On a typical snowy day in Sharo, some miners are
caught off guard when a dimensional area swallows up the mine, and their little dog too! There's only one person in the world that can get in there, and he's gorging himself on free samples at the local supermarket. After being escorted by Net Police out of there, Lan finds himself on a plane trip to Sharo to help out with the problem. There, Lan meets up with Raika, and Raika's Commanding Officer, Milenkoff, who informs him of the problem.Nebula has setup a dimensional area around the rare metal mine, which Nebula needs to produce Dark Chips, and Sharo needs to support its economy. Raika is to escort Lan to the mines, and when Raika asks Milenkoff to ask Lan about another mission, Milenkoff cuts him off and dismisses the other assignment. He tells Raika that his orders are to only escort Lan to the mines.
At the dimensional area, Raika hitches a ride with Lan past the force field, disobeying Raika's orders. Lan wants to know what's going on, but Raika refuses to tell him. They are attacked by FridgeMan, but manage to escape with the aid of a mine cart. SearchMan goes after FridgeMan, but due to FridgeMan jumping between the cyberworld and real world, SearchMan can't get a lock on him.
Lan is freezing, having never been to a country so cold before, but Raika refuses to stop and help him. This pisses Lan off, who berates Raika for treating him so badly, especially when Lan has come out to help Raika's country of his own good will, and all he wants is for Raika to tell him what's going on. Finally, Raika shows some humanity, and builds a fire for Lan and himself.
Raika informs Lan that he's looking for a missing hero of Sharo, the one who discovered the mines and brought about the prosperity Sharo is now in. It was not Raika's mission to find the missing hero, and he disobeyed orders to find him, which is why he wouldn't talk to Lan; he was embarrassed. They don't have time to sit around though, as a wave of viruses attack them. They make a run for it and hear barking down a corridor.
The barking is coming from Morisov, the hero of Sharo, and Raika's target for rescue. The dog turned out to be the one who discovered the mines, and is who Raika considers his best friend. Raika's personal mission completed, it's time to take out FridgeMan, which is lucky, because FridgeMan is right there, ready to ambush them.
Lan Cross-Fuses in a, thankfully shortened, fusion animation and does battle with FridgeMan. He manages to wound him, so FridgeMan escapes to the cyberworld to heal up and begin fighting again. Instead of healing up, however, he finds SearchMan waiting for him, a bit miffed at all the running around he's been doing searching for FridgeMan. SearchMan blasts FridgeMan with his cannon, causing FridgeMan to log out, and collapsing the dimensional area.
Back at base, Raika is punished for disobeying orders, and is sent to be tortured at the Russian POW camp... er wait, no... Raika doesn't get desert for a month and a half. Sorry, forgot what show I was watching. As the episode ends, Raika and Lan finally appear to have some mutual admiration for each other.
Critique
This episode adds the much needed depth to Raika's character, and finally brings him down to Lan on an emotional level. There's actually a fair deal of cleverness in this episode, like the mine cart sequence, and while the action isn't very climatic, the pacing is satisfactory. There isn't a lot of humor in this episode, but it keeps things interesting. It's not the best episode, but it's a decent entry.
Rating: Thumbs up!
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