Tough decisions, tough consequences

What They Say:
The National Federation of Ingelmia has declared war on the United Kingdom of Arandas in its conquest of expanding its borders. Susumu Tokimune is a new pilot for the Arandas army and during a mission he encounters an armored vehicle containing a robot called Argevollen as well as a young girl named Jamie Hazaford. After saving Jamie’s life, Susumu becomes the pilot for the Argevollen and uses it to battle against the Ingelmian forces.

The Review:
Content(warning as portions of this review may contain spoilers):
Last week’s episode was light on major content, given the heavy display that came prior to it. However it made things clear about what would be in store for Susumu if he piloted the Argevollen again, and that his instance on doing so would have its consequences. Of course in the end it was only going to be a matter of when not if he got in again, and with the stakes raised as high as they were for this week’s episode and a new opening song suggesting a major turn, the outcome seemed inevitable.

Kicking off from right where the last episode ended, Ingelmian forces are heading towards the base where Unit 8 is, and they’ve got a whole battalion behind them. Captain Samonji decides to have all the forces in the base retreat with Unit 8 guarding the rear and the Argevollen out of commission. This doesn’t sit well with Cayanne who warns him that leaving the Argevollen out of the fight is a bad idea and one that could get a lot of troops unnecessarily killed. What’s interesting here is that while Cayanne’s ulterior motives are made pretty clear, he does raise a good point, and it calls into question exactly where the captain’s head is at the moment.

As the battle begins, Unit 8 manages to hold the rear pretty well but notice that Richtoften’s unit isn’t among the current enemy forces. Captain Samonji correctly deduces that it and the Argevollen run on the same kind of system and assumes that troubles with the pilot are the reason it’s not there yet. However while there is a brief look at Richtoften’s growing instability back on his side of things, the real target for the Inglemia forces are the soldiers who are retreating. Realizing that they’ve been caught off guard and a lot of lives are at stake, Susumu goes back to catch up with the Argevollen to the captain’s dismay. Though Susumu makes it clear to him that everyone’s at risk now, Captain Samonji is still clearly burdened with guilt over what happened to Reika, and knows he’d never be able to forgive himself if Susumu met the same fate. Of course in the end he doesn’t really have much of a choice and he can only silently watch as Susumu goes out.

Before he can get in the Argevollen though, Susumu has a talk with Jamie who also tries to dissuade him, knowing he may die. What’s made even worse for her is knowing that he would die on her account since he can’t activate the Argevollen without her. She ultimately can’t convince him either and Susumu heads into battle with Richtoften. The ensuing fight brings some nice looking mecha animation out of the series and it’s a pretty cool looking spectacle. Towards the end of it, Susumu begins to feel parts of himself slip away as his memories start to fade, but his last thought of Jamie gives him the strength he needs to push back Richtoften and win. Jamie rushes to see him afterwards and the sub commander remarks that they’ve won the battle although Captain Samoji remarks that he’s the one who’s lost as history repeats itself in his eyes and Susumu’s fate is left unclear.

In Summary:
This week’s episode was pretty heavy on the battles and brought enough action to make up for last week’s lull. More than that though, it was interesting to see how much Reika’s death still burdens the Captain and what he may have been willing to put on the line to keep Susumu from ending up like her. Exactly what happened to Susumu isn’t clear just yet but it’s pretty clear that the consequences are going to be haunting for the others.

Grade: B+

Streamed By: Crunchyroll, Hulu