UFO Robo Grendizer 1.01

Kouji Kabuto and Duke Fleed

Kouji Kabuto returns to Japan, his homeland, to investigate UFO sightings. He arrives at the Shirakaba Ranch, owned by Dabei Makiba and Dr Umon. Kouji arrives in the TFO, a flying saucer that he built himself. Dandei is obsessed with welcoming aliens to Earth and at first thinks that Kouji is an alien. Kouji similarly dreams of establishing trade between the Earth and other planets. Both of them are unaware that there is a real alien force from the planet Vega monitoring Earth and preparing to conquer the planet.

Daisuke Umon, Danbei's employee, warns Kouji and Dr. Umon, his father, when he sees the moon turn red that it is a sign that the UFOs are getting ready to attack. Kouji scoffs at Daisuke's warning. More UFOs are sighted the next day and Kouji goes up in the TFO to investigate even though Daisuke warned him about them. The UFOs attack Kouji and Daisuke is forced to take action. He heads for the Space Science Institute where he transforms into Duke Fleed, retrieves Grendizer, his giant robo, and fights off the alien space craft.

When the Vegans see Grendizer they release a more powerful spacecraft, the saucer beast Giru Giru. The beast attacks the TFO but Grendizer rescues Kouji and destroys the beast. After the battle Kouji returns to the Shirakaba Ranch and talks to Daisuke. He suspects that the ranch hand was the pilot in the giant robo that saved him but he hesitates and doesn't push the matter.

There are a lot of introductions in this episode. It took watching it a couple times to put it all together succinctly. I watched this show dubbed in French when I was a child. In French it is called Goldorak. I now have two sets of DVDs of the series, one is in Japanese with English subtitles and the other is dubbed in French. I was watching the Japanese version. My French isn't quite good enough for me to pick up everything and there are no subtitles on the French dubbed version. I have fond memories of watching the show in the late 1970s. It doesn't quite live up to my memories of it but like some old comic books I think it needs to be viewed in the proper context.