The episode is a continuation of the beach episode, so you know we are off to a bad start. For some reason, this beach vacation ends the night with the entire school having a traditional Japanese dinner, wearing traditional Japanese robes, and sitting on the floor like filthy barbarians! Actually, this whole thing confused me. I don't remember anything in the previous episodes saying they would be spending the day in a Japanese castle style hotel-thingy. I'm not actually sure where they are. I checked the last episode to make sure, but its never mentioned that this place is odd in any way. Maybe I do not know my beach vacations very well.
A pointless, yet key event happens here. Ichika has to feed Cecilia, because despite living in Japan for over a year, she cannot use chopsticks. He had to do the same thing for Charles a few episodes back, and it was just as boring then. I am not sure why this is something that is so over played in romance/harem series. Is it just every Japanese person's fetish to feed a foreigner? Someone has got to get the memo out to those guys that pretty much everyone in the world knows how to use chopsticks nowadays. But since stick-feeding seems to be a romantic exchange in the Far East, every girl in the room starts yelling about how jealous they are of Cecilia. To stop this crap, Chifuyu enters the room tells everyone to shut the hell up and eat. Ichika says it will make a scene if they try that again, so he promises to make it up to Cecilia later, in his room. Bow chica wow-wow~
Predictably, Cecilia takes this as a come on and dresses in her sexy underwear. Thankfully, someone decided they cannot show fifteen-year-old girls in thongs on TV. However, Cecilia's roommates hear of this and decide:
I disagree, as there are very few occasions that call for stripping your roommate. And "so we can see your sexy underwear," is not high school shenanigans, but sexual assault. This whole school would be getting a visit from Sexual Harassment Panda if it were up to me. It is not.
After being stripped off screen, Cecilia heads to Ichika's room for a sexy encounter. When she arrives, she finds Houki, Rin, Laura, and Charlotte pressed up against Ichika's door, listening to something. Cecilia joins them and hears Ichika and Chifuyu's voices coming from inside. "It's been a while," "I'll be gentle," "Mm, no, not there!" "Here?" "Oh, yes, there," ect. And then the sexy horn music starts up. Full blown sexy-time music starts up as the audience is meant to assume some "private family matters" are being taken care of. Or, "Matters of family privates"! Alright, belabored joke is reaching its climax *Ba dum chss*. Sorry. The combined shock, intrigue, and disgust cause the four of them to accidentally knock down the flimsy sliding doors to find...!
This is not as hot a party as anticipated.
This too is a way overplayed trope in anime. So much so that if people are hiding outside a room, I already know someone inside is getting a massage, and how the next two minutes of the show are going to go. I have to forcefully stop myself from skipping ahead.
Chifuyu invites the girls in so she can yell at them for spying on her. While Ichika is out getting her more beer, because drinking while you are supposed to be supervising children is one of the least irresponsible things the staff does, she decides to question the girls about why they like Ichika, anyway. She lists his positive traits of being good at massages, chores, and cooking. So, he is the ideal Japanese wife?
Later, Ichika is giving Cecilia a massage, and Chifuyu watches over them like a hawk, saying "Don't expect any obscene acts in front of your teacher," thoroughly killing the mood. At least someone is discouraging this crap. Though, not very well.
Ichika wakes up the next mourning to find Houki starring at this. He asks her about it, and she becomes annoyed, walking away. Now, this is a school where forced stripping and attempted murder are fairly commonplace. I can't imagine what their practical jokes are like. I would not pull that. But I am not Ichika. After he pulls the mysterious mechanical flaps, a giant carrot-shaped missile plunged toward him. The steaming metal harbinger opens and unleashes an unspeakable evil on this series.
("The most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered rodent you ever set eyes on!" - Tim, the enchanter)
Tabane Shinonono. The inventor of the most powerful weapon ever created. She dresses like a fetish waitress and has mechanical rabbit ears that can track down her sister. Her voice will cause your ears to bleed as she pops into scenes at random, trying to be cute by proclaiming herself as the most genius person ever. And she is! Able to reprogram anything, to do anything, slapping any semblance of reasonable science in the face. It is as if the creator targeted me, and decided to just piss me off.
Chifuyu is the only character who seems more annoyed than amazed by Tabane's antics. It is hinted at that they have known each other for a long time, but is not mentioned specifically just how long. Anyway, Tabane interrupts this unscheduled training session (for important characters only), to give Houki her very own personal machine.
Akatsubaki, the first fourth-generation IS. I'm not sure how exactly how they calculate the IS generations, since it's mentioned that most countries are still prototyping their third generation IS models. Are there still only 467 cores? If the core is the same, than what makes one machine better than the next so drastically that they are different generations? What does the core even do? And why can no one else make them?
Basically, Akatsubaki is somehow even more overpowered than the third generation machines. It is faster, has better acceleration, more fire-power. By more fire-power, I mean it has glowing pink katanas that shoot auto-targeted, rapid fire lasers. Did you hear that? It was the sound of every Japanese person jizzing in perfect harmony.
Chifuyu's assistant breaks up this arms show with devastating news. The important characters (Minus Tabane) are called away to a makeshift war room in the hotel. Or maybe it is not a hotel. The point is, the important characters are being sent on an important military operation. What a second! I thought this was a school! You're actually sending these kids into active combat? Can you imagine the parental permission slip for something like that?
The mission: To destroy a berserk, unmanned IS named "The Gospel", a joint project between the US and Israel, on its way to Japan. There is nothing about that sentence I did not like! Tabane sneaks in through one of the roof panels, ceiling-cat style, and mentions that this reminds her of the White Knight indecent.
Shoehorned exposition time! Ten years ago, one month after Tabane announced the IS, every missile defense system in the world went Skynet and decided to take out Japan.
("You know what? Screw Japan. Just, screw them." -Everyone)
This would have destroyed Japan, except an unknown woman piloting the first IS destroyed every single missile. Now, those are coming from all around the world, and are set to land at different locations. If they were all launched at the same time, there is no way she could have destroyed them all. The travel time is impossible! I know this is a harem/mecha anime, but you just cannot do that. That is stupid even by Gurren Lagann standards, but they admit to breaking reality in the show! Augh! Maaaath!
Admittedly, White Knight is pretty sweet looking. Not sweet looking enough to make up for the impossible physics it had to manage, though. Tabane hints that it was Chifuyu piloting it, by making a reference to Chifuyu's bust size... Is now a good time to mention that Tabane is a bad character? Anyway. I have to wonder about all this. Chifuyu and Tabane have been friends a long time, and seem to be about the same age. That means Tabane had to have invented IS when she was fourteen. She also is the only character who knows anything about technology, and has been shown being able to hack anything, remotely, in about thirty seconds, like she is from the cast of CSI. I just think the timing is too convenient. My theory is that Tabane hacked those computers herself to create a reason to use the IS.
Closing thoughts: This episode was pretty decent, but I really wish that Tabane was not a horrible, horrible character. She makes me hate anime as a whole.
This episode did have a lot of Chifuyu showing off her very fashionable track suit. I cannot help feel that like she should be reminding me of someone. She has that fancy track suit she wears everywhere. She is the best teacher, who has won multiple sporting medals. She has a vaguely retarded assistant. Her nemesis is an irresponsible douche who should not be allowed around children, but no one else tries to stop them...
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