Waking up in the present is one thing. Waking up on a space station is something else for this samurai girl.

What They Say:
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The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the way the series is able to jump from different areas depending on the character, it’s kept things open for doing a lot of varied stories across several different genres. Some have worked better than others, but what’s largely been missing until now is a science fiction oriented story, at least beyond time travel since that had its own episode and the show in general deals with a form of time travel. Here, we’re introduced to a space station of significant size with some really beautiful lands inside called Nakhodka. Arriving in the midst of this is a young samurai woman named Takeda Shingen.

And her timing couldn’t be more fortuitous as the otherwise unmanned ship is having some significant problems that will lead to the destruction of the nation that created it because of how its operating. While she’s a bit disconcerted by the way events have happened, Takeda quickly takes to the situation, slaps on a microphone and starts working with the robot named Fasad 29 on board the craft to started dealing with it. Sadly, Fasad believes it’s an impossible mission since he’s of no help in battle – though he can make a mean cup of coffee. With just the two of them to defeat the Vesna-9000, we get some very cute and fun 2001: A Space Odyssey references as they get their journey underway.

With a lot of the episode, it is a straightforward adventure journey where the pair work together to overcome the obstacles. Takeda is really a lot of fun to watch because of her personality and Fasad 29 brings some good material and growth as well as they almost casually deal with everything. What also makes it fun and very enjoyable is the animation for it as it goes with some great designs and creative applications of near modern technology thrown ahead a little bit. It may be running with a familiar story idea, but mixing the various elements here together makes for a very fun episode and one where Takeda is ably aided by Fasd 29 in dealing with everything. The two make a great pair to watch.

In Summary:
Sengoku Collection has been an enjoyable series overall but it also has some episodes that really stand out above the rest in a significant way. This episode joins that group as it does something really enjoyable here in how it presents us to Takeda with her landing in the present day on board an expansive and intriguing satellite orbiting the world. She and the robot she teams up with have a lot of fun as they go on their mission to stop things from destroying a nation. There’s good quips, lots of smiles and plenty of serious time as well that ties it all together as the two work towards the goal. It’s self contained and looks beautiful, again making me wish that I could own this series and revisit individual episodes regularly. Definitely one of my favorites of the season.

Grade: A-

Streamed By: Crunchyroll

Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.