Episode 40: Return the Panda!
(featuring Space Terrible-Being Alien Steal)
Children are playing with tops. Dan is the undisbuted champion, his always spins the longest. But suddenly instead of playing again he goes off with a girl Motoko, to a pharmacy known as "Unlcle Panda's store". The owner loves pandas, the store is full of stuffed pandas, he gives Motoko, who is there to pick up her mother's medicine, one as a "New Year's gift". After the children have left, a strange man dressed in black and making wierd sounds enters the store and all the pandas disappear. The shop owner runs after him. Hokuto pulls up in TAC Panther and offer Dan and Motoko a ride, just as they got seated the man in black runs by the store owner running after him. He tells Hokuto the man stole his padas. Hokuto has the chldren exit the vehicle so he can chase after the man, not realsing he has Motoko's pand in his back seat. Hokuto realizes he cannot be human as he's running over 60 kpm and is able to jump over 10 meters.. Hokuto loses track of the man in black. Finds a man dressed in brown sweeping but the man seems to deaf. At TAC HQ, Mikawa informs the Captain that stuffed pandas have been disappearing all over the place when ever a man in a black cape appears.. Hokuto shows up and tells them about the panda thief running at over 60 km per hour. Yamanaka, is back to his arrogant self. That night, Motoko is worried about her panda. Dan says Hokuto can't bring it back until the morning. Then he promises he will make sure Hokuto brings it back to her in the morning. In the middle of the night, Dan is awoken by a strange noise. He looks out his window and sees a panda. He pinches himself to be sure he's not dreaming. He wakes his sister, but then Panda has left. In the morning, Dan takes the apple the panda was chewing on to Hokuto and then to Uncle Panda, who after examing it said a panda was chewing on it, but the man is clearly drunk and Hokuto doesn't trust him. But he calls HQ to ask if a panda has escaped from the zoo. The jerk Yamanaka, answers says no and turns off the radio. Motoko shows up wanting her stuffed panda.Ad Hokuto and the two children go to look for panda, the strange man in black finds more stuffed pandas to steal. Hokuto sees the man and even with the kids in the TAC Panther takes after him again. The follow on foot an loose him again in the same place Hokuto lost him before. This time to test the man in brown who pretends to be deaf, Hokuto fires a shot. He can obvios hear. He runs, Hokuto corners him and suddently he's wearing the black cap and hat. The children spot a panda and go after it. Its disappeared. Then they look in a warehouse and find its full of stuffed pandas and one live panda. They run back to tell Hokuto but of course the man in black hears them too. The man in black then reveals his true form, Alien Steal, and finaly talks. He's stealing the sutffed pandas just because humans like them.
Alien Steal giant sizes. Hokuto is nearly crushed by debris falling frome the building the alien was inside when it giant sized. He tells Dan to just run. Dan and Motoko run. Dan find TAC Panther and calls for help. TAC Falcon arrvies and fires on Alien Steal. Hokuto breaks free from the fallen debris and starts shooting at the giant alien. The children spot the panda which is moving towards the Terrible-Being. Uncle Panda appears and tries to tempt it with bamboo, when that doesn't work he tries an apples. With the panda, two children and one man in danger of the approaching Alean Steal, Hokuto starts shooting at again trying to draw it to him away from them, and nearly gets set on fire. The alien turns back to the civilians and the panda. Ultraman Ace appears and picks up the humans and the panda to move them out of harms way. As usual, Ace ends the fight with his Metalium Beam, exploding the Alien Steal. Later, the panda has been caged. Seems it was stolen from a zoo in china by Alien Steal escaped and wandered around town. Mikawa gives Motoko her stuffed panda, which was stolen by Alien Steel as well and found its the warehouse. >Preview of next episode<. "See you next week".
