Yadokari (Yadokarii) is the 31st Dark Horror Kaiju Robot unleashed by the Zelans in the 27th Episode – "A Vow to the Southern Cross!" - of the anime Dino Mecha Gaiking.

_Appearances and Abilties_
Yadokari was a Giant Robot Sea Shell Mollusk, who was among the few Dark Horror Mecha operated by a Pilot – Hesler – and was as big as the Daiku Maryu. It also joins the list of a few of the Monsters destroyed by the Daiku Maryu in an episode to NOT featured the Gaiking in Combat.

Yadokari had no major abilities except Firing Torpedoes from its mouth; it was mostly and underwater Kaiju, that could straight up and recoil its shell, which could hold missiles as well been strong enough to repelled them, and hold firm to an enemy with its tentacles; it could fly like a Saucer and had a Powerful Bite.

This guy may be the single worst Dark Horror Monster of the series – unimpressive as its commander; who, at the time of WRITING THIS, I had not drawn the Kaiju and I'm having my doubts whether to add Hesler in the pic, cause you could writing off the episode, and be of no effect. Both were beaten easily.

_Story_
The episode starts with the mother of all Segways as Fan Li completes the touches on his Zero Plane model.

Why is the one Chinese member of the team - from still then British owned Hong Kong, BTW – be so in love with a WWII Japanese?

BTW, all the sudden there is this cut of the narrator telling us how the Zero was such a great fighter – and my retort to this was a certain Hellish Feline from the sky wants to have a word with you on that about the Major Maria-something-Poultry Pow-wow-Whatever of Sorts? – AJUM!! Moving On.

Days later, the Team detects a Morse Code signal use by the Japanese Army in the War, coming from deep space. Decoding its, the message is from one Lt. Yamanaka, 0-1419 of the Mountain Eagles; in its message it states to have found a vein of Super alloy Zolmanium located on the Zunac Island in the South Pacific, with his daughter been the one knowing the location.

Fan Li, again the one Chinese in the team, goes fan boy here, recognizing the name of the group for their, quote, "Tremendous Bravery"; My reaction to this scene was "OHOHOHOHOHOH" Rolling my Eyes in cringe when one thinks the words Chinese and Japanese, and then add this magical equation the Horrors of WWII of the latter to the former.

Yeaaah!

The Daiku Maryu takes off to the coordinates, its travel observe by the Four Zelan Generals, who order their agent on Earth – Hesler – to pursue them on his beast, the Yadokari. Time later, the Daiku Maryu makes to a graveyard of Spaceships (Both Man and Alien made, one had a Dead Astronaut floating); not wanting to damage the Daiku Maryu – cause Die cast paint is expensive stuff – they sent out Sanshiro Fan Li and Yamagatake in spacesuits to search the Graveyard of ORBITING SPACE WRECKS, and in their search they find Lt. Yamanaka's Zero intact, with his skeleton still in the cockpit and a recording next to it and take it to the ship.

After a careful study they see the Zero had a rocket attached to it and the autopsy also reveals Yamanaka had died Five years ago (seems our boy got too carried away with his Flights of Fancy - Oops!) The Magnetic recorder he design was able to keep play for another many more years, Fan Li stating those old Naval Squads were full of Geniuses (Fan-Boy!).

With question about how Yamanaka and his Zero got into Space, the Scooby Gan– I MEAN – Team Daiku Maryu, returns to Earth and travels to Zunac Island to search for his daughter and locate the Vein; meanwhile, and SOMEHOW, Hesler on the Yadokari listening at a (LONG) distance and hiding among the space debris, reports this discovery to the Emperor and the Generals, Darius wanting to get his hands on the Alloy as soon as possible (FYI, this will be a confusing plot hole). Daiku Maryu makes it to Zunac and Fan Li is sent out to explore the island, finding the waterfall when he comes under attack by a local, but stopped by Sayuri, Yamanaka's daughter, and hearing her father's name she at last has her five years prayers answered – not telling her they found his corpse.

To simplified the following events for the sake of brevity, Sayuri tells the story of what became of her father during the intervening years which takes day and night to tell; having crashed on the island during the war, he was found by a native woman – who he fathered Sayuri with until her untiming death 10 years before the present time – this is when she learns her father is dead.

Yamanaka, who believe the war was still on going, took the time to educate and care for his daughter, speaking about Japan; at some point he found the Zolmanium Vein and his need to return to Japan and report it became more important, creating the magnetic recorder and rebuilding the Zero, close to completion, they came under attack by what he thought were American Soldiers – Dark Avian – having somehow learned of the Vein that Yamanaka had found and he made his escape with his now fixed rocket powered upgraded Zero, zooming him into Space while Sayuri was been saved and taken cared by a Native (Takeen). She clears she has no idea where the Vein actually is, but states that if any Japanese came to the island to take them to a cave in Mt. Keua. After the conversation and bounding with her, Fan Li wanted to return her Father's scarf, but Sayuri allows him to hold her father's scarf (Ew!, That thing has been hanging over his corpse for years) reason been her father warned that regardless who won the War, the next threat would be "Space Invaders" and wanted to train young pilots, and thus gifting Fan Li her father's scarf which he wears (again, ew!) and after hearing Sayuri's desire to see Mt. Fuji, which her father mentioned a lot, he promises to take her to Japan to see it under the Southern Cross.

By the way, the entire time the Crew was hearing their conversation; seems Fan Li was wired during the whole conversation, but, less Midori was using her Psychic Powers, which only work between Pigeonians, it is not really explained.

Then the following day, Sayuri comes under attack and wounded by Takeen, the native who protected her for all these years; Fan Li stops Takeen who then reveals to be non other than Hesler in disguise, having kept watch on the girl waiting to know the location of the vein, now having found it, it seeks to execute the two, but is disarmed once again by Fan Li. Hesler escapes, but Fan Li's attention returns to a wounded Sayuri who faints from her blood lose, and flies her to the Daiku Maryu to operate her. As he waits, Hesler and Yadokari attack the Daiku Maryu – interestingly, the ship's Operation compartment is stated to rotate in Astro stabilizing gyro-sphere, allowing work in that section to be uninterrupted during this emergency. Kinda Pedantic really.

As the battle moves underwater, Pete is able to tail swipe the Beast off its ship, the Monster then takes pursuit of the ship firing missiles in response to the gun turrets in the tail; the Daiku Maryu tries to take it down with the Miracle Drills, but these are repelled by the Monster hard shell. The Daiku Maryu then makes a head on charge with the Big Horn and the monster; lock in a tight grip with the beast, the Big Horn snaps the Monster in half, though Hesler still operates the Head as ship and tries to escape, with the Daiku Maryu now in pursuit; the ship fires Hydro Blazer, destroying the head, but Hesler still able to escape on his Escape Jet; the flaming head of the Beast falls into the Volcano, causing an eruption, thus destroying the vein of Zolmanium.

Fan Li then takes the chance to go after Hesler in the Skylar having a one on one dog fight with the Zelan, envoking the late Lieutenant to watch him; after the pilots out maneuver the other, in the end, Fan Li prevails and shutdown Hesler's Jet, killing him. After the battle, Fan Li returns to see Sayuri has pulled through – later, with Lt. Yamanaka's Zero fully restored, Fan Li flies her to Japan and seeing Mt. Fuji, bringing tears to her been reminded of her Father.

OKAY, CHAPS!!!

Now the Plot Holes; LET'S A-GO! ...

How the hell the Zelans knew of the Vein if Yamanaka hadn't made contact outside the island for 22 years?

How the Lieutenant knew what Zolmanium was when he's been out of contact with the developments of the outside world Correct me here, but isn't Daimonji one who discovered it discover and name it?

Also, why would Yamanaka make a prediction that the next threat would come from Space? Again, he never made any form of Contact outside, so how da hell did he knew about the Zelans? During his 21 years of stay on the island, there wasn't any sign that Zunac had remnants of Zelan Civilization in it, Hong Kong wasn't spare the horrors of Japanese occupation.

Now for the rabbit hole.

If you hadn't notice this entire time, this episode is having a very rosier view of (a) WWII Japanese Soldier and take into account this is been done through the one character I think was a mistake to pick for main character of the story, and that's Fan Li ... a Chinese ... the group that was abused the worst by the Japanese Empire in the war; Hell, Fan Li invokes Yamanaka to watch him as he dealt with Hesler in the Dogfight. Now due, note, Fan Li is from Hong Kong, while the major horrors committed by Japan happened in mainland China.

Now Context is 20/20 here, one could argue been the fly boy of the Team it kinda made sense to have Fan Li been the main character in this story, but History is also important in its context here and so are the Horrors committed by Japan, because any self respecting Chinese would pretty much tell you there are 731 reasons why they would never love or forgive the Japanese for the things they did to them during the war.

I was a bit shock that the one they used to be all over Zeroes and the prowess of the Japanese Soldier was Fan Li and not the Japanese members of the main team; yeah, it would had been eye rolling, but without the cringe of that heavy context slapping you across the face, with a weak story to boot. Taking into account this episode was made with the memory of the War and the bad relation between Japan and its affected neighbors still vivid, this comes out as a bit insensitive.