Friendship is still a foreign concept to Rudo, more or less. It’s interesting that Zodyl Typhon (the leader of the Raiders, whom me met last week) zeroes in on that as soon as he and Rudo are alone together. Does Zodyl have an incredibly good information network, or is he a remarkably keen judge of people? He’s gone to an awful lot of trouble to get Rudo to his underground hidey hole, and to isolate him from his colleagues. Everyone is interested in Rudo for their own reasons, it seems, but Zodyl isn’t the type to bother unless he has something very concrete in mind. He hates waste, after all.

Zodyl professes not to be surprised that so many have tagged along with Rudo. And indeed, he has a plan for that eventuality – basically an all-timer trash dump which sweeps the others away to the far corners of this underground labyrinth (which could be a sewer system). Enjin surfs the wave in his usual zen way, and advices Zanka to do the same. Eventually everyone winds up isolated from each other, and the leader dispatches the other Raiders to occupy them while he gets down to business with Rudo.

Rudo is – all usual – a little bundle of pure rage. Zodyl seems not to even know who Amo is, and it’s certainly possible he doesn’t know her name. His puzzlement at Rudo’s anger seems quite genuine, as if Zodyl were a man who couldn’t be bothered with such things. As noted, he immediately starts in on Rudo’s insecurities, telling him he’s being used by the Cleaners for their convenience – a “facsimile of friendship”. He also tells Rudo the reason he’s here – he plans to “take down” the Sphere, and invites Rudo to join him in doing so.

A familiar dynamic is rekindled as Zanka is reunited with Jabber Wonger (one suspects Jabber requested that). Enjin is paired off with a near-silent little fellow (Shimono Hiro) who hides behind a pile of trash as he watches him. Bro Santa and Dear Santa wind up with an older gent (Ohtsuka Akio) who confirms that this warren is indeed underground. Riyo ends up with a long-haired blonde lady named Noerde (Tamura Mutsumi) whose Jinki is almost certainly her comb. And a cockroach – uncensored, which is very rare (quite silly, that) for anime – which she’s surprisingly terrified of. Only Guita Hebby Fantasia appears to be alone – apart again from a roach, but she seems perfectly fine with that.

There are some sparks – literally, though verbally too – between Noerde and Riyo. Riyo’s scissors against Noerde’s comb – suggesting a hair-based attack – seems like a bad matchup for the home team. But the secret to Noerde’s power is static electricity, which seemingly turns the tables on Riyo. Most of the action, though, is with the Jabber-Zanka pairing. And that’s just how Jabber wants it – he lives for this sort of thing. He reveals a couple of gears we haven’t seen yet – first, using his left claws to take on the character of the goopy green trash lava bubbling up from the ground. And then something else altogether – looking almost like an evolved form of his earlier self. Does Zanka have another level to match?