Saber Marionette J episodes

Three hundred years after six men crash-landed from space on an uninhabited planet named Terra II, six cities have developed (one for each of the original founders). Genetic engineering assured the survival of the race, as every man raises clones instead of children from natural propagation. Unable to genetically engineer women, however, has resulted in a planet of men and their android servants called marionettes, all of which take female form. But suddenly, out of happenstance, a local boy, Otaru, from the city of Japoness awakens a special marionette named Lime from a secret underground capsule. Lime has the ability to laugh and get angry and demonstrates amazing strength - attributes that make her unlike any other marionette. But more importantly Otaru and Lime become friends.

The Imperial Guards of Japoness fear that evil despot Faust, leader of another city called Gartlant, is up to something dreadful. Three of Faust's special marionettes, termed Saberdolls, suddenly appear in Japoness and destroy a group of secret agents that previously burned down resident fancy boy Hanagata's house. The Saberdolls then disappear just as nimbly as they arrived. Even though Hanagata annoys Otaru, Otaru still fights to save Hanagata's little brother from the flames. But civilians impede Otaru's would-be rescue, claiming the cause hopeless. In an act of valor, Lime saves the boy, leaving the others to question the differences between man and machine.

Furor Faust, spurting Hitler-like slogans, plans to attack Japoness. Meanwhile, Otaru, Hanagotta and Lime take a tour of the national museum in Castle Japoness. When Lime accidentally breaks a national treasure, Imperial Guards race after the trio. Otaru sacrifices Hanagata to the mob in order to escape with Lime, but they end up in a secret room that houses the Shogun, Japoness' leader. Just as the Shogun starts to enjoy their company, and alludes to knowing more about Lime's origin, one of Faust's Saberdolls, Panther, disobeys Faust's orders and appears to eliminate the Shogun. Lime battles with Panther, but both are on equal footing and are getting nowhere. In the melee, Otaru accidentally awakens another special marionette, Cherry. With Cherry's help, they defeat Panther, who returns to an angry Faust and is punished for disobedience. Otaru, now with two devoted and human-like marionettes, walks home.

Cherry is in love with Otaru, but every time she gets close enough for a kiss, Lime interferes. After defeating average street thugs in a fight, Cherry solicits their help in a faux kidnapping plan designed to get Otaru alone. Otaru responds to Cherry's "ransom" letter and quickly goes to an abandoned warehouse to rescue Cherry. But when Otaru's moment of triumph comes, dangerous smugglers appear at the warehouse.

The Shogun sends for Otaru, Lime and Cherry and explains why the two marionettes are different than others - they each have a special maiden circuit that gives them emotion. Unfortunately, the secret to making maiden circuits was lost long ago. But just as he's about to explain Otaru's role in the mystery, an android replica of Faust flanked by Saberdolls appears to learn the secret himself. Once he does, the android explodes, wounding the Shogun. As the Saberdolls attack and Lime and Cherry defend, Otaru frees another marionette with a maiden circuit, Bloodberry. Another marionette has joined Otaru's family.

Bloodberry, also attracted to Otaru, takes a more forward approach to love. But after Otaru refuses her forward advances and marriage proposal, she decides to woe him by making his greatest wish come true. Bloodberry mistakenly thinks that Otaru's wish is to fly, so she makes a flying machine and they fly away, much to Otaru's fright and dismay. They crash land on Mt. Kamuna where the evil beast Ponta lives. Lime, Cherry and Hanagata assemble flying machines of their own for rescue.

With three marionettes to feed, Otaru finds that his financial means have rapidly dwindled to one remaining coin, enough for one day's supply of rice. Otaru sends Lime to get the rice, but she returns with a lottery ticket instead, having been tricked into believing it a magical piece of paper. When Otaru's idea of running a burger stand ends up costing more than it profits, their only hope remains in the lottery ticket. Luckily Otaru and company win the "happiness is yours" prize - unluckily the prize is a year's supply of pickles.

Hanagata, now Otaru's annoying neighbor, has finally decided to declare his love for Otaru, but just as he attempts to do so, marionette collectors kidnap Lime, leaving Otaru devastated and in no mood to listen to Hanagata's declaration. Spurned, Hanagata peevishly tells Otaru that his feelings for the marionettes are unnatural. But Otaru ignores the jibe, saves Lime and insists upon caring for each marionette as if they were human.

Faust makes his move and overthrows another of the six cities. Intent on ruling all of Terra II, his next target will be Japoness unless someone can break into the heart of Gartlant and destroy the main computer. Otaru agrees to take on the secret mission issued by the Shogun's council, not for patriotism, not for honor, but for the fame associated with being a hero. He's a sucker for trading cards in candy boxes. But when Lime learns that war makes you lose people, she decides to go on the mission alone. Fortunately, Hanagata informs Otaru, Cherry and Bloodberry in time for them to reach Lime in an underground passageway just as she needs help fighting Faust's Saberdolls.

After Otaru, Lime, Cherry, Bloodberry and Hanagotta successfully repel the Saberdolls, they journey into Gartlant to detonate the central computer. Cherry plans for Lime, Bloodberry and Hanagata to distract the city's guards while she and Otaru hack into the main computer room and place explosives on the central computer. The plan appears to work until, in the midst of their escape, Otaru and company find themselves surrounded by the Saberdolls with deactivated explosives in hand.

In the midst of Saberdolls, Otaru and gang look defeated until a young boy named Micky rescues them by blinding the Saberdolls with flash pellets. Resolved to make Gartlant a better place and save Japoness, Otaru and friends trek once again to the main computer room, this time through another series of abandoned tunnels. Before Otaru can enter the computer room and complete his mission, however, he has an urgent need to relieve himself, which similarly spurs the need in Hanagata. But as their golden arches fall into the computer room, the Saberdolls catch up.

Upset and jealous that Otaru kissed one of the Saberdolls, Luchs (in an attempt to distract her during the effort to destroy Gartlant's central computer), Lime, Cherry, Bloodberry and Hanagata make for poor companions on the trip back to Japoness. When they happen upon an abandoned spa resort, Otaru resolves to take a break and enjoy the facilities to ease the group's tension. When a plasma tornado develops over the resort it suddenly becomes clear why the spa resort had been abandoned, and why Lime, Cherry and Bloodberry abruptly malfunction. Otaru builds an iron "lightning" rod to attract the plasma tornado away from the resort, kisses each of the ill marionettes goodbye, and plans to sacrifice himself to the tornado by making sure the rod stays in place.

After saving it from Gartlant, Japoness gives Otaru and ganga a hero's welcome. Otaru gets an agent and abandons himself to a lifestyle filled with fame and fortune, ignoring his marionettes, who decide to leave Otaru. But fame has taken its toll on Otaru and he realizes just in time how much he misses his marionettes.

Constantly fighting over who is the most deserving of Otaru's affections, Lime, Cherry and Bloodberry enter a marionette contest designed to honor the best marionette on Terra II. The Saberdolls, Panther, Tiger and Luchs, are also ordered to enter the contest disguised and seduce Otaru to Gartlant's side. The Saberdolls make a mess, however, and Otaru's marionettes soon discover their true identities.

The Shogun summons Otaru, Lime, Cherry and Bloodberry to the Pioneer Museum where Lime first awakened. He tells Otaru that the maiden circuits not only make emotion possible, but they allow the marionettes to grow and develop like human beings. The Shogun explains that, in accordance with this extraordinary feature in the maiden circuit, it will soon be necessary for Otaru to revive the human female for humans to continue to survive on Terra II. Otaru questions what the Shogun means, and how he can accomplish such a task just as military agents from Gartlant set the museum on fire. Lime, Cherry and Bloodberry save Otaru and the Shogun from the flames, but they are unable to save what the Shogun most cherishes - the picture of a girl named Lorelei.

The marionettes learn about life and death when Lime adopts a squirrel for a pet. As Lime nurses the squirrel back to health, and then chooses to set the squirrel free for its own good, the marionettes experience new emotions, proving that their maiden circuits are continually growing, just as the Shogun said they would. When the Shogun hears of the pet project that the marionettes have undertaken he is pleased because the growth signifies one step closer to reviving females on Terra II.

Lord Faust gives the Saberdolls one last chance to wreak havoc on Japoness before casting them out forever. This time the Saberdolls do not fail. They slip in to kill the Shogun while an unidentifiable huge black machine (also sent by Faust) distracts Otaru, Lime, Cherry, Bloodberry and Hanagata. Suddenly, as the machine is poised over the city, Cherry recognizes that it's a huge bomb. Faust's command holds the key to Japoness' survival.

As a plasma bomb the size of Marlon Brando hangs over the Japones capital and Geltland Marionettes menace Japones's borders, Otaru springs into action, but Lime, utterly devastated by Emperor Ieyasu's death, refuses to leave his side despite Cherry and Bloodberry's entreaties. The others streak off in the direction of the bomb, but on the way they are stopped by the Geltland Saberdolls, who declare that anyone who defies their lord, Faust, must die. Just as Otaru is about to get severely asswhupped, Lime, who suddenly pulls herself together, saves him, her instinct for protecting Otaru for the moment overwhelming her devotion to her "grandpa", followed by Cherry and Bloodberry. However, even Lime's timely intervention may not be enough to save our heroes - an ominous electrical storm is brewing above their heads, and the Saberdools aren't frightened by total electrocution as long as they take their opponents with them. A bolt leaps out of the clouds - and is mostly absorbed by the bomb. However, Lime and Tiegel are still struck, and the roof of the building that they're on is trashed. When the smoke clears, Tiegel struggles to her feet and moves to finish Lime, but Otaru shields her with his body, despite Lime's entreaties to move so that he won't die. At that moment, Tamasaburo and Baiko appear in the air above them and speak - with the voices of Ieyasu and Hikozaemon, who had their brainwave patterns temporarily transferred into the two guard robots. They tell Otaru and the Marionettes to hasten to the castle - the Saberdolls will be taken care of. As the bomb makes its way to the palace, destroying indiscriminately along the way, Otaru tries to puzzle out Ieyasu's final words to him: that there is something in the courtyard of the palace, and the password for it is "checkmate, fork rook". In the courtyard, Lime recognizes Ieyasu's favorite game: a gigantic shougi (similar to chess) board built vertically into a wall, with long metal tumblers for the pieces that are lifted and slotted into holes in the board. Hanagata appears by Otaru's side and muses that the situation on the shougi board resembles the current state of the city - the king, representing the palace, is under attack by a rook, representing the bomb. The meaning of Ieyasu's words becomes clear: in order to defend the city, its defense must be played out on the shougi board. However, the gigantic metal shafts on which the pieces are mounted each weigh as much as Oprah did in the mid-eighties, and the Marionettes, being injured, are unable to lift them. Just when everything is deemed hopeless, Gen-nai and all Otaru's neighbors, as well as half the town, show up to help. Under Hanagata's direction, the pieces are slotted into the board one by one, as the tumblers enter the board, they turn gears deep in the palace, which cause strange, mind-mangling transformations in the palace's structure. When the last pawn is slotted into the board, the castle's transformation is complete. In a moment that no doubt caused many a viewer to go insane on the spot, we see that the castle has transformed into a big blue-and-black giant robot - JaponesGar! Lime, taking the role of What's-his-face in Giant Robo, orders the robot to shoot its fist at the bomb. It does, and the jetstream sweeps the Saberdolls off the roof where we left them, but it fails to stop the bomb. The bomb fires a bolt at JaponesGar, but does little. JaponesGar fires its other arm, and manages to stop the bomb and stave in its casing. Lime orders JaponesGar to finish the bomb, and it brings out the eyebeams, which cut off the bomb's "ears" and cause the bomb to blow up harmlessly outside Japones - taking out the Geltland Krabbensteif robots which were trying to cross the Japones border to boot. As the denouement of this rather unusual episode unfolds, Lime comments that, surely, Ieyasu was alive again on this day, if only for a moment. Meanwhile, the reconstituted minds of Ieyasu and Hikozaemon note that Cherry and Bloodberry, oddly silent through this whole ordeal, have reached the final stage of their development.

Now that there is no living ruler of Japones, Bloodberry muses aloud, they'll have to pick a 16th Emperor of Japones, and if they have any sense they'll pick Otaru. This prospect excites Cherry - she'll get to be the first lady! She can see it now - a laughing, leering Otaru, wearing a black robe and scary makeup, forcing Cherry to undress and ravishing her before his court - no! Otaru should definitely NOT be Emperor! At the same time, half a world away, the Saberdolls have been cast out of the court of Faust again, permanently this time - that is, unless they can bring him the otome kairo of Lime, Cherry and Bloodberry. Nobody expects them to return successfully, or even alive. Meanwhile, the minds of the previous Emperor and Chamberlain in the bodies of Tamasaburo and Baiko soothe the Japones parliament, and reconstruction work on the castle continues. Bloodberry is hauling stuff around, Cherry is mixing the concrete (albeit somewhat inattentively) and Lime - well, Lime is trying to help, but she winds up just running around, dragging Hanagata behind her. Suddenly, Lime's knees begin to spark. She stops, sending Hanagata flying into the concrete, and Gen-nai opines that she's probably got frayed knee-cables. In fact, all three Marionettes could use some repair, and Otaru resolves to fix them up at once. Otaru takes the Marionettes back to the charred remains of the Japones History Museum and roots around until he finds the secret door to the room where he found Lime and where Ieyasu showed him the Multicolored Monkey-Meter. Otaru brushes aside the question of whether he's qualified to do Marionette repair - he didn't do all those odd jobs for nothing! After dodging Hanagata's attempt to serve as his nurse and Bloodberry's, Lime's and Hanagata's entreaties to examine their chests, Otaru gets down to business. At last, after much hardship, Tiegel, Luche and Panter reach Japones. They haven't been repaired since the battle with JaponesGar, and are forced to take energy cells from defeated Orange Blossoms to continue. Finally, after narrowly escaping from Baiko, they track down Otaru and his gang at the museum, and decide to wait until sunset to attack. Meanwhile, an embarassed Otaru is trying to shrug off the profuse thanks and affection of the newly-repaired Marionettes. Bloodberry points out that the Marionettes are darn lucky to have the otome kairo - otherwise, they wouldn't be able to appreciate Otaru's affection and give him their own in return. Unfortunately, the moment is broken when Lime, who went back upstairs, emerges from the lab to find the Saberdolls waiting. Though raggedy and sparking like a metal cat in a microwave, the Saberdolls attack. Unfortunately, in their weakened states they're no match for the Marionettes, who haven't the heart to put them out of their miseries. As Lime puts it, the situation makes their hearts hurt. This angers Tiegel, who demands how Lime dares talk about hearts. Lime replies that the Marionettes are happy to have hearts - that way they can know happiness and appreciate Otaru's love and all the fun stuff they do with him. This angers Tiegel even more, and strengthens her resolve - she has her own love, for Faust, and realizes that she can't return to him if she fails here. She attacks Lime, trying to impale her on the jagged end of a metal pipe, but Lime dodges and Tiegel is impaled instead. Tiegel continues to rebuke Lime, saying that kindness is not necessarily the same thing as love. Pulling herself off the pipe, Tiegel is transported back to when Faust was a child, not yet a ruler, and falls. Otaru is shocked at the destructive potential within the otome kairo, but Lime is in no mood to think. In a quiet, tremulous voice, she tells the shocked assemblage that she doesn't understand hearts, then screams and takes off at a blind run. Otaru finally catches up to Lime lying facedown on a hillock, with the local swordmaster watching in the distance. Otaru embraces Lime, but she doesn't respond - her eyes are blank, and the cavity for her otome kairo is empty.

When Lime fled in horror at Tiegel's death, she encountered Soemon Obiichi, Otaru's swordmaster. At his query, Lime poured forth her confusion about hearts - they make her and her "sisters" happy, but they also cause so much pain...! What's the point of having a heart at all? Soemon offers to help her out of this misery, and by the time Otaru finds Lime, her heart - her otome kairo - is gone. Lime is stiff and unresponsive and her pupils have closed completely, but she's still alive. Otaru takes her home and puts her to bed. A crowd gathers in Otaru's house that before long is scouring Japones town for Lime's missing "heart", and Otaru joins them despite objections that he should stay with Lime. Soemon tries to console Otaru, saying that Lime is Lime, missing hardware or not. Otaru goes home and finds Lime waiting in the genkan (place to change shoes), up and around but still almost totally unresponsive to any stimulus. She is capable of responding to commands, but her movements are so stiff and uncoordinated as to be without effect. However, the old Lime, though not in evidence at the moment, is not gone completely... Meanwhile, Faust receives a report from a loyal minion in the field, Rubens, that an otome kairo has been captured from one of the Japones Marionettes. Rubens signs off and removes his disguise - it is in fact none other than Soemon himself, who took Lime's otome kairo as a loyal secret agent of Geltland - in his mind, he is Soemon Obiichi of Geltland no longer. His defection was triggered by, of all things, a Marionette. Her name is Koyuki, and though she is no more animated or human than Lime is now, Soemon felt from the moment he first saw her that they were destined to spend their lives together. This intimacy with what remains, sentio-epistemiology aside, a machine earned him nothing but hatred from the Japones citizenry. Ultimately, he was kicked out of the country in disgrace. He wandered through the desert to Geltland, where he was found by Faust and his Saberdolls, at whose seeming humanity he marveled. If only his Koyuki could be likewise... Her otome kairo gone, Lime's soul has retreated to a limbo in the darkest corners of her mind where she hides herself from the terror of the emotions she experienced at Tiegel's death. She is visited by the spirit of Lorelei who asks why Lime has withdrawn in this manner. Lime does not want to experience pain, anguish or sadness any more - yet she is discovering that she cannot stand to be separated from Otaru. Her options are very clear: safety, or love... On the other side of town, Soemon/Rubens has plans for the pilfered otome kairo before he hands it over to Faust. He connects it to a computer and prepares to erase all its data - he intends to install it temporarily in Koyuki so that, just once, he can see her as a human; just once, he wants to see her smile. However, it's not to be - Lime, her desire to be with Otaru at last overwhelming her fear of the dark side of life, has decided to return to her body. Without the otome kairo she cannot return to her former state, but the Marionettes sense her presence - and the location of the kairo. They reach Soemon before he can issue the final command, but Soemon threatens to destroy the unit entirely if they come a step closer. Soemon tells them of his dream for Koyuki, but Otaru and the Marionettes will have none of it. Otaru challenges him to a sword duel, and during it, Soemon drops the kairo. Koyuki picks it up, but in the next moment she is shot by an assassin, sent by Geltland to collect Soemon's prize. It prepares to turn its weapons on Soemon next for his treachery in using the otome kairo for private purposes, but Bloodberry quickly destroys it. Desolate at the death of his only companion, Soemon returns the kairo to Otaru since he no longer has any use for it. Bloodberry reinstalls it, and the real Lime has a tearful reunion with Otaru. As for Soemon/Rubens, the Marionettes reserve judgement: under other circumstances, Soemon, with his open mind and heart, might have served the function that Otaru is now....