Monster Rancher Episode 8: After the Rain

This episode's a heavy one. Tears, nightmare fuel, and even some foreshadowing.

It begins with a nightmare.

Genki slowly opens his eyes.

We see posters of his Monster friends...

And that he appears to be back in the boring real world. Was the entire series thus far just a dream?

The TV displays nothing but static...

And Genki races out of bed, checking his Monster Rancher trophy. "It can't be! I don't believe it!"

He throws open the curtains and screams....

And then his room starts to shift.

He tries to flee, but the room envelops him. Genki is wadded up like a ball of paper and is deposited under the sidewalk.

Genki screams, but no one can hear him.

Now able to move, he runs towards his apartment. "I--have--to--get--back! Mocchi? Suezo? Holly? Where are you!?"

Then Genki bumps into one of the shadowy people... who disappears before his eyes. Soon, everyone else disappears, leaving him completely alone.

Confused, scared, and lost, Genki shouts to the rainy sky. "Mocchi!"

And then... he wakes up. It being a dream was just a dream! Genki is so relieved he starts dancing with Mocchii. "Mocchi, your beautiful face! It's really you! It was all just a bad dream!"

It is really raining, though, but Genki is so happy about everyone being here that he declares it's a great day and starts waking everyone up.

"Genki, it's awfully early," Holly says, while Tiger lets out a yawn.

Genki says his' heart's a-poundin' and is eager for everyone to go, but once everyone's up and eaten, he tells Holly and the others about his nightmare.

"What a strange kid you are," Suezo says. "All upset because you thought you'd gone back to where you came from!"

"Well, sure, I miss my parents, and I do wanna see my friends," he admits. "But I... look what I'd be missing," he says, watching Hare make off with and eat Tiger's steak

Golem says that rain would soak into rocks and erode them, and Holly admits that there's no point in continuing until the rain stops. Genki's fine with that. "We can all sit around the fire and tell each other stories about ourselves!"

"Do you wanna? Like, where are you from, and who are your folks," he asks. Holly doesn't answer.

Suezo immediately tells him to go wash up when he already did, and Hare and Tiger aren't too happy. "You know, even for a human you're pretty thick," Hare says. "Now please, change the subject!" (Mocchi says that since Genki doesn't get it, neither does he.)

But Holly says it's fine, and she thanks Suezo for trying to protect her. "I knew that I'd have to talk about it one of these days. Thanks for protecting me. But if you can't talk about your sadness with your friends, then you can't talk about it with anybody..."

"It was raining that day, too..."

We see a much younger Holly running down grey, rainy streets.

"My father left on a day just like this."

Holly called out to him, and he turned... but couldn't go back.

She sat down in the rain and cried. "Daddy..."

Holly moves on. "We lived in a small village where people and Monsters worked together. Digging wells and cultivating fields, mining for coal..."

"Sometimes we'd use a Magic Stone to find a Mystery Disk to increase our number. And always, we lived in peace."

Holly witnessed the mayoral election at a young age, headed by her grandfather. "The new head of our village is... Abel!" Abel thanked the villagers and promised to do his best, but Holly wasn't happy at the outcome.

"Because my father lost the election, he had to leave... forever."

Abel was then presented with the Magic Stone. "Only the head of the village can possess the Magic Stone and the ability to control the special powers that are locked deep within."

At sunset, Holly sat by the cliffs at her grandfather's meditation spot. "Father... where did you go?"

She began to cry... and to her grandparents' astonishment, all of the pebbles around her began to glow.

He asked her how long she's had the gift, and she responded. "Forever. When I come here the pebbles glow and they make me feel better! Grandfather, is it wrong of me to do that?"

"No, Holly. It's a special gift you have, but it must remain our secret."

Holly grew up. "I missed my parents, but the village elder was very kind to me and raised me as if I were his own, I had no shortage of playmates! I loved the Monsters, and they loved me!"

"Life for everyone was wonderful, and I thought it would always be that way! Everyone did..." (Notice her playmates are a Tiger (Hare Hound; Tiger/Hare), a Hare (Blue Hare; Hare/Tiger) and a Suezo (Pink Suezo; Suezo/Pixie!)

"Then one day, five years later..."

"That, my dear," the Pink Suezo says, "is a Mystery Disk!"

Holly was overjoyed, and she immediately went to unlock it.

And out came Suezo! "Hiya!"

"Nice to meet you," Holly said. "Likewise! Although I gotta say, you're a pretty funny-lookin' bunch!" This made Pink Suezo grumpy. "Listen, ya little eyeball, nobody likes a smart-aleck, especially me!"

Everyone giggled.

Genki interrupts here, saying that now he understands Suezo was born the way he is. Tiger asks Holly for the rest of the story.

"Well... it was two years after Suezo came. It was raining that night, too..."

An army of Monsters gathered near the village...

They were led by the fearsome snake Monster, Naga--one of Moo's Big Bad Four.

Holly's grandfather woke her and Suezo up and led her down a secret path. "Grandfather, what's going on?" "Moo's army has come!"

He explained that Moo is the ultimate evil, who changes good Monsters into bad ones. "But I thought it was just a scary story for kids!"

"Unfortunately, Moo exists, and I'm very afraid that our little village cannot hold out against him!"

Holly's grandparents led her and Suezo to a cellar. "Now, quickly! Hide in here until I tell you it's safe. Holly, there's little time!"

Holly looked at the approaching storm and stood her ground. "I wanna fight them too!"

But Pink Suezo and her grandmother told her she couldn't go out there. "You must stay safe!" Her grandfather added that her gift must be protected--it's their legacy.

Pink Suezo then asked Suezo to protect Holly. He promised he would.

As they were about to hide, Holly's grandfather gave her one last thing--a bag. "It belongs to you. You will know what to do when the time comes."

The cellar door closed, and Holly and Suezo hid.

Outside, Abel addressed the army gathered. "Naga! We only want to live and work in peace!"

"And we want the Magic Stone!"

"Naga, you know that Stone is under our guardianship!" "Well, it has mystical powers! It will show us Mystery Disks so we can build Moo's army! One day Moo will take over your world! Give us the Stone, and you can join us!"

"Never."

"...Then you can deal with the wrath of Moo!"

Naga's army charged. "For Moo!"

Holly's friends fought back, and so did the humans...

But it wasn't nearly enough.

And as the battle went on....

Naga watched and laughed.

Hours later, the sounds of destruction stopped.

Everything was gone.

Holly and Suezo opened the cellar and saw what remained of their hometown. "Noooooo!"

She ran to what remained of her house, opened the door--and had her dying grandfather fall into her arms. "Grandfather!? Grandfather... What happened!?"

"Holly... Naga came, and...the others are... Lost Disks now." Holly is in complete shock. "It can't be! It just can't be!"

Soon, her grandfather was moved outside. "Moo's forces were too strong. Our good friends are gone forever. ...Forgive me, for I was the one who sent your father into exile. His power over the Magic Stone was so great... that it frightened me..."

"I thought such power would one day bring disaster to our village. Holly, if he had been here to fight against Moo's forces, things would have been different..."

He asked if Holly had the bag he gave her, and she did. She opened it to find the Magic Stone. "You have your father's powers, Holly. You must take the Magic Stone and use it to find the Mystery Disk that contains the ancient Phoenix. Only the Phoenix has the power to revive the lost Monsters..."

"But Grandfather, I don't know what I'm supposed to do..."

"If the legend is true, the Phoenix will revive the lost Monsters and transform the bad Monsters into good ones. It's the only hope we have of defeating the evil Moo..."

"I'm counting on you..."

"...We're all counting on you..."

The next morning, Holly was at her grandfather's grave when the Magic Stone accepted her power. (There was a sad scene here that was cut for time constraints, where Suezo promised Pink Suezo that he'd always take care of Holly. I hate commercials.)

"The Phoenix..."

"The Magic Stone has always led me in the right direction--from the very first."

"And so, Suezo and I set off, going wherever the Magic Stone told us to go."

"Hey, did you ever meet up with your dad again," Genki asks. Holly shakes her head.

She wipes at her eyes. "And I vowed I'd never cry again..."

Mocchi immediately runs to comfort her, and Hare tells Genki that at times like this, you have to lighten the mood.

Genki nods, and jumps to get everyone's attention. "Ladies and gentlemen, the amazing Genki! And now I'm going to sing you a song."

Everyone stares.

"It's raining/it's pouring/Suezo is snoring!/He fell in a puddle and he got in a muddle/But at least he won't be boring!" (I have no idea what this song was in Japanese.)

"He's gaga," Suezo says.

Genki encourages everyone to jump in and sing with him. "While the rain comes down/it hits the ground with a splashy sound/Everybody jumps and dances around!"

Mocchi joins in then! "The drops go bloop/the flowers droop/the sun comes up/we all go/doodly-oodly-squoodly-noodly-doodly-poodly-puddly-wuddly-oozy-woozy-" And then I lost track of the words

But Golem joins in too, braving the rain to make Holly happy!

Hare and Tiger join in too. "Shall we?" "Why not," Hare says. "Careers have been made on less!"

Everyone dances and sings for her, and Holly smiles. She leaps into Golem's outstretched hand and is carried to the others.

"From now on, the rain will make me happy."

Suezo's ready to sing too, but Genki says it's too late! He facefaults, and everyone laughs. Holly then thanks everyone, and Genki says she's their pal.

And that's when the rain stops. Everyone's excited over a bright, happy day.

Genki tells them to get moving, and no one looks happier than Holly.

And so, Genki and his friends continue the journey Holly and Suezo began alone--to find the Phoenix.