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"Aruku Gomi" "Walking Garbage"
July 5, 1991
Ako is on her way to school. She sees the garbage men on their rounds and it occurs to her that she is much too old to still be carrying a teddy bear to school. She takes the bells she always had around its neck off and tosses the bear in with all the garbage.

Bored, bored, bored. The Vyram are bored. Radiege is absorbed in the grub he brought back after killing the Queen, so the others are at loose ends. Maria has a biochanger she's been carrying around for a while, toying with what kind of monster she will make this time. Toran, equally bored, snatches it from her and throws it in a garbage dump. The biochanger lands and is engulfed in a pile of garbage that includes Ako's bear. It activates and takes a reading. And this is what the reading shows it: A little girl playing with her teddy bear, Putan. She is Putan's momma, teaching him to walk, and cuddling him, pushing him on the swings. Crying and holding him for comfort when obnoxious little boys smash her sand castles. Kissing him goodnight when they go to sleep.

So the biochanger becomes a creature made of the garbage but primarily based on the teddy bear. Putan goes looking for his momma. He wanders into the market, where frightened people take to their heels. When a little boy's mother yanks him away, his toy falls to bust into pieces. Putan uses his power to repair the damage and gives it back to the little boy. Next, seeing a beat-up rusted car that a panic-stricken man is trying to start, Putan repairs that too. The man drives off as fast as he can, the fear of the monster overriding his delight at his suddenly new car. The crowd, realizing they aren't being attacked, turns into a mob and begins throwing things at Putan, trying to drive him away. He flees around corners into a small park, where he encounters Ako on her way home from school. Almost simultaneously an angry Maria arrives, attacking Putan and trying to get him to behave like the monster he is. Ako finds herself between them and gets thrown around by Maria. The rest of the Jetmen arrive and Maria vanishes. As the confused group is trying to decide what to do next, Putan discovers the bells amongst Ako's things and jingles them in memory. Ako realizes what she's looking at. "Putan?!?" The bear looks up, "Momma!"

Ako has to go home. To her embarrassment Putan is following her. She tries to chase him off a few times, then hides but he finds her. "Why are you following me?!" "Momma, I'm so hungry." Ako takes Putan to the garbage dump and requests permission of the man in charge for him to stay there. The man is ecstatic when he discovers that Putan eats garbage. As Putan is eating, boxes full of brand new clothing are dumped over the wall. The attendant scowls and informs them that it's just some stores getting rid of the last year's unsold clothes and avoiding paying for the garbage pickup. He shows them new watches, brand new computer parts lying around that stores dump. Putan, offended by such waste, goes and chases off the dumpers.

Ako returns to base. Her teammates ask where she's been, covering their noses for Ako smells just awful. She explains how she settled the problem of Putan, very happy that she's found him a good home. However, late that night the men Putan had frightened off earlier in the day sneak into the dump. Putan is just falling asleep in the little shack they made him, walls lined with some pictures of Ako as a little girl playing with Putan. The men get a bulldozer and knock over his shack, assuming they've killed the monster. However, Putan escapes and ends up staggering down by the waterfront. Maria arrives and reminds Putan how he was attacked when he was first self-aware. Human are murderous, they hate him just because he is different. She awakens his sense of outrage, and while he is consumed by anger, uses her power to turn him into a gigantic demonic version of himself.

Putan begins blasting around. His blasts leave skeletons in their wake. Ako runs to beg Putan to stop, but he doesn't recognize her and Ryu has to yank her out of the way of his blasts. The Jetmen call their planes and form to fight Putan. However, a tiny girl with a teddy bear is right in the path of falling debris, and Ako leaves the robot to protect her. She saves the girl but ends up pinned under a slab of concrete. Putan hears the little girl's sobs, and seeing her down below he remembers who he is, and who Ako is. He weeps, breaking the spell and returning to his normal appearance. Downsizing, he frees Ako from under the concrete block. But the furious Maria appears and attempts to run Ako through. Putan throws himself between them and instead, her sword stabs through the biochanger on his chest. Putan turns, says "Momma," and then his structural integrity fails. He disintegrates into a glowing, teddy bear shaped light, which then bursts. Angered beyond caring, Ako fights Maria and manages to drive her off.

They come to the garbage dump, where Ako has made a small shrine with a cross for Putan. She and the attendant are more grieved that the others, because they knew Putan. As they say prayers, more boxes full of brand new items are dumped over the wall. Ako shouts in aggrieved protest.

Index

"Bakuhatsusuru Koi"
July 12
Ryu suggests Gai try a more subtle approach to asking Kaori out. She, however, has her own ideas on the subject. She arrives with tickets to a jazz concert and gives one to Ryu, making it very difficult to refuse as she pretty much takes off, straight out of the room. Gai comes in just afterwards. He sees the ticket and expresses envy, because he really likes jazz. Ryu sees a way to kill two birds with one stone and gives the ticket to Gai. Imagine a certain two people's surprise when they run into each other at the concert. Kaori immediately asks where Ryu is, saying she gave a ticket to him. Gai realizes then that Ryu gave him the ticket, but he thinks Ryu is mocking him. In a fury, he races off to find Ryu.

Ryu is working out with Lyta and Ako when Gai arrives and attacks him. The two men end up in the lake, fighting, Ryu on the defensive. Lyta rushes in to try to help and gets punched out by a wildly swinging Gai. Kaori arrives in a rush, having realized at last what had happened, and screams for them to stop fighting. At that moment the Vyram attack. Well, Grey, Toran and Maria attack. But their fight is stopped when Radiege uses his powers to drag them back to the ship, where the queen's baby is coming out of its cocoon.

Index

"Shinsentai TouJyou"
July 19
On another world, perhaps another dimension (full of fog and mist and polluted air, a dead world), three people step into a great, birdlike Robot and launch it for Earth. Meanwhile, Radiege lets the Queen's baby, now a giant, mature lobster-like monster, loose on Tokyo. It nearly kills the Jetmen. They are saved by the arrival of Jet Garuda. A blast from JG freezes the monster, and the three aliens join our heroes back at Skycamp. Ryu is all set to welcome them with open arms. Gai is highly suspicious. When Dan, the youngest of the three, flips Ako's skirt up to get a glimpse of her underwear he tries to say it's because he's just curious, but Kanta (the woman of the trio) says he's just being young.

The monster breaks loose from imprisonment and JG is damaged trying to stop it. Now both robots are in need of extreme repairs, but the baby is also injured and returns to the Vyram ship, where Radiege hooks it up to the power source so that it can regenerate.

"Shyuggeki Supaa Robo"
July 26
The two groups reason that though the robots cannot defeat the monster separately, perhaps they can be combined into a more powerful weapon and do so. Agreeing, they set about the programming and construction needed to accomplish this. Dan, however, arranges for a beam to fall on him. Not hurt at all, he plays at deep injury and manages to get out of the work. A quick trickery and he gets Ako to sit with him. He abruptly declares that he is starving and gets her to guide him to a good place to eat. She finds him obnoxious but kind of amusing. After they eat, they sit on a hill and talk. He lays back to stare at the clear blue sky and take in the breezes and smells all around. "Our world is not like this." He describes a world devastated by war. It was the Vyram who had attacked them and destroyed their homeworld. He picks a tiny white daisy and makes a ring of it around Ako's finger. "There you go, now we're married," he jokes. In the meantime, Rei and Kanta stand to study the great robots they are repairing, daring to hope for the future. They are lovers. Ryu sees them and, somewhat shy of intruding on a private moment, leaves them be.

The monster has regenerated, and Radiege again turns it loose on an unsuspecting Tokyo. Jet Garuda is not finished, so Jet Icarus and the Jetmen face the monster alone. Rei, Kanta and Dan complete the programming and fly out to join the fight, when Radiege manifests in front of the ship and throws his sword. It hits Rei in the stomach and the ship goes out of control. Kanta and Dan are thrown out in the crash. Radiege arrives and drags the mortally wounded Rei out. He blasts Kanta, who crawls, dying, towards Rei. Radiege takes Jet Garuda and attacks the startled Jetmen, who soon know it's him.

Dan regains consciousness to see his two companions dead, their hands just inches from each other. With a mad scream, he manifests his bird-shape and flies for Jet Garuda. Boarding the ship, he duels Radiege. Despite his odd appearance, Ako recognizes him. Radiege stabs Dan through the gut, and Dan breaths fire into his enemy's face, driving him off. The robots destroy the monster, but... Dan is dying. Ako holds him in her arms and makes a ring of a nearby daisy. He smiles at her before it's over.

However Radiege, returning from this severe defeat, gets to suffer being laughed at by the others.

Index

"Warau Kageningen"
August 2
Maria collects traits from several animals to help create her next monster. The outstanding animals are rabbit and armadillo. She puts it on the lights of a great field. So, when the creature shines its beam on its victims, their shadows become solid, and echo their movements. The Jetmen come to fight it, all except Gai, who was off doing something else. The creature catches our heroes all in its beam. But their shadows don't just echo them. They also begin to drain our heroes, and take on their own colors similar to the Jetmen's. Our heroes are knocked down and about to get sliced and diced, when clouds cover the sun and their shadow selves vanish. (I may have these events a bit out of order). Well, Maria comes back that night and uses her power to create a bubble of artificial daylight over the city, bringing out the evil shadows again. They start randomly attacking helpless people and destroying property. The other Jetmen are delirious, tossing and turning as they dream what their shadows do. Gai searches for Maria, because if he doesn't stop her before midnight, his friends are dead. He is almost caught by the shadows and the armadillo monster, but the other Jetmen arrive to fight a delaying action, still tough though barely on their feet. He sees Maria atop a building, but before he can get to her, Gure steps between them. Finally Gai is able to fire on her, and the night falls again just in time. The armadillo monster attacks Gai, but the others arrive in time to fight it off and together they defeat the monster.
Index

"Boku wa Genshijin"
August 9
The Jetmen fight what appears to be a mix of a grandfather clock and a mammoth. Lyta severely damages it, and with a surge of power, it sends itself and the Jetmen back to prehistoric Japan. Lyta, fallen separate from the others, wakes in a grass hut to find himself attended by a girl who looks exactly like Kaori, except for the little fact that she's wearing practically nothing. His bracelets are gone, and so for that matter, are his clothes. He is dressed in ragged leathers. When he finally realizes the girl is not Kaori (her name is Rika) and realizes that he somehow is in another time and place, he sets about teaching the tribe. He shows them how to start fires using a piece of glass to focus light, he shows them how to farm. He is beginning to accept that he's going to be in this place for the rest of his life. The idea of marrying Rika is quite appealing.

However, the other Jetmen are also there, though they wake far away. Kaori wakes first and shakes the others up going, "Where is Lyta?" They fish and worry, until the clock-monster reappears from where it's been hanging out in a volcano and they go to fight it, seeing a rent appear in the sky behind it. A window back to their time. Quickly, they change into costume. But the clock monster's appearance has attracted Lyta. He sees the others and looks despairingly at his bare wrists. Rika remembers seeing these things on the ground when she found Lyta, and retrieves them.

However, she knows that when he puts them on he will disappear forever. So she holds them back with pouting lips and tears in her eyes, just long enough to let him know how she feels (as they speak different languages, by the way. Lyta has been teaching by example). Grieved, he accepts his bracelets from her and returns to his own time, where they destroy the monster.

Afterwards, he lies in his strawberry patch, dreaming of Rika and the tribe. He hears her calling him and sits up. No, it is Kaori and the others. They found a book of cave paintings. There is a picture of a man who turns into an owl, and the caption reads, "Who is this mysterious god?" or something like that. The others pick some strawberries, and Lyta accepts their praises for the taste. "After all, I am a god." They tease him about it affectionately.

Index

"Makai Daidassyuu"
August 16
Ako calls desperately for help, and her fellows find her dead on a path in the park. Stunned, they bring her body back to base. Gai later returns to the park, riding his motorcycle, searching for some trace of whatever it was that took Ako's life. He passes a hearse going the opposite direction. Suddenly he is caught as if in a tractor beam and pulled back, back into the hearse! The remaining three find his dead body and Kaori sobs over him. The hearse rolls out of thin air and a rope loops around Lyta's neck, dragging him inside the thing. It disappears, then a moment later reappears, dumping Lyta's lifeless body from the back. There's a lovely red rope-burn around his neck.

Radiege appears, but something is strange. He is like a ghost. His body is see-through. But though Ryu can't touch him, he can touch Ryu! Fighting, Ryu falls halfway into the hearse and finds he is staring into a vision of Hell. Demons of Japanese legend wait for him. Radiege grabs him and starts dragging him in when a wooden staff seems to leap past Ryu's shoulders and knocks the Vyram away.

Ayachokan has brought in a Shinto/Buddhist Priest (he seemed like a blend of the two, to me). It seems the other three aren't EXACTLY dead. Radiege has stolen their souls and trapped them in Hell. It's up to Ryu and Kaori to get them out. Ryu, though terrified and trembling from his vision of Hell, volunteers to negotiate the paths of the dead to find his teammates.

It is a frightening journey. Several traps lie in wait for him. I'm out of order here, but heck. He finds himself in a dark dungeon. Stumbling upon a crying little girl, he picks her up on his back to carry her out, but she turns into stone and he flees, pursued by demons. Out, he meets an old woman beside a river. She tosses him in and he sees a vision of the others being tortured in Hell, by demons and the shades of several of the monsters the Vyram have sent against them. He stumbles into a field where three lovely maidens are gathering flowers. He almost stays with them, but Kaori (her astral self at the waterfall, which is an anchor-point) calls out a warning. Which is good, because it turns out these aren't really women after all, but Radiege and the demons! Radiege and Ryu fight. To our hero's horror, he cannot change into his suit. Ryu abandons his fear and lets himself fall off a cliff. By strength of will he changes into costume and becomes a firebird. He goes to the others and tells them they can do it, to.

They all transform and summon the spirit-forms of Jet Icarus and Jet Garuda to fight the monsters' shades. Two monsters take over Jet Icarus for a time, but in the end our heroes prevail! They return to their bodies and bound happily out of the Buddhist caves where they've been while all this was going on. It is SO good to be alive! Ayachokan bids farewell to the Priest.

Index
"Gansojigenjuu"
August 23
Toran creates the Hair-Dryer monster! However, he seems to have some uncertainty about the creature, as it has to beg and beg him to let it have a chance at the Jetmen. When he finally lets it try, it makes a challenge presented in fireworks, "Jetmen, meet me here." Curiously enough the choice of battlefields is a baseball stadium. With air-raid sirens sounding to clear the area, our heroes come to find themselves facing minions dressed in baseball uniforms and wielding bats. After our heroes have changed into costume, one of the minions sneaks up on Ako and flips up the skirt of her outfit (it seems they have a sense of humor). The battle eventually spills out of the stadium. However, the monster is distracted when it hears a little old lady screaming as she pursues her runaway grocery cart. The monster runs over, stops the cart and sends the little old lady on her way. She comments happily about the nice young man who helped her. The faceless minions are in such shock that the Jetmen defeat them with ease.

It really tries to be evil! It convinces the minions to come with it to attack the Jetmen again. It traps our heroes and starts to incinerate them with flaming hot air from its nozzle, only to be distracted in the midst of battle by a little puppy who finds it delicious and tickles it by licking. The minions, in utter disgust, stomp off to complain to Toran. The poor monster doesn't know what to do. He wanders off and dreams of defeating the Jetmen, of having the other Vyram bowing and scraping in admiration of its power and intelligence. It stumbles upon two high school girls down by the water and chases them into the lake while the Jetmen are TRYING to convince it that it's not really evil. When it turns its deadly dryer on the girls it only does, to their delight, turn their long, black hair into sweet-smelling cleanness. It finally yields to the Jetmen's blandishments and comes to talk to them, however, Toran and the minions arrive. Toran has promised a super-changer to the minion who kills the hair dryer, and they are after it in force!

During the battle that follows, the monster takes a hit meant for Ako. Our heroes spirit it away while Toran thinks it's dead. The hair dryer monster becomes an apprentice at a beauty shop and sends the Jetmen post cards.

Index
"Saigo no Tatakai"
August 30
The others call Radiege's attention to a young couple approaching the magical portal to Earth. Radiege hisses. These are the only survivors of a people he thought he had destroyed. He attacks them before they reach the portal. The girl, Ru, breaks a stick from a dead tree and turns it into a weapon. Neat power. The boy, Duran, makes it past and falls to ground on Earth unconscious. Ryu, nearby dreaming of sweeter times with Rie, finds him and takes him back to base.

Ru makes it through in pitch battle with Radiege, who simply teleports away and then amuses himself by appearing in any surface. Ru, mad with battle-fever, attacks these images and does considerable damage to the buildings around her. The Jetmen arrive to fight her, thinking she's another Vyram creation, which is really funny because she thinks that's what THEY are. Radiege finds the whole situation hilarious. Duran, however, arrives to defuse the situation. Though he is able to get Ru to stop fighting, the lovers argue, for Ru is using their powers in ways her people would abhor. Ru and Duran have a special link, owing to a marriage ceremony (or something like that) performed before the Vyram arrived and destroyed everything in their fragile world, leaving only the two of them.

Radiege creates a monster out of an ancient suit of Samurai-battle armor. It becomes a green, snake suite and flings out its glove and boot, which fit themselves onto Ru. She struggles valiantly, but only when Duran takes her hand do they come off, to fix themselves onto him. He is dragged inexorably towards the monster, his arm and leg moving him will-he won't-he, as Ru struggles to hold onto him. But the suit takes him inside and attacks. Ryu can only think how much this is like when he lost Rie, and he leaps between the now-occupied suit and Ru, taking a strike across the back that leaves him comatose.

In the infirmary, Kaori weeps over Ryu's unmoving form. Ru, understanding at last why her people hated war, turns her power to healing and saves Ryu, then faints. But as he revives and his friends welcome him back, Ru wakes and teleports away to search for Duran. The Jetmen follow, only to have her beg them to save Duran's life. She knows he's not dead, just trapped inside that suit of armor. Ryu, understanding exactly how she feels, drops his weapon and confronts Duran, who struggles to control his body over the vicious power of the suit. Without an external threat to distract him, he is able to defeat the suit, which is destroyed by the inner battle.

Ru and Duran bid farewell to the Jetmen, and return through that hole between dimensions. They intend to re-build their home, and perhaps there are other survivors.

Index

"San Majintatsu"
September 6
Two innocent men are hiking along when there is an earthquake. That's not unusual, so they just keep on going. However, pretty soon they see red mist pouring out of a cave in the hillside. Curious (the fools!), they enter the cave. They find some artifacts, two bizarre carvings on the wall. Backing up, they knock over a vase, which shatters. Out of it forms a huge, toothy monster that kills them. It then goes into Tokyo, seeking human champions. It faces and kills a boxer, then a samurai. Despairing of finding an appropriate champion, it is hurrying across Tokyo when it stumbles upon Radiege and the Jetmen fighting in a park. It makes a general attack on them. Kaori manages to get in a hit that takes off one of its arms. It regrows the arm immediately and stuns Radiege and the Jetmen. It snatches up Kaori and takes her unconscious self with as it races back to the cave. Immensely curious, Radiege follows.

The creature's name is Muu. It is the servant of two ancient gods, Majin Ramon and Majin Googu of the Taiko era (I have no idea). These lovely beings (eeeesh) have slept in this cave for a LOOOONG time, waiting for Muu to free them by bringing them blood sacrifice. Whether Muu's goal to search for a powerful champion as sacrifice was his own or their idea, wasn't really covered.

Gai arrives in time to see Kaori placed in the sacrificial humanoid-shaped indent in the wall, and tentacles spring from the stone gods towards her. She screams. He pulls out a knife and slices open his palm. The fresh blood scent brings the tentacles after him. He endures the draining of his blood. Kaori, seeing him thus, remembers all the times he's put his life on the line for her, and realizes that she does indeed love him. She tells him so but he is weakening and can only smile in response. The other Jetmen arrive and blast him loose, taking both of them from the cave.

Mu is in a panic. He goes out to fight the Jetmen. Meanwhile, Radiege steps into the cave. He offers his own blood to the stone gods and lets them drain him. They wake from their long sleep and take flesh. Muu comes, but he is injured mortally, and so they kill him. The chamber begins to quake and break apart. Ramon and Googu leave, ignoring Radiege. Furious, he pursues them.

Index
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