Infinite Stratos! The story so far, Part 2 (Episodes 5-9)

Alright! Home stretch for the recap. I just have a few more characters and plots to introduce.

Episode four left off with Ichika and Rin having killed some kind of cyborg monstrosity that was wrecking up the school. We then see Instructor Chifuyu in a lab researching the half-destroyed machine. Apparently she is the only person in the world who cares about the safety of children, since everyone else seems to immediately forget about the terrorist attack they all just survived in favor of fighting over who gets to nurse Ichika back to health. Yet he is still unable to deduce that any of the girls might be romantically interested in him. He is truly a magnificent self-cock-blocker.

I neglected to mention last time that Ichika and Houki, his childhood friend, have to share a room at the school. Gasp! A boy and girl sharing a room? What kind of irresponsible boarding school are these people running? Pitting them against each other in high-speed, aerial gunfights was one thing, but sharing a room with the other sex? Now they've gone too far! Luckily, to save the school from lawsuit, and the audience from annoying, obligatory "Oh god, don't look, I'm naked! Oh, you looked, now I have to beat you with a katana, like a sane and rational person, instead of just changing clothes in the bathroom from now on!" moments, we have a new student!

Introducing Mr. France, Charles "There Is Nothing Gay About This" Dunois!

 (Not pictured: Something gay)

Charles is the only other man who can pilot an IS, and Ichika's new roommate. Charles is the Representative Candidate from France, and the only son of the CEO of Dunois Industries, France's largest IS manufacturers.

Wait a minute! How can there be entire assembly lines for producing IS if there are only 478 cores? That's like if there were only 7,000 barrels of oil in the world, and you manufactured cars! The corporate structure of this universe makes no sense. But I guess in a world of irresponsible idiots, any business plan works.

Now, I knew there was something wrong with Charles since his first appearance in episode five. And it's not because I'm a psychic, or anything supernatural. It was my keen, superhuman powers of 

observation and deductive reasoning.

(Pictured: Deductive reasoning)

• Charles is not the main character.
• Charles is a man in a harem series.
• Charles is better looking than Ichika.
• Charles is soft spoken, and beautiful. (Gorgeous hair pulled into a ponytail, big friendly eyes not befitting a male character, perfectly manicured and pointed nails.)
• Charles refuses to undress with Ichika.
• Charles blushes and becomes nervous when Ichika gets close.
• Despite being Ichika's superior in every way, he does not treat Ichika like crap.
• Charles is not the antagonist who steals Ichika's dream girl.

All of these statements cannot be true! However, I could not deduce the masterfully disguised truth until the next episode, when Ichika walks into the bathroom to discover that Charles is actually... A woman! Yes, Charles is actually Charlotte Dunois. Being the bastard child of Mr. Dunois' mistress, she was hidden from the world to protect the good name of Dunois Industries.

Two problems with that. I don't think that people care how many bastard children industrialists have, outside Japan. If Alan Roger Mulally (CEO of Ford) had a few unwed mothers in his portfolio, I don't think anyone would even notice. The second is, as is revealed in this towel-clad confession, Dunois Industries is already failing. Charlotte was ordered by her father to enroll at the academy as a boy so she would become Ichika's roommate. This would allow her to steal the research data from Ichika's third generation IS, Byakushiki, giving them an edge in developing new IS designs.

After this teary confession, Ichika forgives Charlotte, tells her that is not the way parents should act, and promises to protect her secret. For you see, if the French government learned that Charlotte was in fact a girl, they would recall her and imprison her for fraud. Man, high school sure is complicated there. But luckily Ichika discovers a school rule stating that all students are considered citizens of the school, or some such, and therefore cannot be arrested by foreign governments while enrolled. Wow, way to give children with weapons diplomatic immunity, guys. Despite this reassuring news of "You won't be tried for this for three more years. And then you can be tried as an adult!" Charlotte decides to dress in drag for a few more episodes. Besides, more important things than corporate sabotage and enrollment fraud are going on! What about the inter-class tournament? And who is that mysterious new transfer student?

Ms. (Nazi?) Germany, Laura Bodewig!

Laura goosesteps straight into our heart with her first action on screen. After a brief self introduction to the class, she steps forward and backhands Ichika, with "I will never forgive you for being Ms. Orimura's brother," as her only explanation.

Story time! It turns out that as a kid Ichika was kidnapped during the final round of the international IS tournament. His sister, Chifuyu, was set to win her second gold metal in ass-kicking when she got the news. She forfeited the match in order to bring some mecha-justice to his kidnappers. Of course, she was only able to learn of Ichika’s location through the German government's spy network. In return, Chifuyu promised to teach young German girls how to be as awesome as she was. "Ah!" you say, "But IS academy is in Japan!" Well, you are right! It seems she taught young girls who were drafted into the German military. This is where Laura comes in.

Laura was a child soldier that the German military was experimenting on in order to make the perfect killer. Her aim was bad, so they injected nanobots into her eye. It didn't work, so they shrugged, gave her an eye patch, and continued the training. While in the worst (or should I say Wurst!) summer camp since Camp Krusty, she developed a total lesbian crush on Ichika's sister. Actually, it might just be lesbian admiration. Either way, it compelled her to slap Ichika for being such a lame brother.

 (Above: German engineering. Representing Deutschland.)

Her personal IS is Schwarzer Regen, or "Black Rain". This is a third generation IS, like Ichika's, and seems to be even more overpowered. It is equipped with several rifles, a back mounted railgun, a laser whip (because all German girls need whips in anime), and wrist mounted laser knives. In three episodes she gets into a fight with everyone in Ichika's harem, beating them effortlessly; beating them... to death! Or, that was her plan. After kicking the asses of Rin and Cecilla in a two on one fight, Ichika sets up his own diplomatic meeting between the nations of His-Ass and Her-Foot. So, after a full day of racism and delinquency, Laura adds attempted homicide to her list by charging at an unshielded Ichika with her intimidating pink sword. And she would have straight up murdered him if Chifuyu didn't step in.

And what is the repercussion for attempted murder at this school? Nothing! Chifuyu tells them they "are not allowed to have mock battles until the inter-class tournament."

You guys remember that story a few months back about some high school football player who raped a girl, but since the school wanted a good football team, they didn't punish him in any way? It's like that, I guess. Because reporting a felony would reflect badly on the school. Not that they actually give an explanation in the show, God no, that would take thinking! And this author is very taxed thinking of ways to have awkward sexual tension in his series.

 (That'll do, frog. That'll do.)

Now that we got that out of the way, it's time to choose partners for the inter-class tournament! Ichika and Charles are a team, of course, since they're the only two men *nudge nudge*. To save on animation, the first round is against none other than series antagonist, Laura! But, isn't this a team battle? Since Laura is a homicidal bitch, she has no friends; since Laura has no friends, her partner was chosen for her. Houki is chosen to be her partner. This is exciting, because Houki is said to be an excellent fighter from her years of kendo, yet we never get to see her fight on screen until now. It was rather disappointing, then, that Houki does not have a personal IS, despite being the beloved sister of its inventor. Houki is easily dispatched within the first 30 seconds of the episode, making a two-on-one of Charles and Ichika against Laura. But through teamwork, they defeat her and win the match. However, Laura does not take being defeated by a Frenchman and a loser easily. She thinks she hears her machine talking to her as she flashes back to her years as a child soldier. The machine asks if she wants to be stronger, and of course she does. But, as any Volkswagen owner would tell you, when a German machine offers you immense power, it comes at a terrible price. Schwarzer Regen eats her and transforms into a giant black lady.

Turns out, to avoid looking weak, the German government installed Laura's IS with something called the Valkyrie Trace System. Germans, always with the Valkyries! Basically it makes her machine turn into a semi-liquid kill bot a la Terminator 2. Then Ichika gets all annoyed because a kill bot is using some sword techniques that his sister uses, blah blah, something Japanese about the weight of carrying a sword... Long story short, Ichika cuts the machine in two and saves Laura. The fight was in episode 8, and actually pretty decent to watch if you like mecha fights.

Before the episode ends, Charles comes clean to his class, letting everyone know he is actually Charlotte. "So, Ichika was sharing a room with a girl this whole time? How scandalous~" the mob of girls say. This news is taken particularly hard by Rin. Rin decides that this kind of affront to her sex life cannot go unpunished. She breaks through the wall of Ichika's class, in full IS, and charges her laser to fire on an unarmed, unshielded Ichika. Laura then breaks through the other wall in her IS, which I guess did not melt and get cut in half, and blocks the laser with her face (shield) to protect Ichika. In this moment of confusion Laura grabs Ichika by his neck, lifts him up and gives him the first on screen make out session in front of the whole class. After panning around the room for reaction shots of shocked horror, she announces to him:

 Again, destroying school property and attempted homicide is not punished with so much as detention. Seeing as how this school for proving which nation has the upper hand in the arms race might be dangerous, the tournament is called off, promising instead to give everyone next week off to go to the beach. I cringe when I hear "the beach" in anime now. It's just an excuse for poorly drawn fan service of minors and lazy writing. Honestly, I could probably do an entire documentary about why I hate "the beach", but to save everyone, I'll just boil down this episode into its two best scenes.

Laura needs a new swimsuit to impress her "wife" Ichika, so she calls her home base. The entire "Black Rabbit Squad" is composed of eye-patch wearing women. Who designed this task force, me? 

 (Is this an army of one, or is there room for one more? *wink*)

Also, this scene with Rin viciously applying tanning lotion to Cecilia. I could explain the events that lead up to it, but, why bother?

And that concludes our recap of Infinite Stratos! Next episode will introduce Houki's sister, inventor of IS, and Houki will get her own personal machine! Will she become a useful character, or remain forever anonymous in the flock of tsunderes following Ichika?