LAP 04
Seeking Out Samurai Goroh!
Ryu sets the Dragon Bird's destination to planet Cryton, directing him to the nearest warp gate. After winning his last race he met a young fan in a wheelchair, Alias, and signed his F-Zero toy for him - but there's business concerning the boy on planet Cryton. Ryu turns down an alley, where a portable warp gate triggers and takes his machine to his destination.
On Cryton, Ryu drives through the streets of the nearest town, which are run-down and lined with skeezy-looking hoodlums. A wretched hive of scum and villainy. It's no wonder the police don't visit these parts. Parking his machine, he steps out to begin his investigation. He steps into a saloon...
WHEN A KNIFE COMES FLYING RIGHT AT HIM
Ryu, being a totally sweet action hero, kicks it out of the air and hurls it back, narrowly missing the attacker's head. "You should practise more." Another two punks get in his road, but while barging past them he slips on a banana peel and hits the ground head-first, disturbing a man's drink.
A young girl also enters the bar and the two of them approach the counter, announcing they're looking for someone - Samurai Goroh! Everyone's head turns, even Ryu's and the girl's. The bartender doesn't have Samurai Gorohs on the menu...
... but Ryu explains: Samurai Goroh and his men attacked a transport vessel (in a totally sweet hand-shaped battleship btw), stealing gold and a valuable diamond, but more importantly, rare medicine that was to be delivered to gravely ill children. A convenient news broadcast spells out that if the children don't get the medicine within three days, they're never going to get better.
The girl, meanwhile, explains that the rare diamond is a keepsake of her mother's. She has stacks of other diamonds, but that one is very important to her: she must see Samurai Goroh! Ryu leaves, treasure-hunting isn't in his modus operandi, while a gang approach the girl to tell her they can bring her to see Samurai Goroh personally. She eagerly joins them.
Ryu searches the town, hitting up every small-town joint he can find. Market stalls, video arcades, mechanics' garages, fortune tellers, kids on the street... none of them can point him to Samurai Goroh's whereabouts.
Just when Ryu thinks he's out of luck, he's stopped on the street by the punk who nearly impaled him, who claims to know where Samurai Goroh is. He won't share his information, though... until he beats his entire gang! The five punks attack, but Ryu swiftly dodges...
... and delivers each of them a thump on the face in return. Two more knives are thrown his way, but not only is Ryu awesome enough to repeat his kick deflect, the knives fly back and pin the attacker's sleeves to the ground. Ryu stoops down to begin interrogating this guy...
... only to get konked on the head with a barrel. An unseen sixth attacker leaps down from the roof and raises his gun to fire, only for another mystery contender to charge in! Before the punk can fire, his blaster is sliced in half with a single slash of a katana.
The group all charge at the intruder, their weapons raised, but the swordsman merely swings his sword, stopping them in their tracks. By the time he sheathes his blade...
... their clothes fall to ribbons.
Humiliated, the gang run away crying, abandoning whatever dignity was left. Ryu thanks the mystery saviour and is about to continue searching, but is stopped: this guy knows where Samurai Goroh is.
Meanwhile at the Galaxy Mobile Platoon's headquarters, Clash has modified his Crazy Bear so its power is one thousand times more powerful!
It doesn't work. Jack throttles him over his incessant failure; Clash reasons that failure is always one small step towards success, but Jack thrashes him further over his subpar success rate. Jody enters and asks where Ryu is, only for Lucy to let slip that he's out searching for the stolen medicine.
The two of them had been visiting Alias in hospital a while back, bringing toys of their F-Zero racers for him. Ryu's spent plenty of time lying in a lonely hospital bed, but the fear these children have must be greater than anything he's ever experienced; he worries they might not be alive the next time he visits.
Alias said he wanted to grow up to be an F-Zero pilot just like him when he gets well again, and despite his mother's quiet sobbing, Ryu assured him he'd get better in no time. Thinking back on it now, sleeping at the campfire on planet Cryton, Ryu wonders if he even believes what he said.
Ryu is woken the next morning by his comrade, alerting him to a transport vehicle passing into the cave beneath their campsite; following its trail will lead them straight to Goroh.
The vehicle belongs to the red-clad gang, who've made a pitstop to rob a fruit warehouse... not something they planned to do, but the girl did ask politely.
As they leaves the warehouse, the girl has eaten all the food already. Ryu and friend follow in their F-Zero machines, and the gang quickly realise they're being followed, recognising them from the bar. Two of the gang members run to the cannons and begin the slow process of manually aiming them (it's an old-fashioned machine!)...
... only for the girl to suddenly fall at their feet, banging their faces into the periscopes and causing the shots to miss; she says she feels sick, and looks ready to barf. The cannons keep firing, but this doesn't scare Ryu and company, and they stay hot on their trail.
The chase leads them to a narrow mountainside road, with no barrier stopping them from falling off the edge. The gang put their cannons to good use and open fire on the cliff wall, causing a rockslide! Ryu narrowly evades it with a boost...
... but his ally is not so lucky, his machine disappearing over the side with the rest of the debris. Ryu launches his tow cable...
... and grabs the machine in the nick of time, pulling it back onto the road safely. Now they're even.
Ryu gets up on the inside and begins ramming the machine, its cannon unable to aim at close-range targets, while pushing it towards the edge. His ally reminds him not to get too violent; they're still looking for Samurai Goroh, after all. He fires a smoke bomb through the passenger window to blind the drivers, and the vehicle screeches to a halt.
Suddenly, a mortar is launched from behind! Ryu narrowly avoids it, but his machine is thrown about by the impact. A new batch of thugs in an armoured vehicle approaches from behind to assist the gang, and fires a missile towards the other F-Zero machine...
... but the pilot unsheathes his sword and strikes, cleaving the missile neatly in two. Surprised but no less determined, the vehicle ploughs forward, prepared to run him down instead.
A single swing of his blade slices the entire roof off. The other vehicle has scarpered, but these two will do just fine leading Ryu and his buddy to who they're after.
Meanwhile, that vehicle has finally brought the girl to the hideout of the man she's after: Samurai Goroh! The criminal agrees to return her mother's diamond, and because he's such a swell guy, he's only taking all her other diamonds in exchange. The two other underlings finally arrive, warning their boss Bibirichi that they've got trouble: Ryu and that other bozo are here!
Ryu demands the medicine back, but before he can belt them one, a cage falls from the ceiling and traps him, and his friend too. The crook is ready to walk away with his takings, but the girl wraps a whip around his face: his career as a criminal impersonator is over.
The mysterious swordsman busts apart his cage with an effortless swing of his blade; just who is this guy anyway? He finally answers: he is Samurai Goroh. The gang are shocked; that guy's actually the real one? The girl also reveals her identity: she's Sasuke, and she's been in cahoots with him the entire time.
Samurai Goroh is a trifle upset that this nogoodnik Bibirichi has given him a bad name, and demands an apology. He responds by activating the self destruct button (in a cave?!), causing the place to fall apart; Goroh breaks Ryu out of his cage and narrowly saves him from a falling pillar. Bibirichi's ship rises out of the ground as he prepares to escape; once he's out of here, he'll truly be the only Samurai Goroh!
Sasuke tires of that plot and lets loose into the ship with a rocket launcher, delaying them long enough for the true finisher: Samurai Goroh slicing the whole freaking ship in half.
Ryu suddenly remembers: the medicine! He runs to grab it, but a sword is drawn at his neck.
Goroh's sword. He is a pirate, after all.
As the whole hideout falls to pieces, Ryu is left tied up outside beside his Dragon Bird. He curses Samurai Goroh's name as he watches him and Sasuke drive away with the goods. Sasuke remotely loosens the ropes once they're far away enough, and Ryu rushes to the cockpit, desperate to hunt them down and reclaim the medicine...
... only to find a small canister on his roof, containing two samples of medicine. Maybe that Samurai Goroh isn't such a bad guy after all...?
Back in Mute City, Jody, Lucy and Ryu are present to see Alias healthy enough to stand on his feet again. They're pleased as punch that Ryu's efforts were worthwhile, but he did abandon his post, which can only mean one punishment: cleaning duty. Ryu sighs: if he was a pirate, he wouldn't have to do chump chores like this!
Burt's F-Zero Classroom: Burt reminds us what Ryu Suzaku is like: he was in cold sleep for 150 years, he drives the Dragon Bird, and he takes his coffee black. He's a sterling fellow with a passion for justice, if a little hotheaded at times. Burt says it's not so bad to be hotheaded when you're young; after all, he was once like that!
What was the 4Kids broadcast like? ... I don't know, there's no upload of it! All I know is it's called The Samurai's Secret!
Samurai Goroh's identity is prematurely spoilt by his eyecatch during the commercial break... if his prominent appearance in the intro of each episode didn't clue you in already.
F-Zero Climax's recaps of the anime claims Goroh calls himself "Kojiro" before his identity is revealed to Ryu.
Samurai Goroh wears the Kanji character "tou" (刀) across his clothing, meaning "single-edged sword." The closest thing I can find to the symbol Bibirichi and his gang wear is "shiru" (汁), which means... "soup". It's likely just meant to be a mangled nonsense letter anyway.
The preview from the previous episode uses different backgrounds for a lot of shots, most notably replacing the Cryton streets with a cityscape.
