AWTY 129 - Killer Dome (Zoids Fuzors)

And this one just sucks. Hello, and welcome to our Reef there yet in exploration and edge education and anime. I'm your anime idiot and birthday boy, Patrick dugan. woo.

I'm an anime expert, dee hollander.

And I'm brenda mccullough, your anime herbie.

The love bug from broom, broom, buzz, buzz, get on inside me.

Lindsay Loan.

No, crawl inside me. Like Lukewood a taunton pilot.

Me.

Like a mech.

I thought you were a car on the outside. Well, we're here. We're back. It's been another full rotation around the goddamn sun that hasn't swallowed this planet yet. So that means it's time for Zoids, baby.

I was going to say it's a cause to celebrate, but now you've said this.

You had to go and say that and ruin the mood.

I'm not going to pretend at all in this episode, I'm already a little drummed because we're watching zoid's Fusors. And that Fusors with a Z because, you know, it's extreme hale and with an or.

That's not it's not even resembling a word. It's so far off.

It's early 2000s flash, late line. Ninety S. I don't know when this comes out.

2004.

2004. Okay. So solidly. In bush's second term, we have this piece of shit coming up.

We're just not having anything good this episode.

No. Okay, so we burned through the two Zoids series that I knew as a youth. So we're beyond the familiar territory. We're into the bullshit that's like, hey, let's sell some more toys. We can squeeze some more money out of this franchise, right? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, let's keep doing that. So that's where we're at in the TV show, where it's clearly just built for toy tie ins. Where they're like, hey, buy two toys and fuse them together, dip shit.

It always gets because they do the cgi on the Zoids in all the series. So it's clear that's where putting most of their attention, which is fair. They're the titular character of Zoids, but then you know it's for toys because they always have those big red, like, lug nuts on the outside of them that look hideous. There's no aesthetic reason those exist, but it's because those are the pieces that connect the parts for the toys, for the models. So they're like, we have to incorporate them in the show design because they're in the toy design and we need to make them like one to one exact because that's the only reason the show exists, to sell these toys.

We're in our third franchise of this garbage toy thing that's barely selling. So let's go until we start losing money and then our bosses say, okay, stop.

Let's get fucking wild.

The bad part is there's still like two or three more series of that, and I think there's a new one coming out, so I don't think so.

What did you say? Two or three more? Oh, sweet summer child. There's so many more. Oh, there's about a half dozen more we have to get through fucking Yogiobook robots. We'll be in 2030 before we stop watching zoid's.

Baby, it's the dcu, the zoid cinematic universe.

They got your soul forever.

What phase are they in now?

Oh, Jesus.

Zoid specifically is in the nostalgia phase of, like, hey, you're a weird 30 year old. Right? Remember zoid?

Remember when things didn't make sense and you were just on board for it? And you're like, nothing bad can happen to me. I'm an innocent child. And now you're an adult and you're sleep. Everything terrifies me.

Zoe'S, remember extreme things without an E. Just X, dash, stream. Yeah. So I'm the Zoids guy, and I haven't seen this piece of shit. I assume neither of you have seen it, right?

Absolutely not.

Surprised? Tony hawk's kids might be in college and that, like, hurts a soul.

Tony hawk the man, the mystery, the legend.

I know nothing about the fucking soy. coincidentally, we stopped at the same two shows that I had any frame of reference for. So this is all new fair.

We're all in very shaky ground just knowing that they're already stretching, they're already running real thin.

This is only number three.

Plug your nose. We're diving in. We're going to watch the first three episodes of zoid's fusor.

Ready?

Yeah.

Hold on, I gotta throw up.

And we're back.

On that note, I have actually been fighting food poisoning the last 24 hours, and this was the worst experience that day.

Oh, boy.

Oh, man.

Yeah, we're we're in some great anime franchise territory of just no one cares. Everyone gave up. The dub doesn't sink anymore, and no one even bats an eye. Because who actually watched the series in the last ten years? No one. Okay.

You know the thing about 100 monkeys with typewriters? That's this. If you put 100 monkeys in a room with typewriters, eventually they will write.

A zoid series, and then 3 million monkeys later, they come up with the third zoid series.

Yeah. That comparison is for, like, eventually they'll write shakespeare saying, like, they'll eventually get to something good. We're in the early drafts of the monkeys. This is an early monkey draft. Yeah.

If you give, like, four monkeys 30 minutes, you get zoid's fusing.

They're in the upstairs room in a hotel above anime convention. Like, this is what it'll get. They'll get high off the weeb fumes, and they'll just put a mech in there.

So, yeah, I personally decided I was going to play a game. It didn't really pan out, but the game was initially built on. I was going to take a drink of this beautiful alcoholic beverage I have every time they say Fusors, but it didn't really work out, so I just drank the whole drink. So, yeah, so I put this rum and coke. I put in one shot for every episode of the show I had to watch into a glass and then filled the rest with coke. And some lime juice that I'm now calling a liger Zero.

Wow.

But, yeah, so that something came out.

Of this that's so good. I actually I don't really drink, but I like a rum and coke, and that sounds baller.

Yes. Three shots. One too many. Yeah, I call them two and be like, a little much, right?

I could probably do half.

You could have done a coke Zero and have been a liger Zero and.

Oh, my God, that's it. You did it. You found it. Rum and coke with coke Zero is now a liger Zero. Particularly nobody else can average a lime juice that's a liger Zero.

Don't steal that from us. We're begging you.

Take some plastic strap, and I'll crush it up and put it in the drink so we can drink. Your mouth bleeds. Same thing we feel. Watching is always still. For three years in a fucking row.

We're, like, a quarter of the way there, baby.

It's because it's not exclusive to one episode. I'll just get this up front. It's four by three resolution. It's so fucking crunchy because it's from, like, old standard definition. And no one anywhere online has bothered to get a high quality rip of this because why the fuck would you?

Yeah. No one gives a shit.

So it's so crunchy to watch, and the audio peaks constantly.

It's so bad.

So compressed. It's so bad. It's still the beautiful Canadian dubs. You get those just tastes of Canadian accents to be like, hey, we didn't bother to pay anyone in America to do this. That would be way too expensive.

We're recording in Canada to avoid union dues because we got to get this on the cheap. And the dub just the sink just ever so slightly drifts until it's a full minute and a half off by the end of the episode. It's like, fine. Why not?

Yeah. If you watch this far into the series, you're dedicated. You're ready for this.

It's part of the fun.

It's part of the charm.

So let's get into episode one. ah, my Home Turf. Planet Z. A beautiful homecoming. But what? It's not just a garbage desert place anymore. It's an actual city, okay? This is a new development. We're in a city. I think it was, like, Blue blue City or whatever.

Don't bother coming with a clever name. It's a color.

Yeah, that's as much thought as they put into it. We're in Blue City on Planet Z, and we see 2004. Just beautiful, open on just a shitty blind date of a guy being like, you're so fucking hot. I might cancel my other dates for tonight, babe. And she's like, you're so bad.

She's also got the New York accent. And in Canada, they really pull through.

We're in America. Forget about it.

I'm about to start a new dnd campaign. And one person is like, I'm using molly's accent from the original sailor Moon tub. Yes.

Perfect.

Inappropriate accent. Also, the guy in this convertible is just spaced Andy. We haven't watched Space dandy yet. We probably will, but that's just literally spaced Andy. Oh, boy.

Well, hopefully in Space dandy involves a liger running down a highway.

Why?

Because.

Sure. Our zoid sightings. We got liger Zero running down the highway.

The only character anyone knows from Zoids is Ligger Zero.

Yes. The only recurring character in that, it's kind of like the same car. It's like if the main character of yukio was a Toyota camry.

It's literally anime. herby, the love bug.

Yes. So we get a LIGAR running down the highway, and the police are like, no, you can't bring a liger here, but we got a hot shot pilot named Rd who doesn't give a dang about the rules.

What does Rd stand for? Fuck if we know.

Rude Dude.

That's it. Found it. Got it in one. Rude dude is running down the highway and he's like, I don't give a about the cop. That's the kid's show. We can't swear. But we see the police corner him and the, I guess sheriff the sheriff guy.

Cowboy hat.

Gummy.

Gummy.

Dude'S name is gummy, and you have to respect him as an authority of the law. And he's like, hey, stop being a liar pilot kid. He's like, no, okay.

I can't I guess I can't argue with you.

You should be fair enough. So liger Zero senses a breach in the barricade and runs through a tunnel and escapes. And the police are like, should we chase now? He's already gone. We got some other stuff to deal with. There was a burglary that probably won't come up in the rest of the episode.

Fuck. Wait, I think it actually does. I just realized the rest of the episode. Yes.

Rude dude returns to his base with a bag of apples. Is that why he was running down the highway? Sure. He bought a bag of apples. Okay.

There's a lot of apples in this show.

Yeah. Just very apple centric economy here. So goes back to the base and the girl of the team starts shaming him for being a rude dude.

She's both girl and mom. You hate to see it.

She confuses me so much.

Yeah, her name is Sweet, of course, these names. So she's like, you can't do crime, especially in the no crime zone of the city. And then, of course, we have other teammates being like, sweetie, you better shut your sweet mouth. That's not far off in the actual dialogue.

He is the stereotypical joey wheeler of the show. He is the red New York accent.

Yeah, this is sigma, which now works in 2021. I guess he's just very into bitcoin and cryptocurrency. sigma and helmet. The other guy with a cool metal face mask. He doesn't wear a helmet.

Why the fuck does he call a helmet? It's a mask.

Yeah, tuxedo helmet. They have to go out on a mission. There are some, like, loose Zoids in the city. They have to wrangle Zoids once again.

Are they sent in creatures? Are they just machines? They build? Are they birthed? Are they created?

No one knows.

Who cares. No one knows and no one cares.

Yeah, it's like thinking about pokemon deeply. But who gives a shit? In the past decade, there you are, off on a mission, but Rd has to go do a courier stuff because he's a delivery boy. He's young and inexperienced. So I guess this is futurama. Now.

He's got the most powerful zoid and they have him deliver packages.

Yeah. The previous two series, they're like, hey, you found liker zero. Holy shit. This is like the Holy grail of Zoids. But we are introduced to this boy being like, yeah, I'm joy riding around the city. I don't give a fuck about this piece of shit in my mail truck.

You'Re drift a 40 foot tall lion robot.

He's on delivery duty. Rd and Sweet are on the roof. They're talking about Sweet, tells him to quit whining because he's part of a team and you're working for the team. It's all a group effort, and we're all working towards finding the Alphazoid. And then he's like, oh, the greatest thing I ever needed to do. I forgot. That's why I'm here. Okay? That's right.

I forgot my entire life's goal.

Yeah. So he goes off to do this delivery. He meets up at a sketchy warehouse and the guy's like, I don't know if I could trust this to a dumb kid.

It's not far off. That's the voice.

Yeah. Everyone is just a shitty Canadian thought on what every American sounds like, which is just New York.

Are they wrong? Maybe that's what we sound like to them.

For the quality of this show, I can't begrudge the actor for making that choice. Was this one take? Sure. Do we have time to take it again? Yes. Are we going to?

No actors, nothing on the people who are like, yeah, I'll show up for, I'm sorry, 2004. I'm going to say $15 per episode. So yeah, don't blame them at all. But this looking back, beautiful artifact of a long lost era of beautiful dubs rude dude is like, oh, I guess I'll leave with my badass zoid and not take your package. And the guy's like, oh, hold upon. Now you can take our package. This has to go to easytown in the next 3 hours.

Swear to God, if you go to lazytown, I swear to God if you.

Go to lazytown we can't do this here.

Not again.

But ooh mysterious woman is watching from the shadow. So we see.

Sweet.

And like the team dad. Hop. I just called him Team dad.

I think I have that sort too.

Yeah, they're watching zoid battle. She's super into it, but whatever, it's Zoids. There's a combat component. Okay. Yeah. zoid strapping. Everyone listen to the last three late march episodes. You'll figure out what's going on. But Rd is off on his journey. He's oh, excuse me. I almost skipped a note. So the client boss is like, you trusted my valuables to a snot nose kid who happens to be an amazing zoid pilot? No, our deal from the robbery we did is going to go bad because.

We stole a bunch of fucking jewels.

And we're trying to sell them outside the city, but no one knows because I'm scraping about it in my own office.

I didn't realize you wrote the entire script.

Yeah, but oh, no. A listening device. Oh, who could have planted that? Was it the mysterious woman we saw? Don't worry about it.

No.

So we see some other crime families listening in and they're like, oh, zoid's got valuable jewels that got burgled earlier today. So they're off for rude dude. So rude dude. He's bored on the journey. He's like, oh, being a courier so lame. I just run and sit here. We'll sorry. My zoid runs. I just sit here and listen to the same album over and over.

The album that he picks up, they're on floppy disk. You know, the future of his delicious.

In a beautiful mech. But listen to music on floppy disk that can hold one album at a time.

It's the future.

Wonderful. He's running. And of course the crime family attacks him. They're like, hey, we need that package of yours. I can't remember if these guys come back in the next few episodes. So who cares what their names were? Burke and or bert?

I don't know.

They're attacking. They're going to steal the package. We see a flash to easytown where this mysterious woman is there talking to the buyer and trying to seduce them and be like, oh, I'm a woman. You're immediately in love with me. So what are you waiting for, crime lord? And he's like, oh, just some jewels that I'm waiting to sell.

Just so we're clear, this woman was eavesdropping at the warehouse when he picked up the package and is already an easy town. Why didn't she deliver it? Because she closed up there faster.

Yeah, teleportation technology is available, but it's not used because Zoids are way cool. Zoids. So we get the crime family attacking Rd, trying to steal the package. He loses it because he's like, no, I got to focus on doing cool attacks. I can't protect the one thing I'm out here for fights. These Zoids. And oh, the cops are here. They tracked him down. They got an anonymous tip that these are the jewels that got burgled earlier. So the two crime family Zoids just yeet out of there. And I don't know, rude dude is complicit in a crime like new. I don't know. This package, I'm selling it for a buyer for money. I'm not going to ask questions. But the cops are like, oh, kid, you just got tied up with this we're going to let you go. You're fine, don't worry about it. As the authorities aren't even going to take the jewels back, we trust you to give them back to the person who lost them.

Yeah. Wait a minute.

It's you rd. Of course you're not in trouble.

Yeah, the criminal we are tracking down like 15 minutes earlier. We trust you with a bunch of jewels that are worth billions of dollars. Apparently so.

It says, Hi, Sheriff gummy. Fucking names.

So they wait for the jewel owner. They're back at the base. sigma is like, oh, fucked up a mission. Ha ha, I'm a hot shot. But who walks in the door to claim these jewels? It's a mysterious woman that sweet apparently knows and is named Amy.

Amy Rose.

Yeah. Boom.

Yeah.

Sonic.

Sonic.

Got sonic. sigmas knuckles.

No.

Thomas Silver. I don't know that one. I didn't play that one.

But she called in the tip to the police so she could swoop in and claim the jewels and stole it from the thieves at the help of the police. That sounds about right in my experience of contemporary policing. So Rd is walking around downtown, a crowd is watching a big screen, watching the big ol Zoids battle match, watching the game, just watching the game with the bros. Just standing on a street corner, not being in like, in an establishment, just watching it on a big screen in Times Square. But the champion restini immediately loses to some mysterious new competitors. And that's where we end episode two. And my full comprehension of this series.

Yeah, my brain didn't turn on for this until I had to take notes.

Yes, I took notes at the beginning and was like, okay, I'm done.

Time to blackout swing. And they had ligger zero. You got as is tradition after episode one, we go on to episode two. Title of this episode is one plus one equals question mark.

I mean, it was two minus one plus one equals question mark. Don't get it twisted. It was I believe, so I need.

To go to that was not for me. It just said one plus one equal question mark of mine. But you know what? That's more brain thinking capacity than I have right now.

Hey, I'm kind of the zoid's guy around here. I know the episode title I saw once and then Never Thought About again.

I forgot to factor in the zoid did shit. There's always two minus whatever, of course. Anyway, start off with the episode two. We got the Zoys battle from the last episode. The enemy team literally called the Dark assassins. They're not one for subtlety. No. And this team consists of two Zoids against three Shieldligers. They don't call them Shield lagers because then you would realize that they're connected to the lager Zero and realize that they were the titular zoid in the first series and be like, hey, aren't Shield laggers better than this? Aren't they not just this cannon fodder, like, idiot team that gets knocked ground for one hit. No, these are just cannon fodder idiots. But they are riding Shield lagers you weren't supposed to remember five years earlier to the last two series.

Yeah, don't think about it. Anyone who watched that series is already 13, and they're too old to be watching this.

So then we got the Dark assassins, which are made up of two Zoids, which are a spideyosaurus and a crab. Crab, chick crab. No one does.

Sorry. Can you give me the actual title of this crab?

Killer dome.

I'm sorry, I think you cut out.

Real quick what was real loud and clear, can you say the name of this crab one more time?

The crab's name is Killer dome.

The secret word of today.

So these two Zoids combine. They fuse, or that hurt to say. So the crab jumps on the dinosaurs pack, and apparently they're a robot god.

Now because of course it jumps on top. Its name is Killer dome.

Don't I even pretend like that's justified. So apparently the power level went from, like, this one's twelve and this one's a 13. And then they combined these are now 5 billion. The power level just skyrocket so much because they connected their batteries math. And they just wiped the shit out of Black Impact, which is the other team, which is the residing champion team. And when all the crab calls, just shoot out on whips and just pick up the other liars ors and just smash them. They're like that's it. That's the battle. That's what we base our whole economy off of and gamble so much money on. And they're gone in fucking seconds.

It's like, all right, my life savings crazy.

We see, like, the leader of Black Impact, like, the cockpit pops open and he's like, I got bumped around a little bit. I guess I better study more for the next battle. And he seems fully fine. Make a note of that because that'll come into play later in this episode. And then back at the rude dudes base, they're watching the battle recap and announcers going over how powerful the fusions are. And they get some big old nerd to come in, be like, yeah, fusion strong. No. Is that the substance? I forget. Anyway, the announcer recaps. The battle root dude asks the resident nerd, Helmet. He doesn't wear a helmet. Like, I can't stress how not the helmet this is. He talks to Helmet like, hey, how did that fusion happen? And Helmet says, I don't know. I don't even know how to set the clock on my mp3 player. ooh. What? You had floppy disk last episode?

Yeah. You pilot a fucking robot beast and you're like, I don't know how technology works.

Let me record this battle on my vhs player. What? What are you talking about?

All the technology in the background is.

More advanced than the B three player. Don't act like that's big.

Anyway, I watched the movie The Terminal with Tom hanks the other day, a 2004 classic, and just a very this image has been stuck in my head since I watched it as a youth. There is an advertisement in this airport that says, introducing the camera phone. So that is where we're at in 2004. We're like, whoa, you can take pictures on your camera or excuse me, on your phone.

Honestly, the way technology the way technology has progressed in the past 20 years is baffling. It was so fast.

Some would say too fast.

Too fast.

And now we're ruined.

Anyway, let's Amy Rose kicks in the door saying, hey, sonic, I'm here to marry you.

I'll do my best, sonic.

No. It turns out she actually set up a battle between our ragtag group of miscreants and the Dark assassins.

How?

No one knows. Are they a known team that has earned the right to fight the new champions of the zoe Battle Arena? No, but they are.

Well, the last episode, rood Dude was like, and don't forget to sign us up for a battle. So naturally they set it up. So the woman signs them up against the deadliest team and, oh, no, she fucked up real bad.

And they're like, Amy, how did you do that? Cut to a flashback of her talking to Rosatini's and his dad. Turns out Rosatini is in bed. He's in a hospital bed. He's in a full body cast, and his arm is broken and he's got bandages all after on his head.

What the fuck happened to him?

Like, he got, like, mild whiplash at best, and now he's on, like, a ventilator. There is a breathing machine in the background because it's so fucking loud. I couldn't pay attention to any of the dialogue.

I'm sorry. He has zoid's fever.

He'll never dance again.

You know when people get into a car accident and they're fine, and then a few months later they're like, I don't know, my neck hurts. That's what this is.

She's trying to scam the insurance company. He's in a full body cast. Anyway, she's talking to them, being like, hey, what happened to your son? Fucking sucked. Crying. I'll avenge him if you sponsor my team for the Bat. I really did not pay attention in the scene. The breathing machine was so distracting, I could not pay attention.

It's fine. I didn't pay attention either.

Back to the courier service, delivery service, mercenary group. I don't know what this company does. Apparently it's anything if you give them enough money. And everyone's mad at Amy for signing them up against the Dark assassins because they're going to get their shit kicked in. And they know this. Thank God even rude dude is aware of like, hey, we're not a battle team. I don't think we can take on the new champs who just clean the floor with the old champs. And Helmet says, he's like, you know what? Call up the team battle. But then the team dad, Hop says, oh, it's too late. We've already made the news. And they turn on the TV and sure enough, the news because they got fucking nothing else to talk about. I guess it's like, hey, upcoming battles between this random team of micro machine well, I don't forget their team name and the Dark assassins. And now with us right now are the Dark assassins. And it's just these two rich fuck boys wearing matching outfits with matching haircuts on the news saying, we're going to clean the floor with these group of idiots because we're rich and can pay for the bezzoids.

We're going to murder these children and other guys.

We've won one match and now we are so egotistical, we are going to murder anyone else who steps in the ring with us.

To be fair, they're egotistical because they're two rich student council presidents from the revolutionary girl atunia school because they are just wearing the most outlandish outfits.

Very princely.

They say, yeah, we're going to kick the shit out of them. And the news coverage stops and we cut away to see the two fuck boys in a car talking to the bandit guy from the last episode who wanted to steal the jewels. And he's like, you leave them to me. And they're like, hey, why do you care about this team so much? And the bandit dude says, fuck you. Mind your own business. Pretty much what is happening? And back at the mercenary compound of Rd and Helmet, we see hops and joey wheeler looking at the enemies. And they're like, yeah, we're going to get our shit kicked. We sure are going to lose there. Meanwhile, Rd and sweets are going to a zoe's museum out in the middle of the desert to find out what the hell fusions are. Because apparently no one knows what the fuck these are. And this is a new technology that no one's ever understood.

Hey, show some respect. They're Fusors, not fusions.

Sorry.

Come on.

I apologize.

Respect the show. We've all acknowledged we didn't really pay.

Attention to, but I like how they're like, hey, look at this crazy new technology. I wonder if the museum has any stuff. Why would they? They focus on the old technology sure enough to get to the museum. It's more of a library. They're looking around. Rd is excited because he found a typo because he thinks he's so clever and smart. Meanwhile, the bad guys are clothing that they knew that Rd and sweets would go to the museum. And they prepared for this. They don't do anything about it, but they'll take care of Rd. I really don't know what's happening. The more I read it, we put.

A typo in the book so he will get confident.

We knew he wouldn't resist it. So Rd and sweets are leaving the museum saying that was a complete. Waste of time. And it goes, so was to the show. And then as they're running back, they stumble across a random guy that ran out of gas and is just sitting by his truck looking for a ride. Turns out this random mechanic is Dan.

Dan the man.

I like, this guy actually one chill dude in a society of just egotistical assholes.

Well, hold on, because I got a point about Dan. Turns out dan's a big zoz fan and a big mechanic. Turns out he's a real big fan of Liger Zero because he watched the previous series.

The only person in this universe who did.

He's also like, I understand being a big fan of a particular model. Like, oh, boy, I sure do love the firebird from, like, 87. I love that car particular. It's like, sure, whatever. He's a gear head. He's also a real big fan of Rd.

Why?

Who is Rd? Why does no one know him but Dan? Why is Dan a big fan of him? That makes me curious.

Dan the man. Big fan.

That's like saying, I'm a real fan.

Of his business card.

That's like I'm saying I'm a real big fan of the firebird from 1987, and I know Steve over there has one, and I love Steve. That's weird.

Never met Steve. Didn't interact with him at all before this. But I love you.

That's what really unnerved me about Dan. And then they start talking a bit. Dan gets mad that Rd doesn't really have a plan against the Dark assassins tonight. I don't know why he would. I don't know why he's dan's fucking business. And he doesn't want the Liger Zero to get destroyed because he loves it so much. He says, Take me back to the city. I'll help you spiff up Liger Zero and some of your other zoids, and we'll see if we can take them. And Rd is like, you got it. And takes Dan in his Zoid and rises back into the city. Meanwhile, he abandoned Sweet in the desert with dan's broken truck because fuck her, she's a girl.

She doesn't get respect in the early 2000s.

Gross.

There's certainly not any space in that cockpit for more than two people there is that's a joke? And so they've run back into the city. Meanwhile, back in the city, the battle started between the Dark assassins and this ragtag group of misfits.

It got pushed up to right now, it's already happening.

And as the battle starts, dino buoyant crab Son immediately fused because why hold your best card till the end of the battle when you're struggling? Just do it right away and get it over with.

Yeah, when you're up against the magic car, but just definitely dynamics immediately.

Don't even take that chance. Just go in. All in. So they start fighting sigma and helmet. And as they're fighting, the sigma is about to get shot, and Rd flies in out of nowhere. Well, we get a full flashback showing he dropped Dan off outside and the meanwhile, dan's like, I sprouting up on the way somehow that he's been riding it the whole time it's been running. Like I don't know what he did. He just fucking like he downloaded the patch note.

I gave you a brand new stereo system so you can plug your mp3 in.

Yeah, you can listen to Green Day on the go now.

And then we also see Amy is just in a cafe somewhere watching the battle, saying, ha ha, it's a good thing I bet against these idiots. I sign them up for in the battle. And it's like she's playing both sides. That's how she does things. And then, yeah, we see Rd flies in and saves Sigma right as he's about to get blasted in the asshole. And earlier they also say, like, yeah, we'll fight any number of zoids because we'll sweep this team so easily, it doesn't matter how many they have. So that's why there's an excuse for random zoids jumping in and fighting against them, and it's okay. And we see Sigma tries to fight, but RT saves them. And we see Amy feels guilty about betting against them.

But if I want her, she's a flip flopper.

She wants that money. And frankly, she's the only one that seems confident enough to get it in this series. Yeah, in the fight, they take out Helmet and Sigma real easily. And this is where my dub started drifting further and further out of sync freight. As they're about to take out Rd, suddenly Amy flies in in her Zoid that she has.

Okay, everybody has zoids in the future.

Sure. And as soon as she latches on to the enemy team, they hit her. And apparently that's enough to decommission her Zoid in one shot with everyone else, you see the Liger run into attack and they block it with a shield. Which, I don't know why every zoe doesn't have a shield, especially if they're in combat so frequently. That feels like a no brainer. And then as the Ligger goes down, it sprains its ankle. Question mark. And Dan says, hey, I finished powering up the liger. It should be good to go now. Cool. Now the ligger can fight. The crab falls off. What? The crab falls off the spinosaurus. The combo is dead. Why? So the fight is over and hops is there saying the referees determined that it was a draw due to mechanical failure on both parts. What?

Great.

Okay. Well, who gets the prize money? No one. It was a draw. Cool. So this whole episode was just a waste of our time? Yes. Literally nothing was gained in the show. Nothing was progressed in this episode at all.

Do you think the other episodes weren't.

A waste of time? No, but just the battle and the whole cinematic of like, it's this fight between the back. Just the cop out of the Fusory burn out their batteries too quick, so they just ran out of power. It's so dumb. Such a dumb cop out. And Dan says he knew about the battery glitch between fusors because apparently he knows about them, but no one else on the planet does. But he says he didn't tell them about it because he was busy powering up the Ligger, which we never see, ever. What were you doing, Dan? And they still don't know how to beat the fusors. They still don't. They just lucked out that the battery burnt out. They don't really know how to win against them yet. But Dan says he can still power up the lager Zero even more, and they have nothing to lose. Cut to Sweets dying in the desert of hypothermia because it's freezing.

God, that's funny.

That's episode two.

All right, let's keep going through this.

Where I was there.

Yes. So in episode three, it starts off with sandra and Blake, who are looking at a big bird Zoid named buster Eagle.

Like, I know that's what it is, but it's funny hearing it said out loud.

Yeah. Blake is one of those assassin boys. So this Zoid, it's got a lot of guns and power, and it was expensive, so it better do its job. Which is probably to, I guess, kill Rd to cry.

Specifically Rd to give me crime.

They hate this kid.

The ego is also, like, fighting against it, which once again brings up the question, do they have souls?

Yeah.

Did they capture this guy schrodinger Zoid of like, is it sentient? Is it controlled by people? Is it both? Why?

It's a little of both, and it's very uncomfortable. So don't think about it. And no one has think about it.

Let me climb inside my pikachu and commit it to battle.

Oh, no. So then there's a scientist on the news explaining Zoid fusion, and it's a megazord. All zoids have the capability to fuse, but the scientist guy is like, I don't know which is which yet.

I don't know who's the top, who's the bottom. We have to figure it out.

The Liger Zero is wearing capris. It's a bottom.

The Liger Zero is too strong. It's a power bottom.

It's a switch header.

And our folks are excited because Zoid battles are going to get way cooler. And then Helmet is like, who. Leave it to the experts before we try to do it. And then Sweet is like, Rd, are you okay? I know I act like I hate you all the time, but in this episode, I'm going to be really nice to you sometimes and then absolutely hate you the other times. But before Rd can answer, dan runs in and he's just like, Zoid, fusers, baby.

The name Dan is so weird compared to everyone else. It throws me off when I hear, yeah.

Like our main team, we have Helmet, we have Sweet, we have Sigma, we have hop. And then every other person is Dan, Blake, sandra.

Sandra.

Yes, Amy? You're not a protagonist, so you don't get a cool nickname.

So he runs in there, and then he talks to them about, like, their zoids changing armor, and I just didn't care, so I didn't pay any attention to it, and neither did he, really. He was like, I just want to know about how to fuse these zoids. Get these zoids fucking I want to.

Tie these robots together and see how strong they are.

And he is ready to put in the work to figure out how it works. And they're all chatting about how excited they are to fuse. And Rd is like, I don't think Ligger Zero needs to fuse. He's already strong enough. He pretty much doesn't want to taint legger Zero with other Zoid gunk. That's what I'm getting from zero. He's like, My Zoid is the very best, and I don't need to fuse to be good. Okay?

But in episode one, he's like, hey, wouldn't it be great if I got a new fucking Zoid that wasn't a piece of shit? Like liger zero.

I'm pretty sure I can handle it on my own with just Ligger Zero, despite me getting my ass armed to me by literally everyone I've encountered with, like, your Zero.

And then he goes to be dramatic by a lake, but he's interrupted by chow. Indeed. And they're the cops from before, and they ask him if he's okay, which is, again, like, Sweet being very nice to him. All of a sudden in this episode, the cops are just like, hey, buddy Powell, you can tell us your problems.

You, champ. We know you. We're friends. We know you want a deep personal love sticker.

Honorary sheriff's sticker.

A criminal. Let me spin this chair around so I can be Cool dad for a moment.

They do actually give him an apple. He's like, hey, you look hungry. Here's an apple, pal.

What the apples in this scene? We'll get there in a second, but I'm so excited. I'm so excited.

We got to talk about it.

I did not write anything down about the apples. So if you want to talk about the apples now, you're more than welcome to all right.

I'm curious if it's the same thing.

In the middle of the scene, I forget boy's name, but dude yeah, dude finishes an apple and eats the core. Just eats and swallows it down. One bite.

Just stem it all.

Sitting is like, whoom. Now time for Desert eats the core. So beautiful. That was, like, the one thing I retained from this episode. Eating an apple core.

Wait a fucking minute, old thing.

The only thing they have to eat on planet Z right now are apples.

Yes.

So they have to use every bit.

Yo, my dude, do you know if cyanide is an apple? Seeds. Don't eat the seeds don't eat the corn.

It's fine for humans, as long as you don't eat too many. So he doesn't really want to talk to them about his problems. But chow, the girl is like, I know it probably has something to do with fusers because you've seemed sad or something ever since they announced fusers. And it's like, how do you know?

We're best friends.

And then Rd, he's like, yeah, I don't want to fuse because me and Liger Zero have a good thing going. Like, maybe I'll fuse eventually, but not right now. I want to control my own Zoid and destiny, which apparently has something to do with this.

And my dad, I guess we mentioned once or twice in this. Yeah, he cares.

Don't worry about the Alphasaur, which we don't talk about ever again.

Don't fucking worry about it.

He wants his first time to be special with someone he can trust.

Exactly. Yes, someone he can trust. And then deed is like, nah, destiny is stupid. You should just fuse so you can be more powerful. I would do it with my policeoid. And then they leave. And then now Sweet is getting annoyed with Rd again. She's like, you should just fuse. It would be good for you and your Zoid. Stop being so pretentious.

Don't peer pressure of sweet.

And then Helmet, Sigma and Hop get back from wherever they were and they're like, hey, Rd, we have a mission. You're going to go on a mission with us. We got to stop some little zoids from terrorizing a town up in the mountains.

They're wild animals. For now.

For now.

Until we get a pilot in there. And then they're subservient to us because we're good.

So it's rd's first mission. He's ready. They're out there. Time to capture these zoids. Sweet is also there and tells Rd to not do anything stupid, of course, because that's their whole dynamic. But Blake is also out there and he's ready to cause mischief. And by cause mischief, I mean kill a child.

Mischief, I mean kill a child.

So Sigma and Helmet. They're getting the Mini zoids. That's what they're doing. And then they're like, Where are Rd and Sweet? And then they roll up with a bunch of more zoids to capture. They wrinkled them up. And Helmet is like, wow, that's impressive. But Sigma is like it's beginner's luck.

Do we ever see sweets in her Zoid? No. She is girl.

No. Why would we? And then Blake is following Rd and he attacks. And Rd is like, I don't have time for this. And then Blake is like, It's time to finish what we started. And then they fight. And I don't care. The others, they fight. I don't feel like writing down the specifics of it because it's like, I.

Don'T need to tell you how robots fight. You'll do half as good a job as they did.

Yeah.

So the others are done with the mission. They don't know where Rd is. And Helmet is worried, but Sigma is just like, nah, let's leave him out here. Teach him a lesson. But then Helmet hears something and rushes off to find it. They're still fighting. Witty banter. And then the cops show up and they're like, hey, this is a peaceful patrol area. No zoid fighting here. But Blake says, I don't care. And then he attacks the cops.

Hey, heck the police.

Heck. And then the buster Eagle swoops in to fuse with blake's Zoid. And it was at this point that I finally realized what the fusers were because I somehow missed it in the other fights. I just was completely tuned out and I was like, wait, so it's just one Zoid on top of another? There's no combination? Cool new form or anything for them to sell more toys?

No, they're like, hey, what if we took transformers? Oh, so you mean they're going to have, like, two distinct forms? No, we're going to take two robots that lock together so they make, like, a new thing or like no, it's going to be a crab on a dinosaur, and that's going to sell a billion dollars worth of toy.

Put a magnet in this Zoid and a magnet in this other Zoid, and they just together.

In this case, it is an eagle on top of a dinosaur. Blake attacks Rd some more, and then Helmet, it seems like he gets there, but he didn't actually. Yeah, who knows what helmet's timeline is?

He got lost.

He sees what's going on. There's more fighting, more witty banter, witty in quotes. Witty in quotes. What do I mean by this?

Said the writers of zoe's future.

Yeah, whatever, rd, they're fighting. And then Rd realizes that Liger Zero isn't strong enough on his own. shocker. And Blake is ready to annihilate the child. But another birdzoid swoops in, and Rd is using his scanner. He's hacking in and he's like, what is this? And it's a fire. Phoenix. And Liger and the Fire Phoenix are Fuse compatible? And then all of a sudden, buster Eagle short circuits and all it can do is fly. So Blake epscons, he says, I'll be back for you. Get ready for your death.

And RT says maybe I confuse with fire.

Eagle.

And the Fire Eagle flies back down and hits RT again, goes, fuck you. Fuck you. Think you're good enough for me?

Don't fucking touch me, consent motherfucker.

It's like, of course. Now Rd knows that Liger Zero can fuse with this extremely powerful void. He wants to fuse. And then Helmet again finally shows up, and Rd is like, you'll never believe what happened. See you soon, Fire Phoenix. And then that's it, and I'm ready to end it.

This episode or you're like.

Termination?

I want to go to bed.

There's a reason I'm now, like, five shots deep into this episode of a podcast I chose for my birthday.

You chose alcohol.

Every time we watch shows like this, it hurts. But you know what sucks more? When I was watching this, I was like, remember in the first zoids when they went to those ruins and there was like a little shadow of the colossus kind of thing? That was kind of neat when those.

Were mystical and not corporate machines you.

Buy with this is my long game. I'm going to expose you to so much fucking bullshit that you're going to crave early zoids.

Exactly.

I'm looking for Zoid.

This made me yes. And, like, nostalgic, I'm even thinking about the original Zoid series, and it's like, that, compared to this is, like, interesting.

A little Dino Boy that could power them up and shit.

I'm thinking about I'm like, that was Zoid's, right? That wasn't something else.

They had something to say. They had an actual thought process for the series rather than yeah, these robots. You remember these robots, right? Well, they're not selling that great. So let's double them up. Let's double Deckerzoids and try to stronger.

They're not selling well, so let's make more.

Yes.

Oh, my God.

Weird. It's the same plan I have for digima.

Well, you lost us immediately by showing the movie first.

We peeked all downhill from there.

I'm exhausted.

So it's always because I think it's the second series of sods the drafter thing that Blake had with the two spiral cannon things was like, a big fucking deal. It was, like, super powerful. And now it's like, you fucking slap an eagle on this bitch just to make it worse. It was liker, zero.

They're outdated now.

I think the armor that dando signed, but I was like, yeah, I looked into Liger zero. It used to have different external modes is a reference back to series two and kind of saying, like, hey, remember series two? Fucking none of that matter. It can't power up that way like it used to.

Historically, it did it, but that's ancient history now in this timeline.

It sucks at today's standards. Why?

Oh, no.

God, what a horrible experience.

Happy birthday.

Happy birthday.

Hey, I'm having a great time. I'm chatting with friends.

I too Chattos after this.

Speak for yourself, Brendan.

Fair enough. I'm watching my favorite baseball team lose the World Series. So I'm having a great day over here.

There's baseball happening.

Excuse me. Baseball blaseball. Never root for the tacos. That's a bad winning strategy. But hey, so, yeah, we're not here. We will never be there. We were there once, apparently, and a faint dream of a thought of the past. But yeah, we're Zoid's nostalgic. But we're not Zoid's fans.

No, I hate that. I hate that we've hit this point. Oh, man.

Well, here we are.

Do we hit an hour? Do we fill a requirement?

Yeah, I think so.

We have a decent enough episode. I didn't we pass contract?

We passed 50 minutes, and I feel like that's fine.

That's yeah, that's the contract we agreed to with the devil.

Yeah. If we hate a show, we have to get about an hour's worth of content. We've gone under. Oh, we've gone under.

But what do we got? Next week?

I get another pick because I'm still on probation.

Redeem yourself.

So, in order to redeem myself, I took an actual recommendation from a friend who likes anime that isn't one of you two.

What?

This is unprecedented territory, so we're going to watch skateboard anime. skate the infinity.

Oh, fuck.

Tony hawk.

Can we get Tony hawke as a guest?

He has not returned my calls yet.

Maybe bam. margera I used to live in the same town as him. He is not doing well, so he might have loaded for a podcast.

We'll see. We're trying. You'll find out next week as we watch skate the infinity.

Hella.

So if there's a show you would like us to watch, number one, expect us to hate it, because that happens.

We hate our own text.

Yes. Submit pessimistically listener if you love a show, do not send it to us because oh, God. We are likely not going to love. And we love you because you are a listener of our show. And that means we connect in one form or another. But if it comes down to anime taste, that is not the connection you're looking for. So you can send those recommendations to us. Our email is rweebaria@gmail.com, or you can reach out to us on Twitter or Instagram at rweebariat on both. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram at mrpatrick. dugan and listen to my fiction podcast, echoed locations.

You can find me on Instagram at honey. Period. D on Twitter at honey d eight and honey d art and on twitch at honey d. And Honey is spelled.

H-U-N-N-I-E. Find me on Twitter at aBTS brendan it stands for Almost Better Than Silence, which is a video game podcast.

I also do thank you to camille ruley for our artwork, and thank you to louie zong for her theme song stories. 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.

Who can say where the road goes?

Rd'S nuts.