Awesome / GEAR Fighter Dendoh

• Hokuto and Ginga's first fight with Dendoh. At first they do the sensible thing and try to run away, but as soon as Vega convince them to fight (and trick them into punching the very surprised Machine Beast they had encountered) they not only annihilate the enemy in less than a minute, but then do the same on the other eighteen that had tried to gang up on them.
• Episode 4. Hokuto and Ginga, defeated and captured by Ogre, have been closed in a bottle. As soon as Hokuto can think about their situation, they escape the bottle and run all the way to Dendoh, that, in the meantime, had the batteries changed by the Galfas tricked by Vega.
  • Later they manage to capture Drill Unicorn and unleash its Final Attack, annihilating dozens of Galfa Soldiers in ten seconds or less.
• Episode 5 has one for Altair. Hokuto and Ginga, cocky because they have a Data Weapon and Ogre has none, unleash a Final Attack on him... Only for Ogre to dodge, kick their ass, recover Viper Whip and inflict a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown. The only reason they survive is that Vega missiled Ogre as it was firing the Final Attack, causing it to miss and forcing Altair to retreat before the batteries are completely exhausted, and Ginga is barely able to walk due the fear from the experience.
• After the defeat in episode 5, Ginga is terrified by Ogre, and especially by Viper Whip's Final Attack. In episode 6 Ogre goes again for the Final Attack, that would core Dendoh and disintegrate a chunk of the city where Ginga's mother is... Cue Ginga not only roping Hokuto in replying with a Final Attack of their own, but his determination is so great that they win the Beam-O-War, forcing Ogre to run away and disintegrating a Machine Beast as collateral damage.
  • This is also the first time Altair and Ogre are actually defeated. In episode 4 Altair did retreat, but had little reason to stay there anyway with Unicorn Drill captured by Dendoh. This time Altair fought to the finish, and got his ass kicked.
• The Chips, human-sized versions of Rasenjo's main underlings with the ability of copying human looks, are a Terrible Trio and a very uneffective Goldfish Poop Gang, mostly providing humour. Then in one episode we see them casually lifting a vehicle each, more accurately a scooter, a sport car and a dump truck to be absorbed by the Galfa Soldiers to become Machine Beasts...
• Episode 7: when Hokuto is in a hurry, a Machine Beast is casually killed in less than ten seconds.
  • In the same incident, the Italian dub gave us this magnificent Shout-Out:
  "What's that?"
  "A bird?"
  "A plane?"
  "It's Dendoh!"
  • Until now the Data Weapons just observed and tried to run until captured. In the last fight of this episode, Bull Horn sees red flames caused by the Machine Beast... And proceeds to attack it, hammering it down and saving Dendoh's from a tight spot before leaving.
• In episode 8 Leo Circle owns Ogre by leaving his hiding place and grabbing Viper Whip's head in the middle of its Final Attack. Then, after Ogre was forced to retreat, orders Ginga to catch him.
• In episode 10 Dendoh has to fight Ogre and six Professional Machines that we later learn had destroyed four Dendoh-like mecha and defeated Ogre itself during the fall of Alktos without the Data Weapons, lost due Eris' mishap in the previous episode. Dendoh not only holds them off for fifteen minutes, but, using Eris' plan, manages to bait all the Data Weapons (and freeing Viper Whip from Altair's control as a side effect), allowing for the recapture of Unicorn Drill and Leo Circle and the capture of Dragon Flare and Gatling Boar as Altair scrambles to recapture Viper Whip and capture Bull Horn. Then, after one of the Machines shielded Ogre from a Final Attack, Ogre uses Bull Horn's Final Attack to try and kill Dendoh... But not only Hokuto and Ginga dodge and avoid most of the damage (even if Ginga was knocked out and wounded in the process), but manage to damage Ogre just as bad with a glancing blow from Drill Unicorn (not the Final Attack, Hokuto just thrust the weapon form of Drill Unicorn at Ogre's cockpit and Altair had to jump on the side to avoid being skewered) before retreating, scaring the hell out of Altair in the process.
  • Also, this battle marks the moment Altair stops treating Dendoh's pilots as hopelessly outmatched wannabe and starts considering them Worthy Opponents in respect for their courage and skills. Rather justified, as, even if Altair doesn't remember it, they put a better fight than himself when he had faced just three of those very Professional Machines with no Data Weapon. This was right before they summoned all the Data Weapons.
• Vega versus Altair in melee combat in episode 11. It started with Vega driving her explosive-loaded bike into Ogre's cockpit (Altair dodged, and, sadly, the cockpit was closed and defended by tough armour, so it didn't do any damage), and it got only awesomer from there, ending when Altair, put on the ropes, manages to get back in the cockpit and run. Also a magnificent example of Mama Bear due to Vega's true identity.
  • Dendoh versus the five surviving Professional Machines from episodes 9 and 10. How do Hokuto and Ginga take them down? Easy: they lure them inside GEAR's launching duct for Dendoh and, once they're nicely packed in a thigh space, hit them all with a single Final Attack. When Dendoh returns in town triumphant, Altair actually utters the line "This Cannot Be!", and it's a realistic assestment: Altair could not figure a way to pull it off.
    • Oh, and who came up with this plan? Not Hokuto or Eris, but Ginga. Right after suggesting to tie the Galfas with a rope, he suggested the obvious thing, to lure them in a closed space, at which point the two smarter kids realized he was right and started searching for the right place.
    • Also a good moment for the Professional Machine Bug (one of the veterans who had captured Altair, who, upon seeing the incoming Final Attack, managed to outrun it and gang up with Ogre on Dendoh, whose batteries are now almost depleted.
  • Now Dendoh is in trouble, as its batteries are almost depleted and he still has to fight Ogre and Bug, the latter of which managed to get him in a full nelson. Dendoh is doomed now? Cue evidence that the main requirement to be a member of GEAR is to be crazy: Kirakuni arrives with GEAR's latest prototype, the Cell Fighter, and manages to free Dendoh, then tricks Hokuto and Ginga into expelling the batteries that he immediately changes in flight. Cue Theme Music Power-Up for the destruction of Bug with a Final Attack, another change of batteries, and Ogre's complete and utter defeat. Altair only survives due his own starship Aldebaran kidnapping him back to the Galfa homeworld to both save him and avoid the failing of his Laser-Guided Amnesia.
    • Also, this is the first time there is a Theme Music Power-Up to underscore the awesome. So far not even two grade school children taking down eighteen Mechanical Beasts, capturing a Data Weapon or forcing Ogre to retreat had deserved one, but this did.
• Episode 12 may be a Breather Episode, but still manage to get some awesome for its creators by also being a Wham Episode, thanks to the first appearances of Lagowe, Altair's alleged little brother Subaru and Zero, The Reveal that Vega is actually Hokuto's mother, and Eris deducing the existence of the seventh Data Weapon.
  • Also awesomeness for Eris, for deducing that thing.
• Ginga's father first appearance in episode 13: hanging on the rope ladder of an helicopter to get a decent picture of Dendoh while spouting Gratuitous French to thank Dendoh.
  • He's also an in-universe Memetic Badass. Does his boss need to find out something very well hidden? He sends mr Izumo, who will discover it. So far, he never failed.
  • Ginga's father has just returned from France to discover everything about Dendoh. He has already deduced the general location of GEAR.
    • Later that day, he has deduced three possible locations... Including the right one.
    • And actually finds out that his son and Hokuto are Dendoh's pilots. And gets a few pictures to prove it, before deciding that the world doesn't need to know yet.
  • The Heavy Machine Scissor deserve a citation for sheer determination: as Dendoh attacks with the Final Attack, Scissors fires his best beam at Dendoh and tries to destroy it as it's destroyed.
• The Galfa plan in episode 14: they take down electricity in Oshimi district, and then fool Dendoh into wasting the charge of his onboard batteries and the reloads of the Cell Fighter before the Heavy Machine Elecideath (responsible for the black out) reveals itself. This is made much worse by GEAR accidentally loaning all other batteries to help the population, meaning there is no recharge available by returning home.
  • How are Dendoh's batteries recharged? By using the electricity of thousands of diesel and gas-powered generators and billions of household batteries, and when that was not enough (as anticipated) they used cars, trucks and motorbikes, using their engines to provide some more electricity, and even bicycles linked to generators. Literally All Your Powers Combined (they even invoked it, saying that the energy provided by everyone would combine in a power capable of annihilating the Galfa).
    • Kudos to Ginga's grandfather: old and weak as he was, he jumped on a bike and pedaled, shooting down his daughter's objection that he would feel crushed on the following day by noting that if Dendoh was defeated there would be no following day.
• Lagowe in episode 15. He appears at the end of the episode, makes a fake attack on Dendoh so fast that they couldn't even start to move, and leaves, just because.
• In episode 16 the Heavy Machine Skasha had been ordered to protect Lagowe, and had captured Dendoh inside a forcefield to try and crash it with its mass. Cue Final Attack.
  • In the meantime, Leo Circle, Unicorn Drill and Flare Dragon fought Lagowe... And not only managed to defeat him, but cut his right forepaw.
• Ginga kicking down one of the Chips in episode 17.
  • The Chips wanted to take down Hokuto and Ginga, and said that Leo Circle could do nothing about it without being properly released and becoming material. Cue Leo Circle reaching natural size and covering them with its body.
  • Vega versus the Chips. It's a complete Curb-Stomp Battle, ending with the Chips running away and Vega demanding they return and fight.
  • When Lagowe comes back for round 2, the Heavy Machine Defender arrives to protect him from Dendoh's 'bullying'... And lives up its name with four drones that generates an energy shield every time the Data Weapons try and attack the monster, defending it while letting it attack.
  • Defender then has another Moment of Awesome when Dendoh attacks it... And discover that this Heavy Machine is not a Mighty Glacier like the others but is fast enough to dodge everything. Dendoh has to use Clock Manager (a Data Weapon ability that stops time for the target until hit by something else) to hit it.
  • Also, a little awesomeness for Lagowe, as while Dendoh was busy with Defender he not only knocked out Dragon Flare, but did something supposed to be impossible: it poisoned Leo Circle and Unicorn Drill. Then it dodged Dendoh's final attack, roarer in triumph and returned to Rasenjo.
• In episode 18 Dendoh is engaged by the Heavy Machine Diver on the bottom of the Japan Trench, at 8,000 m of depth underwater. At first Dendoh is outmatched due being sluggish underwater, the need to bring back Lagowe's severed paw to try and defeat its virus, and Diver being formidable underwater. Then Diver destroys the paw... At which point Hokuto and Ginga snap and annihilate Diver in less than a minute.
• Episode 19, all of it.
  • They still need a sample of Lagowe's body to try and neutralize its virus, but Lagowe is inside Rasenjo... So Dendoh attacks Rasenjo, a Galfa so huge that its name, meaning 'Spiral City', is more an affectionate diminutive than a description of its size to piss off Lagowe. And exterminate thousands of Galfa Soldiers that dared to show up.
  • Rasenjo is No Selling all of Dendoh's Final Attacks thanks to its Deflector Shields, Lagowe is still sleeping... Then they attack Rasenjo's base, inserted inside the Moon's soil, and topple Rasenjo. And wake up Lagowe too.
  • Lagowe engages, so Hokuto and Ginga lure it in near a specific crater where they placed a trap. But Lagowe won't enter it... So they throw the monster in it, and trap him so good they could just kill it with a Final Attack if they didn't need a piece of it first.
  • The Heavy Machine Azaroth enters the frame and frees Lagowe. The monster pins down Dendoh and attacks until the batteries are exhausted, on Earth Leo Circle and Unicorn Drill are destroyed by the virus... And yet, Hokuto and Ginga's sheer will to win and save the two Data Weapons cause a Deus ex Machina: the Seventh Data Weapon, Phoenix Aile, manifests itself, recreates the destroyed Data Weapons (destroying the combat spaceship and underground tank GEAR had almost completed to fight the Galfa, but it needed them), sends them on the Moon to kick Lagowe away from Dendoh, and tells them to summon a great king called Kiba... A.K.A. Kiba Striker, Leo Circle and Unicorn Drill united in a superpowered Data Weapon, that proceeds to kick Lagowe's ass.
  • Azaroth, having its orders, try and interferes with Lagowe's slow disemboweling... In the meantime Hokuto and Ginga had Dragon Flare and Gatling Boar recover a pair of batteries from the downed Cell Booster (the spacegoing version of the Cell Fighter) and manually replace the depleted ones. Cue Final Attack that disintegrates the Heavy Machines and hundreds of Galfa Soldiers that were supporting it.
  • Lagowe finally decides to get serious and goes One-Winged Angel. Kiba's reply? Gets Hokuto and Ginga to install it and launch the most powerful Final Attack so far. One that Lagowe, as fast as it is, fails to dodge, and gets disintegrated by it.