Basquash! – 23

Summary:

At the same time that Dan’s Bigfoot gets shot, Yang seizes power in Skybloom from King Regalia. The others have no choice but to escape, and Navi seemingly sacrifices himself to throw Sela to safety. What’s more, the moon is now glowing red, and meteoroids start falling down onto the planet. Watching from the moon, Slash knows that this is the start of the legend and that in three weeks, Earthdash and the moon will collide. Slash also knows that Yang’s plan all along was to take over Skybloom because he was after the Moon Cannon. When the Eclipse girls, Violette in particular, go to confront Yang, he blames the shooting of Dan on confusion in the chain of command. He also claims that he’s doing all this for the sake of the legend, and he explains that Dan and Rouge activated the Ultinium ore, which in turn means that the refining of the Legend Bullet becomes possible. Yang describes the Legend Bullet as a powerful explosive which can lead to the Moon’s destruction, and that would mean the salvation of Earthdash.

Meanwhile, outside town, Ganz and Bel meet up with Haruka and the others. Flora has been suffering and mostly unconscious since the meteoroids started falling, but they did hear her earlier compare the blue pattern that showed up around the city to that of the ruins. For the time being, Miyuki decides to return to Area Zero to get some parts to repair Dan’s Bigfoot before heading to the ruins, and Sela decides to wait here with Flora for Dan. Dan is actually still unconscious under Thousand’s care, and she’s been collecting data from him. The Eclipse girls decide to go save him so that the moon won’t have to be sacrificed like Yang plans, and Mr. Perfect shows up to help them. Along the way, they also pick up Spanky. They end up finding Dan right as Thousand is about to start working on him, and so Rouge punches her out of the way. The group then escapes via the underground waterway, but while they’re down there, a meteorite crashes into the city. This causes the ground to shake and a large wave to form in the waterway, and it sweeps the group away.

Up on the moon, Slash has been experiencing great pain, and he’s shocked to find out that the latest calculations say that Earthdash and the moon are going to collide in only three days. Realizing that there’s no time to wait for Dan, Slash has no choice but to move forward with his plan. He thus initiates a worldwide broadcast where he tells everyone of the creation legend and about the Ultinium and the role it plays in keeping the planets away from each other. The problem is that the power of the Ultinium weakened over time, and they’re at the point now where the planets are about to collide. Slash believes that the Bigfoot able to manipulate the legendary ball of thunder will be able to save the world, and the legend states that ball play will save the worlds by activating the Ultinium ore. Everyone realizes that this means Basquash, and Slash has assembled a room full of candidates for what he calls the Legend League. Among the people there are Falcon and Iceman, and Iceman is the one who gives the opening speech addressing the Basquashers. Back on Earthdash, Rouge kisses the still unconscious Dan – in front of a shocked Flora – and can hear his heart beating again.

Preview

Wow, a lot of stuff finally got explained in this episode. We know now what Yang is after and how it differs from Slash’s plan to save the world. I found it a little odd though that Yang works for Lunatec and yet is okay with sacrificing the moon. I had been under the impression that he was just a pawn of Lunatec and not the actual boss of his own faction. Regardless, it’s likely a safe bet now that it’s going to be up to Dan to save both the planets from colliding and the moon from getting blown up by Yang. Speaking of which, not surprisingly, Basquash is the key to saving the world, but it was not quite as outlandish an explanation (see summary above) as I had feared. The fact that Ultinium plays such a big role probably means that both the ruins and Navi are going to be pretty important moving forward.

As for the kiss between Rouge and Dan, it was nice in a reverse sleeping beauty sort of way, but I was cheering harder for Rouge when she punched Thousand. Part of the problem is that I don’t take Dan’s life being in danger very seriously, especially since he doesn’t have any open wounds or anything. I was even expecting Iceman’s speech to be what woke him up, but since he didn’t there and didn’t after the kiss, I now expect him to wake up right at the most grim moment to save the day. There’s still three episodes left though, and if the preview is any indicator, he’ll spend most of next week’s episode unconscious too.

Oh and on a side note, were they hinting with the eyecatch this week that Violette and Falcon are a pair!? That’s so random…