Obligatory Ichijo fanservice

Sky Girls has a really cheap trick going with all their episodes thus far. They have all been filler-esque training episodes up until this point, but they ALWAYS throw in that one scene with Lt. Hizuki that slowly nudges the plot along. It’s brilliant and frustrating as I can’t say that Sky Girls hasn’t had any plot development, but at the same time the majority of the focus has been on training/demo missions and little information is being given about the WORMs, supposedly the main antagonists of Sky Girls. Ingeniously annoying.

Episode Rating: 7.5/10

The day of the Oppama Air Festival draws near, in which the Sonic Diver Squad will be featured as the main attraction through an aerial demonstration. The night before, Togo and the girls work tirelessly on the all important task of naming the squad, in the end, Togo’s lame suggestion of “Girls that Fly in the Sky” is reluctantly accepted.

The day of the Air Show arrives and everything is going well. The girls are in high spirits, anxious to show the results of their training to the public eye. The base has been transformed into a lively festival and Karen’s brother has even promised to show up.

However, the day takes a turn for the worse when the show’s program is changed to demo the Vic Viper, an advanced fighter plane designed by the higher military powers. As the Vic Viper is a creation of their own, unlike the Sonic Divers, the military prioritizes its demo and coverage over the Sonic Diver Squad, much to the frustration of Togo and the complacency of Hizuki.

From there, the day spirals into disaster. Otoha goes to talk to Zero about the unfair arrival of the Vic Viper when the pilot, Captain Hisaki, approaches her, flaunts his status as the Vic Viper’s pilot and dismisses the Sonic Divers as mere toys.

Meanwhile, Ichijo meets an old acquaintance of her father’s at the show, despite the pleasantries exchanged between them, Ichijo seems to detest the man and any any mention of her father, General Ichijo, who apparently has a great disinterest in Ichijo’s life.

To make things even worse, Karen’s brother, who promised to come watch her, has yet to show up. When Ichijo, still in a bad mood from talking about her father, sees Karen brooding over it, she tells her bluntly that the mission at hand is more important. The end result is all three Sonic Diver pilots, who were in such high spirits the day before, absolutely disheartened after the various issues that the day has raised.

As expected from a great machine and a great pilot, the Vic Viper’s demo flight goes off without a hitch, beautifully displaying it’s speed, maneuverability and combat prowess in the air.

Soon after the Vic Viper’s demo and as the Sonic Diver Squad’s turn approaches, the media is drawn away by a landslide in a nearby area which requires the immediate diversion of the rescue helicopters being used in the show. When those very helicopters are delayed due to mechanical problems with the time window for saving lives running out, Otoha suggests they abandon the air show for an emergency launch to help in the rescue efforts. She eventually wins over the Karen and Ichijo, and with Togo backing them up, Hizuki approves the launch.

The rescue effort goes well, as the advanced maneuverability of the Sonic Divers allows the girls to rescue trapped landslide victims quickly and in situations where helicopters wouldn’t have had the same success, the situation ends with minimal losses.

As an added bonus, the whole ordeal was caught and broadcast by the media, in effect replacing the air show demo of the “Girls that Fly in the Sky” with a live exercise that demonstrated their capabilities beyond military expectations. Hizuki, Hisaki and even the military higher ups can’t help but acknowledge the Sonic Diver Squad’s utility and presence in the sky. The media even took Togo’s crappy name and gave it a catchier spin, yup, you guessed it, “Girls that Fly in the Sky” becomes “Sky Girls”.

With a new name and renewed spirits, Karen, Otoha and Ichijo rest for the remainder of the day. Karen gets an e-mail from her brother apologizing for not being able to be there in person but saying that he saw her on the news and that she looked happy. Meanwhile Ichijo diligently types up a report and Otoha lazes around in bed, sleep talking about the “Great Sky Girls”.

But ominous times lie over the horizon as Hizuki finally reveals the truth to Togo about the attack on West Europe’s base, the rebirth of the WORMs and the true nature of the Sonic Diver Squad, a military combat unit. With a smug look on his face, he shows Togo the Kouryu, an aircraft carrier specifically designed to be the new home of the Sky Girls.

Thoughts

Yet another training type episode where almost no progress is made. I’ll admit that it was a lot better than Otoha running around trying to find the female officer with the largest rack or Karen running around to find a lost pen, but still, we’re seven episodes in with almost no explosions or grand battles to show for it whereas Gurren Lagann had quite a number of awesome battles under its belt, not to mention Kamina’s epic death on the horizon at the same episode count. (Though comparing these two shows may not be the fairest of match ups)

Not much was seen in terms of character development this episode. We all know that Karen loves her brother to death and that Otoha is spunky and rebellious yet kind hearted and righteous at the same time. The only new insight we got was into Ichijo’s continuing hate for her father and his indifference towards her, something that was hinted towards back in episode four.

I’m happy they toned the fanservice down this episode, an occasional bath scene is fine, but entire episodes dedicated to determining bra sizes are a little excessive. I am saddened that they don’t show the girls suiting up in the plug suits anymore though, that was fanservice done right, kinda like henshin scenes.

I know I’ve said this before, but it looks like we’ll be seeing the end of training sometime soon. Hizuki has let Togo in on the reality of their situation and the Kouryu has been unveiled, so the stage is set for the opening battle that was done in the OVA.

But unfortunately it won’t be next week, which will be the obligatory onsen episode (I didn’t know mecha shows were doing these too). Meaning more pointless fanservice, no doubt, and probably another morcel of intel from Hizuki, or maybe a teaser of what’s to come from the mystery loli introduced last episode. Whatever it is, it’s going to be brief, and fighting will not commence until episode nine at the very earliest. Having a mecha show without any battles and random shit blowing up is absurd, it’s like having a Nanoha series go on for 15 episodes without any beamspam or mage battles! Wait, what?!

…damn training.

Regardless, I’ll stick with Sky Girls under the precept of loli mecha pilots and the possibility of decent mecha battles in the future. Let’s just hope that all those people who said a full series based off a generic OVA not being worth it will eventually be proven wrong.

~ Shirukii ~