Below the fold, 26 frame grabs from the last part of the first episode. It's Tsubasa's first encounter with the alien, and a battle with an alien monster.

UPDATE: By the way, taking frame grabs using the latest version of PowerDVD is a pain in the butt. With all the other versions, what you saw was what you got, but in this version what you see is about five frames different from what you get. There's no excuse for that.

Late one night, a UFO comes screaming in and buzzes the farmhouse, then crashes maybe a mile away, out in the woods. Unfortunately, Tenmaru, the farm dog, heads off towards it. Tsubasa sees this and is worried. She starts to wake her dad, but her dad works long hours and she decides not to. So she gets a flashlight and goes after Tenmaru.

He's at the crash site, which is pretty impressive looking. The ship was cloaked and the cloak is still partially functioning. The pilot has crawled out of the ship; Tenmaru has found him and is barking at him.

The cloak finally fails completely, and something starts to come out of the ship. Whatever it is, it's got a lot of teeth. Tenmaru doesn't like it at all; he's growling like a wolf. The alien man starts to come around.

The monster tries to bite Tsubasa's head off, and the alien man pulls her out of the way at the last instant. He tries shooting the monster with a ray gun but that does nothing.

So the alien goes for his best weapon. On his shoulder is a small capsule which holds an even smaller sphere. He holds it and twists the ends, and sphere (obviously the active component) glows, and then he transforms, as if he was covered with some sort of fighting suit. Then he moves in to melee with the monster.

Unfortunately, his punches and kicks also do no good. So he liquid-metallizes his hand and tries for an impalement.

That does work, but he doesn't hit anything vital. Then the monster does the same to him, piercing his shoulder. He's not gonna be fighting any more for a while...

The monster tosses him into the bushes. He's out cold, and his transformation reverses. The monster goes after Tsubasa. Uh-oh! Tenmaru tries to protect her but gets tossed to the side, with a yelp. Tsubasa backs away, then and runs into the open hatch of the spaceship in hopes of finding somewhere to hide. (There sure isn't any other cover handy.)

On the wall behind her there's an "In case of emergency" box. The monster comes in after her, or at least it sticks its muzzle in.

The monster does its spike thing again; it misses her, but it breaks the box. Inside the box is another of those tubes with the magic sphere inside. The tube is also broken. The sphere falls out onto the floor.

The monster sends in an eye on the end of a tentacle. (Let's not go there, OK? This is a kid's show.)

Not too surprisingly, Tsubasa is terrified. She starts screaming. Something flowing down from the broken box makes contact with both the ball and Tsubasa's hand. and the ball activates.

The same kind of energy field we saw earlier appears around Tsubasa, and she, too undergoes a transformation. Oddly enough, the result is a lot bigger than her. Apparently it's designed to take the form of an adult; presumably because it's expected to be used by adults.

The monster watches all this and then withdraws its eye. It tries another spike attack. The woman catches the spikes and breaks them off. Then the woman knocks the monster outside, and follows it.

Tsubasa wakes up in a strange place. A voice speaks to her, garbled at first but increasingly comprehensible. Tsubasa's head hurts. The voice tells her the pain will end once the merger is complete. It tells her to open her eyes and look straight ahead. "Who are you?" "I am the other you."

The monster is attacking again. The woman is fighting back. The voice says, "I promise I will protect you. So fight with me! I can't do it alone!"

The woman flings the monster away, but it isn't hurt. It'll be back in a moment, and something more will be needed.

The alien man comes around. He sees the woman and is astounded.

The voice says, "Please help me! I can't kill him otherwise!" What should I do? "Concentrate your thoughts on your right hand. Imagine beating that thing up and focus those feelings into your right hand."

Ki-attack! The blow penetrates and the monster dies.

Its jaws open, and something mostly intangible leaves, going upwards. Wonder what that was? It just looked like a shimmering. The immediate danger is past, however, and that's good enough for now.

The alien man seems dumbfounded.

The voice tells Tsubasa that they succeeded. "I'm leaving you now", and the transformation reverses.

I'm back to normal! Thank goodness!

It materializes as an exact duplicate of Tsubasa rather than returning to ball form. I guess that's what you get when you use one of these things without its control tube.

And now everyone is dumbfounded. Even Tenmaru has gone silent.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 10:34 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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