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): With the history between Captain Samonji and Reika revealed, this week’s episode mostly returns things to the norm. There’s a little bit of display with how the war is progressing in the beginning and fates of some of the soldiers in it but for the most part the episode is pretty low key. Instead where most of the focus lies this time around is in the introduction of a new member to the team named Namine who is adept in a new kind of Trail Krieger that’s more advanced than the ones used by the others (bar the Argevollen of course).
Namine has some interesting expectations about what the group is like as she initially assumes that they’re all a bunch of hardened ace soldiers, given their rate of success. She ends up running into Jamie first, who assures her the group is really nothing like that, and it’s pretty amusingly confirmed when most of the gang starts hitting on her right off the bat. More interestingly however, is her connection to Susumu who turns out to have been her upperclassman in the same training academy and the two are already pretty well acquainted. This connection ends up having Susumu put in charge of her giving him his first real taste at what it’s like to be a leader. Their first training exercise together though ends pretty badly as Namine’s understanding of the basics doesn’t apply well to actual combat and leads to her underestimating the capabilities of her own machine.
She gets a chance a chance at redemption when Inglemian forces arrive on the scene and starts to adjust to the battlefield a bit more when she stops Susumu from getting hit by a surprise attack. This backfires however when she ends up on the receiving end of a surprise attack instead, prompting Susumu to come to her rescue. The situation makes Susumu realize how much the others have been helping him, and though the others poke fun at him for it, it’s interesting to see him mature a little bit. The larger point of interest from the battle however is that in the process of it, Susumu’s synchronization with the Argevollen goes up pretty significantly, which delights Jamie, but distresses Captain Samonji a bit, suggesting something dangerous may happen when it reaches 100%
In Summary:
This week’s episode doesn’t manage to reach the heights of last week, but the introduction of a new character puts an good wrench in things. Moreso than the obvious love triangle that’s bound to come of it, it will be interesting to see how Namine’s tutelage under Susumu makes him grow as a soldier, and of course there’s still that ever growing mystery of what’ll happen once Susumu and the Argevollen are in complete sync. Hopefully the show will deliver on both.
Overall: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll, Hulu
