Choudenshi Bioman 20 – Searching for Mother

Continuing what was left in the previous episode, thanks to Prince's attack on humans after Grotesque Kans' intestines are removed and Ryuta aka Blue Three, he is starting to wonder more about his humanity. To be more specific, he is now looking for his mother. Will he return to the side of good or will he discard this feeling?

The episode started really strong since it focused on the cliffhanger from the previous episode. The way they resolved said cliffhanger led us to the main plot of this episode, making me feel that the stakes are higher this time. To make it more interesting, we see more of Prince's not showing mercy towards humans and Ryuta once again, having the spotlight when it comes to character development.

Even though his speech about humanity in this episode is quite similar from the first one, they added a twist to make it more interesting. Ryuta talked about how mothers care for their child after seeing one mom protecting her son from Prince and his minions. Since it's safe to assume that Prince is half-human, it's no surprise that he is seeing visions of a woman who is supposed to be his mother. This is when I started to notice something, he is thinking of four mothers, not a single mother. It makes sense if he has visions of his own mother, but mothers? I think there is something wrong here.

Because of what he saw, he starts looking for his mother, something a kid is expected to do as part of their instinct. But unlike your average mother searches, Prince doesn't have an idea where to look for his mother, makes sense since by the looks of it, he is living with his father since the day he was born. With that in mind, Doctor Man is quite a bad father, most single fathers do is to show his child a picture of his/her mother and tell him/her that she is dead or that she left them so that they will not look for her. I know he is grooming his son to become like him, but at least have the decency to show his kid a picture of his mom and make him loath her for leaving them.

Back to the episode, thanks to Prince's mother search and that Doctor Man wants Farrah and Mason to bring him back to the base; we learn the truth about Prince's identity. As it turns out, he is a Mecha Human and similar to Brain, he also developed his own set of emotions. If that is the case, then why can't Doctor Man program the boy's mind that his mom is dead so that he can focus more on the mission? Oh well, it already happened so what's the point of being bothered by it.

Since this is the second time Doctor Man accidentally created a robot with emotion, this shows us that even if he tries to hide it, he is still a flawed human being, capable of making mistakes. With that in mind, I am now interested with his motivations on why he wants to become a machine. Even though we already have a clue that Doctor Man's human parts are becoming weaker, the reason of having a weak body is not enough to understand his motivations. Well part of it has something to do with having a perfect body, that's not enough to better understand him as a character.

Because of what happened, Prince is reprogrammed into a Battle Mecha whose aim is to defeat the Biomen, especially Blue Three. With this revelation and Prince getting reprogrammed, the show wasted a perfect opportunity to create a father and son story arc that shows us more of Doctor Man's humanity and since our heroes know that he is a robot, it is kinda expected that Prince will die in this episode. After watching the character dynamics between Blue Three and Prince, it made me realize that he will be a good rival character to Blue Three.

Since it is quite obvious that this is Prince's final battle, his duel with Blue Three is kinda underwhelming. It's not good like the fights his teammates have in this scene because what the two just did is do some poses before shooting lasers and stuff instead of focusing on the sword fight stuff. After one Bio Electron finisher on Psygorn, it is time for the mecha battle! Like what happened earlier in the episode, the mecha fight in this part of the episode is absolutely fantastic. The action is really great and I just love that the Bio Robo is relying more on skill and checking its surroundings rather than depending on some power-up.

At the end, Grotesque Kans is finally defeated along with Prince. Meanwhile, we see more of Doctor Man's mortality while we are seeing him fix the machine parts of his body so that he can keep on living. As for Mason, it seems that he does not anymore trust his creator while the rest of Doctor Man's other creations like Psygorn and Monster are wanting Doctor Man's attention so that they can be fixed.