Power Rangers. I know, but I watched some of it. And I did have some of the toys because the models were actually, like, pretty dope and weirdly. Yeah, I bought a one for a friend of mine a few months back, and they're only in Japan and really expensive.

Oh, no.

Yeah.

I was thinking of looking at these toys and reliving my childhood, but no.

It'S going to be like $100 minimum from Japan.

No, thank you.

Yeah.

So, yeah, we are watching the first three episodes of the og series.

Woohoo.

Let's zoid it up. I assume that's the slogan.

Okay.

Hell yeah. This show rules.

Is this not real?

So polarizing immediately, so divided. This is where the podcast falls apart.

We all knew zoids would be the one to take us down.

Yeah, this is it, folks. I know I said last week was our last episode, but this one this one's the last one.

But it's big old Robo anime or animals? Well, animal anime.

Yeah.

What's nice to love?

It was, that's for sure.

What's nice to love.

Dana is on board. I can tell. Brendan, how are you feeling at the top?

It's what I remember it being. I'll leave it under.

What a way to hedge your back.

I knew what I was getting into.

With this, so yeah, I watched all three episodes dubbed.

Me, too.

I want to say I watched all three episodes dubbed, but occasionally it slipped into Japanese and there weren't subtitles, so I don't know what happened for some of those scenes.

Where did you watch it?

Your back alley. Zoid, anyway, was really messed up.

For, like, two scenes, they'll just slip into Japanese. I'm like, oh, okay. And then they just switch back. And I was just like, oh, that quality. Fantastic.

Delicious.

Yeah.

All right. Well, yeah, let's dive into episode one. I can hear the subtext of let's get this over with.

Let's do it. Is that better?

Can you take that line again a little more? There you go.

Yeah. Can I get a B take on that, please? So we open up in the well, first we get the very 90s opening.

Just open.

Metal.

I wouldn't be surprised if that was the actual lyrics to the song. It felt like that kind of opening in the dub.

It was.

I watched a weird one, I think. So take everything I say with a grain of salt.

Yeah. Your version of zoids was sick.

It was a long day.

Opening the opening is just some sick guitar and then just men chanting voice.

Yeah. All right, I got to find that.

Yes, please look that up. It is very important to me that you know how hard I was jamming all three episodes. So we open up on just open desert and we see a boy being chased by a scorpion. Mech. Just immediately right in there. Very much what I remember.

I was worried that I was watching the wrong thing already.

Yeah, it drops you.

There's no way this can be how it started.

Oh, it is like Star Wars. It starts with a chasey with a.

Young boy on a desert planet.

Yeah, exactly.

The parallels have already started.

We're going to call him Luke. No.

We later learned this boy's name is Van. So I'll just add that in now. But yeah, there's this small villager boy being chased. I say small, they say, he's 17, but he seems like twelve.

He's malnourished on this alien planet.

Yeah, he's drawn like, every other twelve year old boy in an anime. So it was a little confusing there.

And acts like one.

But yeah, we see that. This Mech pilot, he's an outlaw, sort of chasing him down just to test out his Mech and prove himself. And this boy is like, oh shit, me and my hoverboard got a skedaddle. So let's go hiding those ruins over there.

They kept saying a straysoid. And then even when we get like, the shot of the pilot, he's like, I found this straysoid. And I was like, are zoid sentient? Can they move on their own?

Yeah, they don't go into detail, but it does sort of set up, like yes, they are out there roaming on their own.

Weird.

But you can also get in them and pilot them.

Yes. So some ethical things are being run into question.

Get on in. Get all off in this sentient robot. Take control.

We've all seen Big Guy and rusty. We know what that's like.

What what?

Don't worry, that's for no one.

That is for no one. Like your references, I can be like, okay, but this one, that is only.

For Big Guy and rusty.

What universe did that happen in?

It's the era of wb Kids with the godzilla animated series. Don't worry about it.

We won't get into it anyway.

Yeah, let's move on.

So, yeah, this boy climbs up these ruins, like, let me hide out. And the Mech pilot in the scorpion Bull, he keeps on attacking and trying to kill this child for some reason.

To prove himself, I guess.

Yeah. Will he take that unarmed boy in the desert?

Small child? The kid, Van even says, like, why are you targeting me? What did I do? The bandit literally says like, nothing. I found the Zoid and I wanted to murder something. Like, that's it.

You were the first person I saw after finding the Zoid. So bad luck, kid.

What a dick.

So, yeah, we see two other Zoid pilots out in the distance watching this, and they're like, bulls at it again, trying to murder another child.

He sure is horny for murder.

Oh, we got the trifecta then.

Yeah, they're just watching and they're like, yeah, we don't need witnesses. So we'll let him kill this boy.

Sure, why not?

So Bull fires a missile and collapses the ruins. And in this confusion, Van uses it to run into them and hide inside. And we also find out that his hoverboard broke in this. So he's trying to go scavenge materials in the ruins to fix his hoverboard so he can escape.

Yeah.

And then the two Mech pilots in their sphinxy dog thing.

Wolf, yellow Wolves.

Yeah, I'll just call them dog mechs.

Dog mechs.

They decide to cave in the ruins and trap the boy inside. And they think their job is done.

Here's my first issue with this. The doorway to the mountain is exposed, and he goes in as if he's never been there before. And then he's like, I've already picked this place clean. And I'm like, I thought this was the first time you found this place.

Yeah, because he gets super excited when his board breaks. He's like, oh, boy. Now he can go inside and get some spare parts. I'm sure there'll be spare parts in the ruins. And then immediately he's in the ruins like, ah, there's no spare parts. Already picked this place clean. It's. Like what? Why don't you remember that? What? Shouldn't you know this?

Maybe that's a plot point. Maybe he has memory loss.

No, he's not the only it comes up later for other people, so I wouldn't put it past him.

One of the bandits also says, quote, now who's getting excited over a stupid kid? And I wrote that down because it's gross. Yeah, no, thank you.

Oh, no.

Felt like that was pertinent.

So he is exploring the ruins and is like, yeah, I can't find anything. But in the explosion, a hidden pathway is knocked open. And he goes inside and sees these giant pods with power in this large hanger area.

Secret tunnel. In a secret tunnel. There are a lot of secret tunnels in this show.

Yeah, I heard you like secret tunnel.

So we put a secret tunnel in your secret tunnel.

I love that episode of avatar.

Secret tunnel.

So we cut away to the village and we see Van's sister Maria at their father's gravestone. There we go. We got it.

Check it out.

We know that she's his sister because she has the same red bandage on her face.

Yeah, everyone's got markings on their face in the show. Or almost everyone.

Yeah, it becomes clearer later on. But this is a post apocalyptic, post war society. So this is the springboard for my love for all things post apocalyptic.

This is our point.

Here it is. We found it.

It's finding my heritage.

The giant robot animals.

You're anime 23 and me.

And we find out here well, I find out at least that this is a Canadian dub because she says, oh, Van wen oot. I didn't even notice what's Van oot.

And a boot about.

No, there's just very subtle. Every once in a while, you hear just the tiniest bit of Canadian peek through. And yes, this is recording it in Calgary. So I was like, yes, I caught it.

There you go.

Perfect.

So she's like, oh, that boy is eating a boutique. Where do you go? And probably went down to Tim hortons, though. What? I don't speak Canadian.

Tim hortons. It's it's a Canadian donut.

Oh, Tim hortons.

Yeah.

I didn't hear what you said.

Yeah, me either.

I kind of said it quietly under my breath because I didn't want to draw too much attention to it. And now we're talking about it for three years.

And here we are. She's standing in this graveyard with a priest who's like, oh, that boy will go out and do his thing just like his father. And we get the backstory of their father was a Zoid pilot. That defendant defended their village and died. Or Van is likely trying to follow in his footsteps and find a Zoid of his own and die. Yes, that is implied.

This is an exposition dump if I've ever heard one.

Well, as you know, Maria, your father blah, blah, blah, blah.

I wrote down. Oh, look, as you know.

So we cut back to Van in this hangar, and he opens up one of the pods, and a baby Zoid falls out. A little trex robot baby thing.

Are these how zoids are born? Is this how this works?

I guess.

Apparently. This one is a Special Zoid. I forget what they say. Like an orgasoid organoid orgasoid would have been so much better. They were so close.

Just right there. Just add a z.

Yes. And this is a Special Zoid that powers up other zoids, and it tries to attack him, and he laughs it off, and he's like, hey, you're my new best friend, because I've been looking for Azoid.

Yeah. And the Zoe is just like, okay, cool.

I accept this life. I know nothing else.

Bork. I'm a dinosaur.

Exactly.

He puts his hand out to touch his face, and then the Zoid kind of inches closer to him, and I'm like, oh, I love how to train your dragon.

And then he smacks them with his tail.

Smack.

Beat down. So at this point, once they're friends, bull crashes in and is like, ooh, a Special Zoid. Let me sell this thing for money. Money. The ultimate evil capitalism. And I don't know why, but in this scene, they animate a bull's face. So weird. Just, like, very distorted. And not a face like we see on any other character.

He looks like the nasty boy from Perfect Blue. Yeah, a little bit like the way his eyes are.

Yeah, his eyes are spaced out. They're, like, up on his forehead because chin is tilted back, and it's just like what, did you just draw him ugly to be like, yes, he is evil. Because I think we got that through context.

You know when he tried to kill a random stranger for no reason?

Yeah. And wants to sell a baby?

Yeah.

So they fight.

Would you like to buy my baby?

They fight. And Van is like, oh, he names him zeke, after the Zoid that his dad had. So dino friend is zeke, and he's like, zeke, get out of here. He wants to sell you. Run away. But zeke but he says specifically, you.

Have to listen to me. Just this one.

Yeah.

And I was like, you just met him.

You don't have a long history of him not listening to you.

You've never told him anything.

Opportunity to ignore you yet.

I thought that too.

Well, he uses his first opportunity to ignore him and tries to fight back, and zeke gets all electrocuted and is knocked out.

Well, Van picks up, like, a random electrical cable and stabs it into the Zoid, and that shocks Bull and his scorpion Zoid. And I feel like that's a really bad design flaw to be able to shut down the entire Zoid just by a stray electrical wire.

Yeah. You'd think there would be measures in place. Yeah, because if your, like, leg breaks and a wire just touches metal that isn't that wire, you shut yourself down.

Pretty much.

Hi. Welcome to our lecture on the practicality.

Of zoids of sentient robotic animals.

If you will turn to my powerpoint, I will go through step by step.

Why?

This is bullshit.

The dragonzord for powering. Good shit.

Do more of that. So zeke defends, they fight, and it leads to zeke throwing Van on his back and jet packing out of there.

Blast off.

And zeke takes him to an abandoned Zoid out in the desert. And it's a hunk of junk, but he turns into a bolt of energy and jumps into this broken mech, powers it up. And we have the iconic Shield liger, which is Van's Zoid neck throughout the shell.

The shield. ligger.

You know, all anime historians can tell you all about the history of the Shield ligger. It's the most formative thing ever.

Okay?

So it powers up the tube dog Mac see this and are like, hey, let's go eat this, kid. And they get fought off because the power of zeke in this mech is just so powerful that it wins.

I like that one band is talking to the other one, saying, like, oh, the Shield, liker, is a high performance void. There's no way a kid can handle it. And then Van says, we'll see about that. I'm like, how did you hear him?

How did you hear him?

How did you hear him?

I had my walkie talkie set to channel one, where anyone can ask him.

It's better than channel three. That's park security. That's when they lose a kid.

Well, this is a lost kid, so.

Maybe we should switch over.

But, yeah, he goes back into the ruins after the outlaws run away because of how powerful he is in this robot he just found. And they go back to another pod, and he's like, oh, boy. Zoid number two coming right up. And he opens it up, and there's a girl inside. And that's where we end episode one.

Shit, I should have put Mysterious Girl in a pod on the bingo sheet. That happens. I can think of at least three.

Dang.

I also love during the battle when he breaks the wolf mech systems, we get reaction shots of like, I can't believe that just happened, but of the zoids, which have no expressions because they're robots.

Yeah, these are some very expressive robots for being just giant. Their mouth opens and closes. We get so much emotion from that.

All right, so episode two. Yeah, that's what comes after one. I'm all over the place with this fucking show, but, like, it's not crazy. We've definitely dealt with craziers. It's just so good, you don't know how to deal with it. That's it. I'm remembering all the fucking money I spent on it as a kid. Episode two opens up with three bandits. The three bandits we saw earlier getting chewed out by their boss back at base. And apparently bandits all have a purple line across their nose. That's what they all have. And their leader.

That's how you know they're a bandit.

Yeah. So you know the bad guys. That's why Prince was a bad guy. They're a leader.

Yes.

Is like, a bigger guy. And he just says when they hear about a new Zoid being born, like a dragon, one that merged, he's like, dragonzoid. That's the organoid. And I guess it's very valuable because he wants it and to reclaim his honor. I don't know. They want zeke. That's all you need to know. And then we come back to Van talking to this mysterious girl, and he's asking her a bunch of questions as he leads her back to the village that she's not really answering her very well. Whether it's intentional or whether it's amnesia, it's hard to say. She gets a little sassy with some of the questions, and he ends up naming her fiona because she says that's her name, and then immediately forgets that that's what she said. And then we go back to the bandits, and it's just three new bandits. One is like, I don't want to call it the bandit boss, because that other guy is the boss, so just call her the commander, flying in like a pterodactyl Zoid. Meanwhile, her two henchmen are in just big old worm zoids, like caterpillar zoid.

I liked these.

They seem like they're really, like, artillery based, not, like, movement based. They're just big weird worms. And then come back to Van, taking fiona back home, and he's like, this is the Wind Colony. This is my village. Here is my sister Maria. And getting all that out of the exposition. And as Van is trying to tell the story of how he met fiona, he's like, oh, we met bandits, and she has amnesia. And then Van sister jumps in like, oh, and that running into bandits was so traumatic, you got amnesia and forgot everything.

It's like, yeah, right.

Sure. That's how it works.

But first, Maria is like, how'd she get amnesia? And I'm like, what the fuck kind of question is that? Maria?

But how yeah, he just met her. Fuck if I know.

She had the amnesia when he met her.

Do you remember how you lost your memory? No. idiot.

It's like someone asking you what's going on in a show. It's like, I don't know. We both started watching at the same time. I can't piece together it anymore. And so, yeah, Van just like, yeah, sure. That's how she got amnesia. And then fiona just turns to him and it's like, but Van, that's not how I got it. Or, we didn't see any bandits on the way back. I don't know what you're talking about. You're lying to your sister. And he's like, don't worry about it. It's just easier to tell her this than explaining the whole truth to her. As he says that directly in front of her. They haven't moved and they aren't speaking any quieter. So I don't know how Maria doesn't hear this.

It's not that hard to say. I found her in a pod.

Yeah, I found this dinosaur. Mech in a pod. That's fine. But this girl also in a pod. That's suspicious.

That's weird. What's going to happen? The government is going to come and test on her. Like, there's no government. What will happen if he told her to the truth? And then that's when zeke also walks in and Maria sees them and faint. Oh, my Lord. A dragon. Because we're not surrounded by giant robot animals anyway, so to keep I call him a dinosaur.

Is he a dragon?

The abandoned ball he's called dragon at one point, yeah.

Oh, that's just what I've been rolling with, because I think he can also fly. And what's a dragon? Just a flying dinosaur.

Oh, yeah, I guess so.

Let's see. Phoenix is not true. Yeah. And then zeke walks in, and Van introduces fiona to the ellie builder and the priest.

Ellie Builder?

I'm sorry. No, I didn't even notice that I might be having a stroke. Thank you for catching. So he brings it to the village, Elder, and the Priest, because I guess they run the village. And then fiona is still back home, and she pulls a Rain Man and counts precisely how many threads left. And up on maria's blanket she's making to point out that there's a hole in it. And she counts it's like 3700, whether, you know, whatever. And maria's like, oh, I missed that. But there's no way fiona could have counted all those threads. It's impossible because you know robot animals, everything's impossible.

But like, the way she says she goes, she says, how did she count that? It's impossible. Unless her clothes. And I'm like, what?

Yeah, that made zero sense.

I didn't even notice that.

What?

And then after that, Van is with the Priest and Elder, like, introducing keanu and saying, like, oh yeah, that's fine. She can stay with you. We'll help out however we can. By the way, Van, you should be running off. And van's already gone. He's fucking pale. He doesn't have time for any more Priest lectures.

When you heard one, you heard them all.

And it's around this time that the.

Three and fiona got a sick ass outfit somehow.

Yeah, I think Marie gave it to her. It's around this time, I guess.

That's what her clothes? Her clothes, I guess.

I don't know. There's so many mysteries with this show.

Not good ones. Around this time, the three new bandits we see this episode are approaching the village and they said they're told to attack it from afar and just shoot, like, lobbying shots and don't target anyone specifically, just kind of scare them. And everyone comes out to confront the bandits that are just blowing the shit out of their village. And Van sister comes up when they're asking for, like, hey, there's a newzoid in here. We want it. You got it. Give it to us. Maria comes up and just fucking sells her brother out immediately because being honest.

And truthful under the bus, being honest.

And truthful to criminals always works out. They have to abide by the laws of honor, right? So she tells them where, like, oh, my brother has to do Zoid. And he ran off. He's not in the village. They're like, okay. And they kidnapp Maria. And they're like, well, when he comes back, give us a zoid and then we'll give you back as, like, a contingency plan. And the bandit that kidnaps her is this weird, creepy guy with a whip and just like, so horny, just you're.

Kind of cute, but it's so weird.

The priest, like, steps forward to tell her to run and then the village elder just, like, holds him back. And he's like, no.

And I'm like, Why let her take her?

She owes me money. She deserves it.

Let it happen. Fine.

She was my least favorite.

She's expendable. Whatever.

We have another woman that looks identical to her. And this is when it just dipped into Japanese for me for a bit. So I don't really know what they said here.

They're like, mitas, later on in the desert, you the priest and the elder. You make the trade when you get the zoid.

Okay, yeah, I missed that part. And then we cut to Van and fiona in an oasis playing guitar, singing wonderwall as you do. And they see fiona is just asking 1000 questions and Van is getting annoyed because she has amnesia. This is what happens when you don't understand things. Get off in her ass, Van. And we see smoke coming from the village. And he's like, oh, no, the village. And runs back and he finds out that his sister was taken hostage about the trade.

And they say, we did our best to stop them from taking Maria. You did not.

You did shit.

You did not try your best.

You could have thrown a rock. Anything would have been better.

Yeah, he stood there.

There is no defense after Van's dad died. They're just like, well, I guess we're fucked if anyone comes to rob us.

That was the one guy. And van is just like, no, I'm not going to hand over zeke. I'm going to take these bandits on village is like, no, just give them over. And when van goes to runaway to fight him, he's like, I'm going to fight him like my dad just like four guys just tackle them and hold them down. And they're like, no, we're giving zeke over. Van tells zeke they're like, run away. Get out of here.

They all move so slowly, he just turns and starts walking. And then, like, ten guys dogs come over and just lay on him.

Animation is rough to draw. And as he's showing zeke to like, run away. Get out of here. Save yourself. fiona stops zeke from running off, so they kind of hold him there. That way the village can hand him over. And that's when a lady comes up who looks very similar to Maria. And it's kind of like in a van just saying, this is for the betterment of the village. You don't even know the zoe DA blah, blah, blah sort of stuff.

Maria was acting in the better interest of the village, and you have to do the same sort of stuff.

Yeah. And then we see the priest and the elder walking towards the trade off point, and they're like, oh, well, what do we do? Can we really trust these bandits? And the priest says, don't worry about it. I used to be a soldier for the empire, and if anything happens and then pulls out a fucking gun he has a gun. He has a gun.

Freeze with a gun. Love it.

But I like that he doesn't say anything about it. He kind of shows it to him.

You know, don't worry, I'm strapped.

But something I love in this show is this is I carry we have.

Both Jesus and Smith and wesson on our side.

The bandit commander also had a gun. And something I love is these guns aren't like crazy future leisure guns.

Pew, pew.

Like, they're just straight up a glock. Like, it's just a, like, hyperrealistic gun. Yet I really enjoy it because it just stood out so much.

There's even like a fantasy, like electric whip that comes into play, but just gun.

Just gun.

We have so many cool weapons. Giant monsters, electric whips and gun.

Then we cut to van is tied up in a prison cell because they don't trust him to not run off, which he does eventually anyway. And he's dealing with fuela for stopping zeke. And then we're back in Japanese for me. So yes, this happens for a bit.

Cool.

The older lady that yelled on earlier comes in with food, and I guess they talk for a bit. And then van escapes.

Yeah, that's basically the gist.

Okay.

Yeah, that's all.

Yeah, I figured I wasn't missing too much. And then back in English for me. So we're good. And van gets back to the liger. And he runs off to save his sister. Meanwhile, the priests and elder are at the trade off point of the bandits. And they walk out with maria and a creepy bandit just still being creepy. And they finally trade zeke and they let maria go and oh, wait, creepy guy still wants her because he's still creeping creepy. So he whips her back. And they're like, yeah, we lied because we're bandit nasty.

We're taking both.

See?

Yeah. What are you going to do to stop us? Nothing.

It's not like you have a giant met coming or a fucking gun.

You locked up the only person that could potentially protect you.

And this is when zeke attacks the creepy guy with the whip. And maria runs back to the priests and elder. And they start to zoom. Right? I had a mild short. There.

Another one. Are you okay?

It's been a day. Don't worry. And this is when maria runs back. And the commander tells him, like, ah, fire at him. And the other bandit, who's still in his void, starts shooting at him. Which seems a bit much. Like I could understand the handgun and whip, but just full artillery fire at like two people or three people. It's a bit much. And then all of a sudden that zoid gets flipped over. It's van in the liger deriving. Just in time.

Whoa. Thank god.

Yeah. But his missiles aren't working. He's going to shoot down the pterodactyl soy. But something's not right. The ligger is not moving as good as it used to. And the priest who brought the gun never uses it. It doesn't pay off. And it just annoys me. I felt like bringing that up.

It doesn't pay off.

He does nothing with it.

The gun doesn't pay off.

Literally, the reason you brought a gun.

Off would be so mad.

He's rolling in his grave. So van starts fighting these, like, two wormy zoids. And the LIGAR is still not moving right. Like he's able to dodge him and stuff because it's a good sweet, but it's not as good as it was the other day. Or earlier this day. I think it might have been like 3 hours.

Yeah, I think it's all the same day.

Yeah. And since ligger isn't working, fiona is in there and she just starts praying. And that wakes up zeke. Because they're pod buddies. Sure. And pod buddies once he wakes up.

This show is more christian than I remember.

The power of prayer saves us the zeke, the liger, and the holy spirit. And zeke fuses with the liger and it heals. It like from the minor wounds he got earlier. And it starts working normally again. And van is able to work it properly. And he jumps on one of the worms and rips off their cannons. And it scares them off. And they go running away. And they say retreat. Because he did one thing. Yeah.

Zeke doesn't really win fights they just kind of run away. Yeah, not Zeke. Van.

Yeah, they're one and the same. Van is the cheese.

Zeke is incredibly better than Van. I love Zeke. Zeke is my favorite character in the whole show.

He doesn't talk.

That is a bonus.

He's like a dog. I love it.

Yeah.

A boy in his zoid.

Yeah, wild zoids.

Wild boys.

The bandits run off and Van, Zeke and Fiona just like, well, fuck this place. And also leave the village without ever talking to anyone ever again. And Maria cut back to everyone in the village. Maria just tells them everything. Like, yeah, Fiona's in a pod, so is Zeke, and they just found these blah, blah, blah. So I guess everyone's onto it. And Maria can't keep a secret to save her fucking life. Apparently she's honest and ends with the village elder saying, like, van's dad saved the village, but I think Van can save much more. That's episode two.

Great. On to episode three. Here we are.

Here it is.

We're all having a great time, right? Just wanted to check in.

Check in real quick.

We're all having fun. We're all having fun with this.

Amazing I'm having so much funny snacks or anything.

I love this one so much. And I'm so glad that we watched it.

Hey, it wasn't my pick for one.

So they're in the desert again because that's where they live now. They're all tattooing and there's a sandstorm going on. jaku or tatooine. tatooine. Which one is that? The right one.

They're both sand assholes. Jack.

Okay.

Force awakens.

That's the force awakens.

The og.

Yeah, they're both shitty.

I wanted to make sure. Okay, great. We all hate sand. It's fun.

Gets everywhere.

So there's a sandstorm going on and visibility is low. And it's just Fiona and Van, they have been separated from the Shield Liger and Zeke, unfortunately.

Oh, man. I guess that was an interesting scene. Too bad it was off camera.

Yeah. And then listen, I understand visibility is low, but they just happen upon this, like, giant black I kept putting Black panther. It's actually like a wolf, a big black wolf zoid. And they're like, oh, where did that come from? And I'm like, bruh. But they see it. And then they're just standing there right next to each other. But only Fiona starts to get eaten up by like, a quick sand pit. And then the guy in the black wolf zoid, he like, shoots a grappling hook and Fiona pulls herself out. Thank God.

This show does rely a lot on damsels in distress, which is not great.

Yeah. But so they go with this guy to eat some corn because they were looking for food in the desert corn. And then there was the sandstorm. But he has so much corn. And I was like, oh, yum.

Nothing like corn to get you through the distress of your lost dino robot.

Yeah.

Get out of your corn. In this challenging time. The guy I call him Tripatch.

That's a good name for him.

Yeah. He's got eye patch, but with three little lenses on it.

Yeah. I think his real name is irvine.

Oh, is it really?

I think that I saw it in the next time on zoids. So I don't know if they establish it in this episode. It does not matter. Tripatch.

It's Tripatch.

Tripatch. I don't know if he asks what their deal is, but Van just kind of spills the beans and tells him everything about how he found Zeke and the shield legger and all this stuff. And the guy's just kind of like, cool. And then he goes to sleep, and he's like, hurry up and eat your corn. Go to sleep.

Eat your corn is shut up.

And then Van is like, okay. And then they go to sleep. And then it's the next morning, the sandstorm is over, thank God. And the guy's gone, try patches. Nowhere to be found. He left without saying goodbye.

How rude.

Yeah. And then they're like, oh, jeez, we better find Zeke in the shield lagger. And then they find them immediately.

Oh, no.

They were 5ft away.

I looked.

He's a very good slightly left. He sees them. Zeke sees them and starts running up. And van's like, yes, boy, come to me. And then he passes Van and goes to Fiona, which was a fun, silly moment.

See, we can have fun in the desert.

Yeah.

So much.

And then they go down some do they find a tunnel? Is this when they find a tunnel?

Not yet.

I think they find, like, two tunnels in this episode.

Yeah. The tunnels come in later. They just stumble upon an abandoned fortune.

A lot of ruins.

And this reminded me this area reminded me a lot of shadow of the colossus.

I was thinking of St. Louis.

Yeah.

And then a big white stegosaurus looking Zoid comes in, and I'm just like, oh, it's the colossus.

Got to climb on up.

I didn't get enough salamander towels. My grip shrinks.

Shit stamina. And it doesn't have a pilot. So this boy is footloose and fancy free.

The foot is loose. All right.

It's got a good way.

Yeah. This boy is injured, and it starts shooting at them because I guess it thinks that they're an enemy. Sure. And they run away and find a secret tunnel, and then they go down in the secret tunnel, and then they're like, inside the fortress once they go through there. And then it's just Fiona and Van, because Zeke, as soon as they got there, ran away just to go schmooze.

Mingle with the local zoids.

Yeah. And this was so funny to me. Fiona goes, oh, I'm worried about Zeke. And then Van is like, he's fine. He's probably just looking around somewhere. And then it cuts to a shot of Zeke just like, open mouthed, like, really excitedly looking around. And just walking around. And that's it?

That's it. Nothing else happens.

He's just having a great time.

He's literally just walking.

And then they go into a building. And it's like an office building, I guess, because there's just like a normal desk in it, which was kind of weird. And then Fiona is looking in the desk, and this part made me laugh so hard. The music is playing. She finds a diary and she goes and she looks at it. There's a shot of the diary, and it's just like the music goes bam.

Got that hot sting item acquired.

Bam.

Yeah, I guess this is supposed to be important. And then Van is looking around in another area of the building, and he finds cabinets. And he opens one, and there's nothing in it, but the music is building, so we know that something's going to happen. And then he opens the next one, and Zeke is in there.

How do you get in there?

Willy. Zeke.

You wiley pup.

And then they rejoin each other and they read the diary, and it talks about some guy, and he's like a war guy. A soldier, I guess. I don't know. A war guy.

One of those fighting boys.

One of those justified murderers. Hot tubs.

Wow.

All right, so we're having some fun with Dino robots, and then we got.

The consequences of war.

This got heavy.

Let's change that, I guess. I can, because this part's a little lop setting. He writes about how the Stegosaurus his name like gordo.

Yeah. White gordo.

White gordo. I love him. He hurt his leggy. So they're just going to leave him there and go dick move. Poor guy.

Yeah, dick move. He couldn't make the long journey of them abandoning the base, so they set him free.

Yeah, but he's been there for 50 years, protecting the fortress and waiting for them to come back, which is kind of sad. Poor thing.

Does he need to eat food?

I don't think so.

They're robots.

I'm not going to question the power because they're mech dinosaur robots out in the middle of the desert. I assume power is not an issue, but still.

All right, you win this round anime.

And then the guy, Tripatch comes back with his Zoid and he's attacking gordo. And I thought that wasn't very nice, brood.

You come into my house there, you.

Kick over my shit.

This is my fortress. Was Van watching, or was it just him attacking this Zoid? Because he says he says, like, watch a real Zoid pilot at work. And then he like, touches his zoid's forehead to the Stegos forehead.

Going, there no forehead.

And it's just a still shot for a minute. And then the Stegosaurus turns off.

And I don't know what happened.

I was just like when there wasn't even a fight. Eight, you just touched it and it turned off.

His sheer force of will overpowered the White guardo and shut him down.

Yeah. And then Van finds some apples, which is nice, and the crunch sound when he bites into one is absolutely disgusting.

Get that?

Yeah. And then he goes back to show Fiona he has a bunch of apples, and then secret staircase.

What?

He goes down the secret tunnel of this show.

Wow. He goes down the secret staircase to find Fiona staring at a pillar. And then he's like, what does it say? And then it, like, lights up, and Fiona gets a headache, and she's like, I see words. And I'm like and then she's like, it says Zoid eve. And then she like does she faint? She has a bad time. It hurts her brain. Just like this show hurts mine. And she feels like when she gets a little more what's the word? She, like, comes out of it, and she feels better, and she's like, I feel like I need to find it, but I don't know why. And I'm like, ooh, plot is happening.

Finally got that set up.

Finally. And then I guess they leave the building. And then the guy, the trip hatch man, he is just shooting his gun at them. But it's doing so much damage. All of the just guns in this show have done so much. They're like bombs. They're not guns.

Guns. Op police nerf.

He's shooting a grenade launcher at them. But it's a gun.

It's a gun. So he's trying to get Zeke. We find out he's trying to get Zeke because he wants the organoid just like everyone else does, I guess. And he grabs Fiona and he's like, you give me your organoid, and I'll give you Fiona. And Van is like, can you speak English, please?

And I'm like, what? That was pretty clear through context clues.

Yeah, but I guess the point is he doesn't know what the organoid is.

How could they speak English?

He doesn't know that Zeke is special.

How are they speaking English if England doesn't?

I know that Zeke is special.

Zeke is very special.

Zeke is very special to me.

What if we took Dino from the flintstones and gave him guns?

The most endearing pet. But so Zeke swoops in and saves the day somehow, I don't remember exactly how, but Zeke run away standing on.

A big rock, and Zeke comes in and jumps and just destroys it.

Perfect.

Thanks, Zeke. Zeke saved the day. hooray. They're running away from the guy, and then he shoots some rocks, and they fall on Van. ouch.

That'Ll leave a mark.

My bones.

Yeah. And then they show this tripatch guy, and for the first time, I look at his outfit and think, what's with that? Because he's got a weird outfit on.

It's supposed apocalyptic anime. It doesn't need to make sense.

It's got one strap up here and one sleeve over here. It's fine. It's a look.

It's like an eldridge horror. The longer you look at it, the more insane you get.

Yeah. And then I like calling him Stego. He comes and he helps Van out of the rocks.

He's a good old boy.

He's a good boy. I like the zoids. I like the sentient zoids. Those ones are my favorite characters.

Yes.

The ones who aren't, they show the most compassion. They're not corrupted by human pilots.

And Fiona and Zeke are running through the tunnel. They used to get into the Fortress, and they come out the other end and oh, no. Tripatch followed them.

Got you.

Oh, no. But good news. Van was freed by the stego and found his Shield Ligger and is coming to save the day. He knocks the shield liger down. uhoh, this is like, the most movement we see from the zoids in a fight. I feel like most fights have just been like the zoids standing there and then shooting guns.

Yeah. These are the animations for the zoids, are very 1999.

It's that early cg.

So they they knew how to animate about 5 seconds at a time of a zoe taking two or three steps, and that's about it.

Than you it was probably expensive.

Oh, I'm sure.

Yeah. But so Van gets knocked down in the Shield Ligger, and then, good news, the stego comes over and shields him from the blast that the Command Wolf was about to do. pew, pew. And that was nice. And then the guy was just kind of like, ah, dang it. And then he leaves.

Thwarted again. Well, see ya.

My only remaining missiles, the Bag. I had infinite grenades in my grenade launcher, but I brought two missiles.

Only the bad guys in the show are just low effort. They're just like, well, that didn't work. Time to go home.

Guess I'll rethink that one and come back.

Yeah.

It seemed very much that they were like, hey, we can't show this kid killing anyone. So all the enemies will just run away at the end of each fight.

Yeah. So Van is grateful. He gets out of the Shield like her and the Stego is going back into the Fortress, and Van runs up beside him, and he's like, you don't have to go back in there. You're free. But it just speeds up and runs back into the Fortress. And I was just kind of like, he's got to protect it. He's got to wait for the wanderer to come over and defeat him because it's Shadow of the clothes.

I was thinking futurama with the dog. He's waiting for his owner to don't.

Bring that up here.

Jurassic park.

I've seen futurama, but I have heard of that instance. Like, whenever people are like, they mention futurama and the dog. I do get sad only because of.

Context, and that's how powerful it is. You get sad just hearing about it, which is why we need to move on.

I'm sorry. And then the episode ends with Van just kind of being like fiona's like, oh, he's not going to come out here. And he's like, no, I think he's going to go in there and keep waiting, even if he has to wait 100 years. And then it ends. And I'm like, is that supposed to be happy?

Yeah, it's not like inspirational. It's deeply sad.

I guess he's happy there and he's just chilling.

But he's waiting for his master to come back and he's long dead.

Yeah, that's never going to happen.

Then he gets turned.

I hope the stego comes back. I bet it doesn't, but I hope he does. And he's happy and free.

Same. That is my wonderful in my mind.

It will happen and I'll never see it because I'm never going to watch this show again.

Wow.

So, yeah, I get to ask it this week. Are we there yet?

No, not at all. I can see how this would appeal to children, but as a 22 year old person watching this for the first time no, this show, we've talked about it before. This instance of my mind where I get sonic brain. This show gave me sonic brain so bad because the situations they're in seem very intense, but no one is treating them intensely. The voice acting is all like, super chill. The music is super chill. The sound design is also very quiet. And I'm just like, what is happening?

No, there are some fight scenes where there is a mellow ass acoustic guitar just playing over it. And it's like, did you consider this at all?

Sometimes I like the music, but the thing that's happening on the screen, it makes my brain feel weird. I'm like, what's going on?

Yeah, there is some strong cognitive dissonance going on here.

Yeah. But so I get it, the nostalgia. And I'm sure the toys were incredible, but for me, it's going to be a no for me.

Dog, that's fair.

Re watching this. Really heavily enforced. This is made to sell toys because they have the giant bolts, like the big red bolts that locked into the limbs for like, the models. And I understood why they were needed for like, the models and the toys to like, hold the pieces together. But they look very out of place on the actual zoids in the show because they're just these big red nuts and bolts hanging off of them. And it's just like that doesn't fit well. And you can tell they spent all their budget on the cg of the zoids to make them as cool as possible with as little movement because they couldn't afford that much. And it's just like this is the yugio era, gundam era. Just like we're selling toys. Yeah.

Just got to move the product, make the product look cool, and we'll figure out how to animate it later.

Yeah. I mean, it worked, at least worked on me and dugan.

Yeah. Watching it again, I guess. Yeah. I definitely would not continue watching this, but this was a fun trip down memory lane. Yeah, it was good for what it was. It did its job well. Do I love the job it did? No, not really. It served its purpose.

I told a friend we were watching this. He's like, oh, should I go back and watch it? And I'm just like, no, it's not awful.

Don't do that to you.

It's not terrible. We've watched worse on this podcast, so it won't ruin those memories. But rewatching it won't do you any favors. It'll just kind of be like, yeah, that's kind of what I thought it was. So there's worse things to rewatch and there's better shows to start watching for the first time.

Yeah. But I will say, I did really genuinely like the emotional connections made between these robots and this small boy. Because it gets that sort of pokemon feel of like, yeah, you're going out and collect them all, but it's like, yeah, you're actually being friends with them and forming bonds and stuff, making them.

Fight to the death.

That's sweet.

Yeah.

I like Zeke. I'll give you guys.

I love the one animation that he used in all three episodes of Zeke jumping up into the sky to power up the Mac and the sound he.

Makes when he's running.

I liked priest with a gun. That was my favorite character.

My favorite mac is Priest with a gun.

I got a fucking gun that I never use.

Well, all right.

There it is.

All right. Well, thank you for joining us this week. What do we have going on next week?

Next week I believe we got a good show that I am stalling for because I didn't have the list up. Give me a second. We're watching djo. Yes. Which is actually one of my picks. And I really hope you guys have absolutely no idea what it's about because I want you to go in as blind as possible.

Great. Because I don't.

Yeah.

Fantastic. I'll say this, it's fun. It's real fun. I don't know if it's good.

How exciting.

I'm scared.

Yeah, that's going to be a good episode.

All right, well, if there's a show you, the listener would like us to watch, people listen to it. Yeah, let me take another swing at that. If there's a show you, the listener, want us to watch, feel free to tweet at us at Are We There Yet? On Twitter and Instagram. Or reach out to us at our gmail arweavariet@gmail.com. And you can find me on Twitter and Instagram at Mrpatrick. dugan.

You can find me on Instagram at queen. Period. Weebu. And on Twitter. Twitter, Twitter at Queen underscore Weebu.

Twitter for winners. Twitter.

Twitter.

It's what's for dinner. You can find me on Twitter at abts. Brendan stands for Almost Better Than Silence, which is the name of my other podcast we had my co host on, like, two episodes ago.

Yeah. Thank you to camille ruley for our artwork. And thank you to Louis zong for the use of our theme song stories off the album Beats. You can find all of louie's music at Louisong bandcamp.com. Thank you and we hope you'll join us next week as we learn to live with anime soyuz.