Fang fetish ++;

Yet another episode of “LOL, training”, but the introduction of Elize as a fourth member and her mock battle with Ichijo kept it interesting enough that I can’t say anything bad. It all depends on what happens next, if the arrival of Elize means it’s back to square one in terms of the sonic diver squad’s training, then I sense an incoming truck of fail. But if she is quickly and seamlessly assimilated into the team and they’re deployed to the Kouryu on schedule, I’ll be quite content with the new loli recruit.

Episode Rating: 8.5/10

Despite the news that the girls have only a week left until they are transferred to their mobile base aboard the Kouryu, things are going quite well for the sonic diver squad. The real life combat experience seems to have helped a great deal as their training exercises are going much more smoothly and falling into more than acceptable success ranges. The girls themselves are becoming well adjusted to working together, their formations becoming more fluid and their competence as a team at a high. But what fun would it be if things continued to go so smoothly, and what better way to add some tension than to add a new member to the sky girls…

Enter Elise von Dietrich, at te age of 15, she’s the youngest of the sonic diver pilots. She makes quite the entrance as she suddenly flies into one of the girls’ live training exercises, unannounced to the girls and the control team. Typical of Lt. Hizuki, he suggests letting the situation play itself out, as it’ll be an interesting way for the girls to acquaint themselves with Elize. Ichijo takes command and orders Karen to plot Elize’s predicted flight path and uses it to send Otoha to intercept and corner Elize. The newcomer admits defeat, but is unimpressed that it took all three of them to stop her, she excuses herself and flies off.

The aftermath of Elize’s introduction falls into Captain Togo’s lap as he’s bombarded with questions from the girls and the task of prepping the new equipment that came with Elize. The latter of which he dumps on to the maintenance crew, who has to spend the better part of the night setting up Elize’s sonic diver, which conveniently comes with its own spread booth, explaining how Elize was able to launch on her own earlier.

Meanwhile, the pilot is elsewhere causing problems of her own. In the cafeteria, Takumi treats the girls to some coffee as an apology for what happened during training, but Ichijo says it’s no problem, that if Elize doesn’t want to listen to them, they’ll just have to force her to. As if on cue, Elize appears behind Ichijo and starts to belittle her skills as a leader, refusing to listen to listen to her unless she proves herself stronger. Ichijo calmly stands up and suggests that they have a mock battle in the simulator, one on one, to see who’s the better pilot.

Just as the maintenance crew finish prepping Elize’s sonic diver, she shows up with Ichijo who demands its data be inputted into the simulator. Elize runs off to ready her nanoskin and motion slit while Takumi runs around trying to find Togo and explain the situation. He finds him just in time to hear Nanae report that the spread booths and simulator have been activated.

The showdown turns out to be quite evenly matched, both Elize and Ichijo unable to land a hit with conventional dogfight tactics. Otoha, Karen and the maintenance crew look on, quite impressed with the show, until Togo shows up and gives them a lecture. But not wanting to deal with the trouble, he lets the fight continue, ordering Otoha to send the two to his office for punishment afterwards.

The fight ends with Ichijo’s experience edging out Elize’s natural skill. With a sudden mode change while dodging, Ichijo uses the sun as a screen and pins Elize down not unlike the technique that was used against her by the mystery sonic diver pilot way back in the first episode.

Afterwards, Elize says that she only lost because she just arrived and isn’t in top form yet, swearing to win the next time and childishly running away.

Thoughts

Interesting episode, to say the least. I find myself liking Elize already, everything from her spunky attitude to her fang to her odd usagi mimi headband. I usually hate the types of characters that are all full of themselves and barge in like they own the place, but something about Elize makes me like her. Maybe it’s because she sorta reminds me of Becky. Oh, and being the only true DFC among the Sky Girls doesn’t hurt either :3

Aside from the new character introduction, this episode didn’t really do much in terms of moving the plot forward. We already knew about the attack on the West Europe Base and Elize’s escape. The only new information we get is that Elize’s sonic diver was supposed to be a mass production unit, which I’m guessing means better universal syncing, as opposed to Raijin, Reijin and Fuujin, who are very particular about their pilots. But unfortunately, the base was attacked before the plant could be put to use, and Elize’s sonic diver ultimately ended up as another one of a kind.

As i said before, whether Elize’s introduction turns out to be a good thing or a bad thing hinges on what happens next. We’re almost halfway through the series, so I sincerely hope that Elize doesn’t bring another wave of training episodes about, I’d probably drop the series if that were the case.

The preview for next episode looks like it’s more filler, with the girls leaving the test facility and boarding the Kouryu, Karen’s only wish is to see her brother once more before they leave. But that implies that they are actually leaving! So at the very least next episode should signal the beginning of the end for all the administrative stuff, meaning we’ll get to see the girls in action against live WORMs sooner rather than later. But I wouldn’t be surprised if it took a couple filler episodes of adjusting to life on the Kouryu before we get to that point.

Basically, I’m hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst.

You know the drill, obligatory Ichijo fanservice.

~ Shirukii ~

B-b-b-baka Otoha. I’m just a little cold, that’s all.

Just as I was thinking that I would never get to do another Sky Girls post again, three episodes are released in the span of a couple days and my faith in Sky Girls has been renewed. The “LOL, training” episodes are beginning to die out and there was an actual WORM battle and not just simulations, and things only look to get better when the girls relocate to the Kouryu and sail the seas looking for stuff to explode, or rather, implode.

Episode Ratings: 7.5/10 || 8.5/10 || 7/10

Episode 8 was mostly filler, but as I’ve come to expect from Sky Girls, some very important plot elements were hidden among the uselessness.

In the aftermath of the landslide disaster from last episode, one of the families invite the Sky Girls to their onsen as a way of saying thanks. Otoha is quick to jump at the offer, but Karen and Ichijo know that they won’t be granted leave that easily. But surprisingly, Togo agrees to the trip in an instant. However, what Otoha originally pictured as a trip for just the three Sky Girls ends up a base wide vacation with the whole Sonic Diver squad except Hizuki and Nanae.

Amidst the fun of the onsen trip, Togo reveals some very important information to Otoha, Karen and Ichijo. The Sonic Diver squad has been enlisted into the 18th special air force unit and the true purpose of the Sky Girls is as a military unit to fight WORMs, which although diminished in numbers, survived the last war and are beginning to take action against humans once again.

Karen and Ichijo take the news quite calmly, but Otoha lashes out, saying that fighting WORMs is not what she signed up for, and it was cruel of Togo to hide it. However, after she hears that the rest of the Sonic Diver squad has heard the news and deciding to continue with their work because even though it’s not what they signed up for, it will end up protecting the lives of many people, Otoha realizes that she was being selfish by running away from the news and vows to do her best.

With the news out, the girls begin their WORM combat training exercises. Seemingly the only tactic they have against the WORMs is known as the delta lock. The girls use light weaponry to bait the WORM into a position where they can surround it in a triangle formation. Then, using Otoha, who has an incredibly high sync ratio, as a mediator, the girls forcefully merge nanomachines into the WORM, inducing rapid cellular breakdown, when combined with close range weapons bombardment, this destroys the WORM before it can regenerate itself.

Soon after their training exercises, the Sky Girls receive their first launch orders against a real life worm which has shown movement towards a coastal oil refinery plant. The WORM is a lot larger than its training simulator equivalent, but the plan of attack remains the same. However, a problem arises when it becomes clear that Karen is much too scared to engage in combat with a real life WORM, something that she managed to suppress in training, but the real thing is too much for her to handle. When the WORM counter attacks with a projectile barrage, Karen is unable to pull herself together, and is hit with one of the projectiles, luckily it only slightly damaged her arm and the WORM retreated afterwards, allowing the girls to regroup.

After Karen wanders the base for a while and realizes that she isn’t the only one that is scared and that it is in fact completely normal, she overcomes her fears and concentrates on devising a plan to beat the WORM. And not a moment too soon, as it resurfaces again, and when a force of eight battle cruisers is unable to put a scratch on it, the Sky Girls receive launch orders once again. And this time, no mistakes are made, using the data from the last battle, Karen constructs a projectile analysis of the WORM’s attack and a flight path to avoid it. With that taken care of, the girls easily lure it into the air and destroy it with a delta lock, to the cheer of the workers on the oil plant.

As they await their transfer to the Kouryu and any emergency launch orders, the girls continue to train and perfect their skills. But Otoha notices something odd in one of the training exercises, Zero is responding quickly, almost too quickly, it’s so perfect that it seems like something is wrong. Afterwards, she confronts Ryohei, accusing his laziness with Zero’s maintenance being the cause of the off feeling she felt.

Later that night, Nanae is making the rounds after some late night overtime, checking all the rooms and locking the base down. When she comes to the hangar, she notices a glowing light floating around Zero and runs away screaming, thinking its a ghost.

When the girls hear Nanae’s story, they take it upon themselves to get to the bottom of the mystery for the sake of the entire base. That night, they stake out the hangar and wait for the light to appear, much to their surprise, it does, but when Otoha uses a net to catch it, it’s Ryohei that ends up being caught. Suddenly, Oya-san emerges from the shadows and tells the girls that Ryohei has been stealing gas from the divers for his motorcycle, but that story ends up being a cover story to fool the girls. In reality, Ryohei has been working late into the night, trying to diagnose and fix the problem with Zero, but he hates showing his hard working side to others, so he does most of his work at night. Oya-san suggests the problem may be that Otoha’s sync ratio is lining up too perfectly with Zero, causing her to have blind faith in her skills and in essence acting before she even thinks, resulting in the feeling that Zero is reacting too quickly. He suggests lowering the synchronization by 0.0001% to offset the feeling.

Apparently that does the trick, as Otoha has nothing but praise for Zero’s flawless operation after the next training session.

Thoughts

Sky Girls still has that annoying habit of having filler episodes that I can’t call completely useless because of those tiny plot advancements, but things are getting a lot better now that they have actually started training against and fighting WORMs instead of practicing flight formations and destroying inanimate targets.

I’m still frustrated that we’re almost half way through and the Sonic Diver squad hasn’t been transferred to the Kouryu yet, but the occasional emergency launch combined with plenty of Ichijo screentime is holding me over quite well.

On that note, one of the few advantages of these training and filler episodes is that they’re great for developing the characters. For example, Ichijo’s strong on the outside, softie on the inside personality is reinforced through the ghost story. Despite holding a strong outer front to Karen and Otoha, it’s obvious that she’s the most scared out of all of them. Tiny habits like carrying the protection charm and resorting to food to defer her fears is what distinguish characters like Ichijo from other stereotypical tsundere.

We also learn more about Otoha and Karen. Episode 8 made it clear that despite being a cheerful person in general, Otoha can sometimes be quite selfish, or at the very least, naive. When she first hears that the Sky Girls will be put into military combat against the WORMs, all she can think about is herself and how betrayed she felt at the news. But once she calms down and realizes that she’s not the only one who has to deal with the news, she starts to understand that more important than her own selfish needs, her involvement in the Sonic Diver squad is important to the lives of many other innocent people, and at that gather the resolution to give it her best for the sake of everyone.

Karen goes through a similar problem, but rather than being concerned about her personal morals, hers is an issue of fear. Much like Otoha, it takes Karen realizing that everyone else is going through the exact same emotions that she is to get over her fears and cast away her hesitation.

Admittedly, these character developments are as cliche as you can get, but stereotypical courage building is better than none at all. When characters are just thrown into a cockpit and proceed to own the skies without a problem, it’s harder to identify with them as they progress throughout the series. It’s difficult to sympathize with someone who you know nothing about, rather it’s much easier to be drawn in a tense battle when you feel like you know the character and feel that their injury or death would be a great loss.

It’s the methodology behind cannon fodder, for example…Show ▼

I know that it seems like I’m stating the obvious, but it’s a point that a lot of people tend to overlook.

As for where we go from now, the preview suggests we have another briefing/training episode ahead of us as a new Sky Girl joins the team, the loli that was briefly introduced in episode 6, Elise von Dietrich. From what was shown in the preview, she seems like she’s already a competent Sonic Diver pilot, which is sure to piss off Ichijo.

And we finish off with some obligatory Ichijo fanservice.

~ Shirukii ~

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 ~

A New Challenger Loli Appears!

Quite an interesting episode of Sky Girls in that it came off as very filler-ish but actually got a lot done in terms of plot and character development. Things look to be moving quite well now, with the WORMs having been introduced into the present time in both real world warfare and a surprise training simulation, the existence of the WORMs which we’ve known about all along has finally been confirmed. Hopefully this means we’re sped right into the first arc that pits the girls against them.

Episode Rating: 8.5/10

The episode starts out with the battle for the West Europe Base’s survival, under attack by something which suspiciously resembles a supposedly extinct WORM. We are introduced to a new character, Elise, who is labeled as mankind’s hope, and claims that she has the power to win against the WORM. But rather than sending her out to fight, the personnel are more concerned with her survival and put her on an escape pod to safety, from which she is forced to watch helplessly as the base is leveled to the ground.

The report of the base’s fall is also relayed to Lt. Hizuki, who seems to be fully aware of the situation, noting that it’s playing out faster than he had expected.

Meanwhile, back at base, you guessed it, the girls are STILL training. They are called for an emergency deployment drill where their time from call to launch is well over what it should be. However, the training exercise takes an unexpected turn when a WORM shows up on their sonar and attacks the three. Ichijo quickly adapts to the situation, delegating tasks and engaging the WORM, but Otoha and Karen have a harder time dealing with the surprise attack. After it becomes clear that the girls are fighting a losing battle, Togo hits the emergency stop for the simulator and ends the exercise.

Afterwards he has a word with Lt. Hizuki about how it was way too early to put the girls through a combat simulation and that their purpose is to test pilot the Sonic Divers, not as military fighters. However, upon saying that, he realizes that military combat may be the overall goal of the Sonic Diver Squad, when Hizuki replies coldly with “There’s no time left…”, basically confirming Togo’s suspicions, Togo storms out and goes fishing to calm himself down. There he’s approached by Ichijo who demands an explanation for the training simulation and the purpose of the Sonic Diver Squad, Togo dodges her questions and instead tells her a story of a pilot who loved the sky and wished for nothing more than to fly freely, but no longer able to fly, all he can do is place his dream in the girls.

In the aftermath of the training simulation, Ryohei scolds Otoha for having significantly lower reaction times compared to Karen and Ichijo. But Otoha is spared the lecture by Nanae, who cites data showing that Otoha’s proficiency in firing accuracy, flying mobility and techniques as well as her usage of the MV sword are all on the rise, and not only that, but the relay between Reijin and the command center was lagging, basically shifting all the blame onto Ryohei.

Otoha thanks Nanae for supporting her and always doing her job well. Not only Otoha, but Oto, Ranko and Haruko praise Nanae for always finishing her work quickly and accurately, which in turn makes their jobs a lot easier. Karen chips in with some kind words of her own about how helpful Nanae is not only in administrative duties, but misc chores like sewing and cooking. Ie. Nanae = Mrs. Perfect. Typical of any role Hocchan is casted for.

The rest of the episode was fanservicey filler. While doing her laundry, Otoha finds a bra that someone left, a bra that happens to be rather large. And so begins her quest to find out who the bra belongs to. After scouting around the base and sizing up the female staff, Otoha doesn’t find anyone endowed with a matching oppai. She does, however, find sympathy with Nanae, who Otoha thinks is in the same league size wise because she always covers her chest with paper documents. Karen is a little more observant and manages to calculate her approximate bust size, finding it a match to Otoha’s mystery bra, but can’t bring herself to let her know.

At the end of the episode, just as Nanae is about to tell Otoha the truth, she is dragged aside by Otoha who gives her a special push-up bra that makes even small breasts appealing. But when she goes to size Nanae up and realizes the truth behind her size, she’s left in shock and can do nothing but orz.

Thoughts

I can feel it! We’re almost out of the training arc, the end is near!

Despite his relative lack of lines, I’m beginning to hate Lieutenant Hizuki. He’s one of those characters who has little respect for the lives of his comrades and hides behind the guise of doing what he’s doing for the common good. The girls were obviously not ready for a real combat simulation, let alone one that was held in surprise. It’s understandable that there wasn’t enough time to prepare a full briefing for it, but would it have killed him to give them a little verbal run through before sending them inside the simulator?

Hizuki is well aware that WORMs are not extinct and that the true purpose of the Sonic Diver Squad is to serve as a means to fight them, but I don’t see the need for the secrecy. I don’t have much knowledge of the workings of a military, but I’d assume that knowledge of a threat is the first step in fighting the threat. I see no advantage in keeping the girls and the rest of the team working on the Sonic Divers in the dark. Everyone is military personnel so if they are worried about the news spreading and causing public panic, all they’d have to do is issue a gag order punishable by court martial.

Conversely, I feel a lot of sympathy towards Togo. To the girls, it appears as if everything is being controlled by him, so when things go wrong, it’s Togo that they question first. Ichijo’s interrogation and Togo’s deflection of the questions makes it clear that Togo doesn’t want to worry the girls and chooses to sit there silently and take their frustrations instead. Togo doesn’t want any sympathy, he wants answers as much as they do so he can keep the girls informed and prepared, but with Hizuki controlling what’s going on, that’s just not possible, and it ends up making Togo look like the bad guy.

Contrast to that, Hizuki comes off as a good person to Ichijo, Karen and Otoha. In episode four when they got a day off, it was officially Hizuki who granted it whereas in reality it was Togo who pushed him to give them a break.

Togo’s that guy that works behind the scenes to keep everything working properly but is taken for granted and has his spotlight stolen by the higher ups. Isn’t it sad Togo ;_;

As for the fanservice this episode…I found it a little unnecessary. It didn’t add much to Nanae’s personality that couldn’t have been inferred in other ways and Otoha running around trying to identify the bra’s owner ended up as little more than a waste of time. Sky Girls has enough fanservice with the occasional plug suit changing scene. I still think that the girls should have been DFC D= They may be 16, but they have the bodies of 12 year olds, except when it comes to their oppai.

But I have to admit, Karen using her anatomy and planar geometry skills to pinpoint Nanae’s bust size made me lol. See kids, math -IS- useful in real world situations.

The preview for next episode suggests that the girls will be debuting the Sonic Divers to the public in an air show. So barring a surprise ambush, it doesn’t look like we’ll be seeing any fighting just yet, but all in all it does look like we’re moving in the right direction. And the addition of the new loli to the cast has subdued my anxiety for the moment.

~ Shirukii ~

From the looks of things, it seems like the training arc is finished, or at least coming to a close. The preview for episode six suggests that it’s going to be a filler-esque episode which will give us some background on Nanae as well as introduce a new loli into the mix. But the plot is hinting the imminent return of the WORMS, so it shouldn’t be more than a couple episodes before we get into some real combat, which I anxiously await.

Episode Ratings: 7.5/10 & 8/10

After a month of hard training, the girls get their first pay day and a day off thanks to the recommendation of Commander Togo. The girls take the opportunity to go into town and get some shopping done. Otoha ends up buying every morsel of food in sight and eating through the whole day. Ichijo, on the other hand, has more refined tastes, eyeing some expensive looking chocolate, but backs down when she sees Otoha and Karen staring in amazement at her reaction.

The day takes a turn for the worse when Karen drops the fountain pen her brother gave her when taking out a handkerchief for Otoha. It’s picked up by a seemingly random passerby, but he loses the girls in the crowd before he has a chance to return it.

Karen doesn’t notice losing her most precious possession and the day goes on like normal until the three sit down for some tea and Karen offers to show the pen to Otoha and Ichijo. When she realizes it’s missing she runs off to look for it right away.

After running around town, Karen manages to calm down for a second and remember where she dropped it. Back at the scene, the boy who picked it up had been waiting for Karen and returns the pen to her, causing her to cry tears of joy. But when Otoha and Ichijo show up, they think he’s harassing Karen and Otoha knocks the poor guy out. When Karen explains the misunderstanding, the two apologize and offer to treat him to dinner as an apology, after which they watch the sunset while lamenting on the losses suffered during the great war, and how humanity managed to dust itself off and keep on living.

The next day back at base, none other than the boy who found Karen’s pen shows up and is introduced as the Sonic Diver Squad’s communicator, Hayami Takumi. Not wanting to pass up the opportunity, Karen manages to gather up the courage and thank him for the other day, and even manages to shake his hand.

With their training progressing well, the higher ups think that it’s time to evaluate the utility of the Sonic Diver Squad as a military weapon. Hizuki informs Togo that if no results are shown during the evaluation, the squad will be disbanded, unfortunately, Ichijo shows up at just the wrong time to overhear the threat.

The flight demonstration is scheduled in a month’s time, giving the girls plenty of time to practice, and do they ever need it. Aside from Ichijo, Karen and Otoha have a lot of difficulty adapting to the tight formations and complex maneuvers, often crashing into each other during the simulations.

Knowing that they face disbandment if they fail this evaluation, Ichijo pressures the two to get it right and take practice seriously. Seeing this, Togo takes Ichijo aside and tells her not to put any unnecessary pressure onto the girls, and to emphasize their movement and dynamic as a team, rather than technical skill. With that in mind, Ichijo lightens up and starts training Karen and Otoha with a constructive and gentler demeanor.

After noticing that Otoha in particular, is very comfortable with swimming, Ichijo brings the team to a swimming pool and adapts the aerial maneuvers into a synchronized swimming routine. The results are great and the three master the flight demonstration formations with time to spare.

However, things never go that smoothly, and with mere days left until the demonstration, Togo informs the girls that they’ll be putting on an armaments demonstration as well. Targets will be shot from a battlecruiser, which they’ll have to destroy, much like a large scale game of skeet.

As usual, Ichijo scores a perfect, with Karen not far behind, only missing two targets on her first try. But Otoha, not fond nor proficient with long range weapons, misses every single target on her first attempt. Discouraged and sure that she’ll never be able to do it, it’s Ichijo that has to step in and give Otoha a confidence boost and some extra training. With only one day remaining before the official demonstration, Otoha finally manages to nail it and hit every single target in the simulator.

The aerial demonstration is flawless and both Karen and Ichijo clear the armaments demo without a single missed target. But when Otoha’s turn comes around, everything falls apart. When the targets are launched, Reijin’s weapon system suddenly goes offline. When Otoha cries out to Reijin in desperation, he drops the gun and switches to a different weapon mode instead, choosing to equip the MV (Material Vibration) Sword. Otoha’s synchronization levels reach a new high and she takes out all the targets with blinding speed and accuracy, much to the surprise and delight of everyone looking on.

The episode ends with yet another mysterious conversation with Lieutenant Hizuki. The report given to him suggests that the a base in west Europe has been attacked by WORMS.

Thoughts

I still think the pacing of Sky Girls is too slow, but again, it might be because we’re bring spoiled with the pure awesomeness that is Gurren Lagann, which hasn’t gone a single episode without blowing shit up in spectacular fashion. I know it’s not fair to compare the two, but I really want to get to the main plot of Sky Girls and see some battles with the infamous WORMS.

Thankfully, it doesn’t seem like it’s that far off. With the military assessing the combat capabilities of the Sonic Divers and Lt. Hizuki’s conversations confirming what we’ve known all along, that the WORMS are not as extinct as they had thought, it probably won’t be long before the girls are thrown into battle.

I wonder how they’ll handle that though. In the OVA the first deployment of the Sonic Diver Squad was against a WORM cluster that appeared while the girls were aboard a sea bound aircraft carrier. Seeing as in the anime they’re considered test pilots more than anything and haven’t been given any indication that they’ll be reassigned to an actual military base of operations, will the anime play it out differently?

I’d tsun her dere, if you know what I mean

One thing that is progressing at a great pace is character development. Ichijo and Otoha in particular are developing a strong and supportive relationship. Ichijo is always there to give encouragement and offer extra help to Otoha, whose emotions sway so easily, and her piloting skills with them. And in return Otoha’s unorthodox techniques like showing affection for her Sonic Diver remind Ichijo that there’s more than technical proficiency to take into account when piloting Raijin.

Karen isn’t getting as much attention compared to the other two, but at least with Takumi joining the Sonic Diver Squad, her ability to talk to boys is improving ever so slightly. Her piloting skills seem the most shaky out of the three, but instead of having an epiphany that suddenly lets her pilot with perfection, Karen strikes me as the type of character that achieves her goals with hard work and effort rather than natural ability.

Poor Togo always comes off as the bad guy, haha. That scene in the train where Karen suggests that it may have been Togo that was responsible for their day off and is promptly dismissed by Otoha and Ichijo was pretty cold of them. Togo doesn’t even seem like a harsh commander, unlike a certain Takamachi Nanoha.

Nothing much to speculate in regards to where Sky Girls goes from here. They’ve forged a solid foundation for a decent mecha plotline, and have somehow incorporated the use of lolis for pilots decently. Whether it turns into a training hell a la Nanoha StrikerS or a buffet of explosions a la GL remains to be seen. I’m hoping it lands somewhere in the middle for the best of both worlds, but can’t say I have the grandest of expectations based on what we’ve seen so far. In short, Sky Girls has a ton of potential, but has to speed things up if it doesn’t want to end up as a train wreck series.

As a lot of you may have noticed, yes, I bear a lot of spite towards StrikerS for getting off to such a slow start. Though, admittedly, it has been getting a lot better in the past couple weeks.

Show ▼

~ Shirukii ~

*cues Eye of the Tiger* Training arc, go!

Ok, so maybe I harbor a slight hatred for training arcs because of the whole StrikerS fiasco, but I found this episode to be pretty boring. But I suppose it’s a hurdle that we have to get over so the girls can start fighting for real, which hopefully isn’t too far off.

Episode Rating: 7.5/10

The episode starts off with a short lesson on physical chemistry from Togo. He explains that the nanoskin’s various properties, including physical protection, and the ability to sustain the pilot’s vitals even under heavy g-forces and rapidly changing atmospheric pressure. There’s also a time limit to the nanoskin’s effectiveness, exactly 21 minutes and 32 seconds. But most importantly, the stuff is expensive as hell to make and only usable once so he urges them to use it carefully.

Next up is the flight simulator. The girls get into their plug suits and try out the basics of take-off, landing and basic flight maneuvers through a basic simulation. Otoha gets off to a bit of a shaky start when faced with the complex controls, but nothing compared to Karen, who ends up flailing around in an attempt to avoid a simulated crash. As expected from the ‘veteran’ pilot, Ichijo has no problems with the introductory lesson and cruises along with ease.

When the girls are taken to what looks like an amusement park next, Otoha and Karen are slightly confused. But it turns out to be another training exercise as they’re put on a high speed roller coaster with electronic billboards displaying 7-digit numbers at various points, at which point they have to relay the number back to Togo. The level-headed Ichijo makes no mistakes and scores perfect. Karen, despite screaming her head off throughout most of the ride, does surprisingly well with a 98%. However, Otoha, who seemed more concerned with enjoying the ride, doesn’t have much of an affinity for numbers and scores an embarrassing 15%.

The day ends with some physical training, where Ichijo once again outdoes Otoha and Karen. We’re also given a glimpse at Ichijo’s motivation for trying so hard. Still brooding over the incident where she was defeated by the temporary sonic diver pilot, she pushes herself so that one day she may have her chance at revenge.

While watching Ichijo train, Karen runs into Nanae, who explains that unlike Otoha and Karen, Ichijo wasn’t recruited by the military but rather volunteered for the position herself. Also, despite being a great pilot, Ichijo’s compatibility test with the sonic diver system barely made it over the passable range.

The next day, the girls suit up for a sync test and familiarization with the sonic divers. There are no problems with the test and everyone is within acceptable readings, Otoha in particular having nearly a 100% sync ratio from the very start.

The mechanics for each sonic diver are also revealed. Ranko, in charge of Ichijo’s sonic diver Raijin. Haruko, in charge Karen’s sonic diver, Fuujin, also Ranko’s twin sister. And finally, Ryohei, in charge of Reijin, a loud mouthed pervert who seems to be pedo for Otoha, much to her dismay.

With introductions and tests aside, they move on to the main event of the day, the first test flight of the girls’ sonic divers. With the most experience and best training record, Ichijo is the only one permitted to fly so far.

The launch and initial stages of flight go off without a problem, but just as Ichijo starts to think that her first step to catching up to that mystery pilot is going well, her sync ratio suddenly becomes unstable and eventually she loses complete control of Raijin.

To make things worse, when the situation shows no sign of getting better, Lieutenant Hizuki orders everyone to ignore the safety of the pilot and make recovery of Raijin the top priority, which earns him a punch in the face from Togo.

Not one to sit back idly and watch her friend die in vain, Otoha drags Ryohei into the hangar and begs him to let her fly Reijin and rescue Ichijo. With such a high sync ratio, Ryohei thinks it might be possible and allows Otoha to launch, even though no such orders were given.

But things turn out for the best as Otoha manages to catch up, dock with Raijin and escort it back to the hangar. The emergency landing isn’t what you would call graceful, with Otoha almost overshooting the target, but with Ichijo managing to regain control at the last minute and slam on the air brakes, they manage to survive, for which Ichijo earnestly thanks Otoha for.

Thoughts

So my intuition was right in picking out Otoha as the one with the highest sync ratio, but from the amount of screentime she gets, it’s almost as if she’s being built as the main character, so it wasn’t that hard to guess.

You have to feel sorry for Ichijo though. Despite being the most experienced and most skilled pilot among the three, she lacks the latent potential in terms of compatibility with the sonic diver system, something that isn’t a simple task to improve. Another one of those cases where you wonder if hard work and effort can ever pass raw potential and latent genius. However, on the up side, it doesn’t look like Ichijo took it too hard, judging from her personality thus far, her failure will only serve to boost her determination.

On the topic of Ichijo’s personality, the test flight ordeal looks like it helped her relationship with Otoha. Ichijo started off all military, even in the second episode it was clear that she didn’t want to recognize Otoha and Karen as her partners, especially since they were civilians. And throughout the third episode she continually asked that Otoha remain formal and address her by her surname. But having been rescued and seeing that Otoha and Karen care about her, Ichijo drops the tsuntsun act and more or less accepts them as not only partners, but friends, even giving up reminding Otoha not to call her Eika.

I was expecting Ichijo to keep up the tough girl and say something like “Don’t do unnecessary things in the future”. But I guess she not only recognized that Otoha did what she did out of concern, but that she would have been as good as dead had things been left to Lt. Hizuki.

As far as training goes, Sky Girls kept things pretty standard, but I thought the concept of using rollercoasters for high speed pattern recognition was really interesting. Although having them recognize and memorize numbers isn’t really that useful for anyone except Karen, who has a cluster of data to read on the fly when piloting. I’m pretty sure the US military does something similar with their pilots, placing them under high speed conditions and giving them split seconds for image recognition. But instead of numbers they flash various models of aircrafts to judge whether the pilot can discern between friend or foe in the air.

The scene also reminded me of this comic, which I swear I’m going to imitate one day for the lulz.

The next episode looks like the girls have a day off and go into the city to have some fun, only to have Karen lose a pen that was given to her by her brother. No doubt this will lead to a coincidental encounter with a new character.

It feels like Sky Girls is taking forever to build up to real action, but realistically, things are progressing quite well. I think it’s just because the pacing of the OVA was so fast in throwing viewers directly into the line of fire. With a taste of what’s to come, the wait is killing me ;_;. But alas, I guess proper character build up and background profiling is important too…

~ Shirukii ~

What happened to my DFC!?

Slow subs are slooooow, but better than nothing I guess.

This episode is mainly administrative stuff, with Karen, Otoha and Ichijo arriving at the test pilot base and getting briefed. I’m a little worried about how Sky Girls will progress in terms of plot pacing, everyone in the world is still under the belief that the WORMS have been completely eliminated, so throwing them back into the plot will most likely be a gradual thing. In the mean time, I fear we might go into some sort of training arc akin to StrikerS, at which point I’d have to kill myself.

Episode Rating: 7.5/10

Ichijo returns from a training session and is greeted by a shady looking fisherman. Annoyed at him for patronizing her because of her appearance, Ichijo quickly assumes a formal address when she learns that the man in front of her is her direct superior, Lieutenant Colonel Togo.

In the debriefing, Ichijo is informed that she will be assigned to the 13th Aerial Squadron at Yokosuka base as a test pilot for the prototype sonic divers. But more shocking is the news that there will only be two others with her, civilians at that.

Elsewhere, Otoha is aboard a train heading to Yokosuka herself, already showing signs of homesickness. She ends up dozing off, only to have Karen board the same train and sit with her. When their stop comes up, Otoha is woken by Karen and runs off in a hurry, relieved that she barely managed to wake up in time to get off.

Instructed to stay in front of the station and await pickup, the two run into each other outside and start talking, but they’re cut off by a purse snatcher running their way. Otoha goes to stop him, only to have the thief pull a knife on her, but with the help of Karen randomly chucking her luggage, the two are able to subdue the thief and return the purse to the cheer of the onlookers.

When Togo finally arrives to pick up Karen and Otoha, they’re both shocked to learn that the other is a test pilot candidate as well. The surprises continue when instead of being brought to Yokosuka’s main base, they end up at a remote testing facility with a whole lot of nothing except open field space.

Coincidentally, Ichijo happens to be out for a run when the two arrive and Togo takes the opportunity to introduce the pilots to each other as well as himself, their commander, Lieutenant Colonel Togo, much to the surprise of Otoha, who initially took him as their chauffeur. Not one for lively discussions, Ichijo excuses herself and continues with her jog.

After another debriefing, Karen and Otoha make their way to their room, only to find Ichijo in a state of undress. The two are lectured about by her about the military being an organization governed by rules and regulations that are not to be taken lightly. After unpacking their stuff and changing into their uniforms, the three are called to the hangar.

Expecting to see fighter jets, Karen and Otoha are confused when they see the sonic divers, which look more like robotic exoskeletons than things made to be flown freely. But they are assured that these devices are the pinnacle of biotechnology that have the power to defend lives and the peace of the earth. The reason they were chosen is also revealed, being primarily biological, the sonic divers require a certain synchronization percentage when matched with their pilot, in other words, the machine chooses its pilot. Hearing this, Otoha wanders over to one of the sonic divers and claims it as her own, feeling some sort of connection with it.

After the brief introduction, the girls are called inside to try on the motion slits that they will be wearing to pilot the sonic divers. After getting fitted, they are sent to be coated with nanoskin, a gel layer made of nanomachines that provide the pilot protection from shock, among other things. With the absorption ratios of the nanomachines being just shy of 100%, everything seems to be in check and the girls are relieved for the day.

Thoughts

I know it’s only the second episode, but the pacing of Sky Girls isn’t looking too great so far. As i said, there hasn’t been any indication that the girls are going to be used as anything other than test pilots, with the WORMS thought to be extinct. Given the grand scale of the WORM clusters that was shown in the introduction of the first episode as well as the OVA, they’re return wouldn’t be something that should be easily hidden from the general public. With all this in consideration, I can’t help but think we have a lot of briefing/training episodes ahead of us before we delve into some serious action.

But looking objectively, that is at all possibilities, you can’t rule out the possibility that the WORMS will make a sudden reappearance, wipe the floor with the standard military, forcing them to rely on the not so ready but only chance in hell of surviving sonic divers. Which would be a good buffer into more frequent encounters and eventually the appearance of a main threat. Hopefully it turns out to be the latter.

In addition to the surface events of this episode, there was also a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes. When the girls were doing their sync test with the nanoskin, they noted that one girl in particular had surprisingly high readings. Also, there was a cut away shot of Lietenant Hizuki who was being told that one of the pilots has an interesting background and a strong relation to an event known as the final Encounter.

These scenes were much too vague to guess what/who they were referring to. But if I had to take a guess at which character had the highest sync ratio, I’d say Otoha, no real reason, just a random guess XD

Much lulz at the motion slits, which I’ll be referring to as plug suits from now on, because of NGE ingraining the term into my head. We all know that it’s just an excuse to throw in some fanservice, encasing the pilot in a cockpit instead of leaving her fully exposed would have the same effect, but hey, I’m not complaining.

So I can only hope that Sky Girls doesn’t dig itself into an inescapable hole of plot elements which they don’t have time to wrap up, and that sub groups pick up the pace on the subbing. But with Ayako busy with Murder Princess and Seto no Hanayome, I wonder if that’ll happen.

Damn you Japan, damn you and your flaunting of Felica and superior cell phone technology!

~ Shirukii ~

Yet another summer start up, Sky Girls is a series based off a one episode OVA that aired back in 2006. I’m rather surprised they decided to make a full length series out of this one, seeing as the OVA was received with such mixed reviews. Maybe everyone liked it in Japan?

Sky girls is set in late the 21st century. Not too long ago, Earth was attacked by clusters of cyborgs known as WORMS. These WORMS wreaked havoc and destruction everywhere, to the point where the world united under one international army to fight against them. But small arms combat was useless, and the decision to use large scale weaponry (NUCLEAR LAUNCH DETECTED) was approved.

The tactic proved successful in destroying the WORMS, but came at a grave price. The Earth’s landmasses were forever changed, many continents were broken into smaller islands, many places sank into the sea, and the entire of Antarctica was blown off the map (and nothing of value was lost).

But perhaps the most devastating effect of the war was the loss of population, approximately 90% of all men aged 20-30 were killed. Quite a unique way to justify the use of lolis as military combatants, I must admit.

The first episode was dedicated to introducing the three female protagonists of Sky Girls: Ichijo Eika, Sonomiya Karen and Sakurano Otoha, who are recruited as military pilots to test the prototype model ‘Sonic Divers’

Ichijo Eika

Ichijo is already a military pilot, stationed at the Kasuga Military Base as a fighter jet pilot. Being the only one of the three who has any previous military experience, Ichijo will probably play the role of teacher and senpai to the other two. She also reluctantly acknowledges the potential strength of the Sonic Diver, having lost to it in a mock battle.

It’s also worth mentioning that she’s tsundere.

Sonomiya Karen

Karen is a child genious who managed to complete a bachelor’s degree at the age of 16. Despite being confident in her studies, she has problems interacting with men, the only exception being her brother.

Karen is unsure of what direction she wants to take in life, only certain that she wants to do something to help people everywhere, a childishly naive dream. But that dream is most likely the reason she agrees to joining as a military pilot in the end, having been told it’s a job that would help people everywhere.

Sakurano Otoha

Otoha is a simple girl who lives on a rural island as the apprentice of a kendo dojo. Her grandfather, having lost the grandson who was supposed to succeed the dojo, now leaves that dream with Otoha, constantly training her skills.

When the military approaches him to discuss the proposal to have her join the military, he is strongly opposed, having lost his son to the military in the past. However, it has always been Otoha’s dream to fly freely in the sky, a dream she once shared with her brother.

When Otoha’s grandfather hears that she is planning to accept the invitation to become a pilot, he shows the same strong opposition. He sets the condition that Otoha must get a clean hit on him in a kendo match, only then will he concede to her decision, the only problem is that Otoha has never been able to do so before. But when Otoha’s grandfather sees Otoha’s strongest determination to win in her eyes, he realizes that there’s no stopping her, and forfeits the match.

We’re also given a sneak peak at the capabilities of the Sonic Diver via the mock battle with Ichijo. It’s odd design leaves the pilot completely exposed to direct attack, but its agility and maneuverability is top notch. The issue of leaving the pilot completely exposed is also compensated, something that will most likely be explained in the next episode, judging from the preview.

First Impressions

I was among the group that really liked Sky Girls, and was pretty happy when it was announced that it was getting its own series. The result has been satisfactory, it’s foundation plot isn’t anything revolutionary and I have my doubts that this will be able to keep my attention for 26 episodes, but it’s far from disastrous thus far.

Technical aspects were surprisingly good coming from JC STAFF, the “history” opener was had great background scenery and the mock battle was cleanly and consistently animated. I don’t think we’ll see anything on par with the animation in the OVA, but I’m not expecting Gurren Lagann 15 grade animation anyways.

Music was actually pretty good, the OP was by MELL and annoyingly catchy, like a lot of her other songs. On the other hand, I hated the ED and will never listen to more than the first seconds of it ever again. Ambient music neither added nor detracted from overall effect, but since it’s impossible to do battle in silence, it’s a necessity.

I’ll definitely keep watching Sky Girls, even though it is against my usual dislike for mecha anime. Probably due to the fact that it has lolis. Yeah, yeah, I know, they’re 16.

Other than that, my only other question is this: How is it that a 16 year old girl was able to effortlessly cut into and pry open a cargo trailer that is was probably made of some sort of steel alloy. Rust only goes so far, and even then, it was the malleability, not the brittleness that was exploited. But then again, LOL ANIME PHYSICS.

~ Shirukii ~