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: (please note that portions of this review may contain spoilers)
After last week’s focus on the Ingelmia side of things, this week’s episode brings us back to the usual with the Arandas forces. Thanks to the surprise attack on one of the Inglemia bases from the previous episode, the Arandas army has managed to push them back and hold off their advance, bringing things back to a stalemate. Unit 8 has been involved in several battles since then and once again goes for some downtime.
While the Argevollen is undergoing some maintenance issues, some of the others go off to explore the town. It turns out to be the town where Okui grew up and he spends some time speaking with the other villagers. Of course things don’t stay quiet for too long as an Inglemia battalion, laid siege to a nearby town and is now headed their way. Unfortunately for the gang, Captain Samonji and the sub-commander got summoned away to HQ (and the only other guy available to take charge, conveniently had stomach problems that day) so Okui is left to take charge of the operation and hold off the Inglemia forces since he knows the area the best.
The battle gets off to a rough start as the Argevollen’s maintenance isn’t quite done yet, and Okui’s inexperience as a leader quickly becomes apparent as he as trouble keeping up with everything going on. He initially gives the order to retreat since fog is starting to settle into the area, but the others decide to take advantage of it and use it to get the upper hand with mixed results. When things look like they’re starting to turn around the Argevollen finishes its maintenance and swoops into to save the day, with Susumu predictably almost blowing himself up in the process. Meanwhile on the more interesting side of things, Captain Samonji arrives at HQ and gets ready for a meeting with a higher up that seems to have an interest in Susumu and the Argevollen.
In Summary:
Last week’s episode was a nice change of pace, but this week brings us back to the norm with an even slower crawl than usual. Getting a bit of focus on one of the side members of the group is appreciated, but the majority of the episode felt like filler while we wait for some of the larger developments to finally play out. Thankfully it seems as though next week’s episode will deliver on that end so hopefully the material’s better the next time around.
Overall: C+
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
