This time we get to follow Chiko, who is a Topless with a penchant for disobeying orders. Chiko is obsessed with beating Lark in the scoring competition, but when she drops her special earring in the heat of battle, the space monster swarm destroys her Buster Machine, Soixante-Six. This is a major blow in the battle against the “Jupiter Express”, as there are only 31 Buster Machines in the universe. There is a new unit under construction, but it hasn’t awakened yet, and half of the new units never make it through the awakening process. Chiko thinks the unit is certainly hers, but Nono decides that it is a lival battle. Things get even more heated when Chiko overhears Casio saying that the new Quatre-Vingt-Dix would be happier with Nono as a pilot, and that Nicholas thinks Nono has the potential to be a Topless.
While Chiko is getting medical clearance to verify that she doesn’t have radiation sickness, someone breaks in and steals her earrings. It’s some bratty kids who wanted to lure a Topless in for a request: make snow fall from the sky. At this point, we get a flashback of chibi-Chiko asking a sickly boy in a hospital bed to whittle her a snowman for her birthday. Clearly he’s important to her, and he made the earrings she wears. It comes out that Chiko is bitter she couldn’t save him, and feels that Topless are in actuality powerless. He died from space radiation sickness on a snowy day. Chiko wants so badly to beat Lark so that Lark can’t keep spouting the optimistic, cliche message given every year to people in the universe. While Chiko is angsting, however, Nono is busy working hard and showing the Eye of the Tiger.
During the preparations laying the minefield, Chiko goes so far as to ambush Nono’s unit to decide who can pilot the Quatre-Vingt-Dix. As this fight between two clunky boxes with arms/legs is too painful to watch, the space monster swarm appears and begins the attack. The minefield is ineffective at steering the swarm north, and even though Lark is absolutely brilliant in her defense, the space monsters are simply too numerous. Nono won’t let Chiko pilot the new Buster Machine because Quatre-Vingt-Dix won’t lend power to someone who doesn’t believe in herself. When monsters head south towards the hospital, Chiko resolves to protect the hospital and throws away her earrings. Suddenly Quatre-Vingt-Dix awakens in SEED mode, and Chiko unveils the Buster Smash! Apparently the designers of the Quatre-Vingt-Dix had been watching too much Prince of Tennis, and the Buster Smash is like a mecha version of Snake with the ability to achieve a temperature of -1,000,020,000,000 degrees (theoretically). This move barely freezes the swarm, and Chiko has a vision of talking to her loved one across time. Suddenly it’s snowing frozen space monster guts and Nono shows off a little snowman with Chiko’s earrings as the eyes and smile *throws up*. No longer all bitter and jaded, Chiko gives a happy smile herself.
While perhaps not quite as engaging as the previous two episodes, this one had plenty more great Buster Machine battling, and Chiko turned out to be alright in the end. Lark was a joy to watch in battle, and I was surprised to learn that Casio is the retired previous pilot of Dix-Neuf! The tennis blast was hilarious, and I’m sure that now Chiko has a rolling start in the scoring competition for this year. It was really funny that Buster Machine nudity is censored, but human nudity isn’t in this episode. Speaking of which, with the first new Buster Machine designed in years, who decided to make this one female?
The garlic head emergency outfit made me laugh, and I now know that the Mos Chicken Buster Combo 2 (with a small cafe latte) comes with EXTRA AMMUNITION!
This post was written by...
Kabitzin – who has written 1970 posts on Sea Slugs! Anime Blog.
One of the founders of Sea Slugs, I handle most of the blog admin tasks while wearing my I AM BOSS shirt. I like my action series well choreographed, and my romance series extra trashy. I also have a soft spot for puns.
{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }
Gee what a way to spoil the entire thing for people who haven’t watched the episode. I know it’s your blog and everything, but try not to write EVERYTHING that happened in that episode.
Are you an idiot? Just don’t read it.
Are you a retarded or something Fatalis? People READ blogs. I know its hard for you to understand considering you have a comprehension of a 2 year old.
I read it because I CAN read. Unlike you, who probably just look at the pictures to try and depict what happened in the episode.
*At least leave Spoiler tags, thnx*
You’re really rude! If you don’t want to hear about what happened in an episode, then DON’T READ THE SPOILERS!!!Personally I like reading the summaries. It’s your decision to read the summary, so don’t get angry at other people for your own decisions.
Ok, that’s enough flaming. I will delete and ban if this continues. Basically almost all of these posts are highly spoilerific, and at the same time, the posts are usually over 500 words long and do the play-by-play in chrnological order, so spoilers are not sudden.
I write these posts the way they are on purpose, and the full posts let me talk about all the parts of the episode I want to talk about. I also like to read this style on others’ blogs because it often points out things I missed. I don’t think anyone who reads such text-heavy posts on episodes they have not yet watched can claim to be without fault when they get spoiled. I agree with flou on this one, but on the other hand, no reason for anyone to get personal.
Best episode yet! I never would have thought Chiko would be so angsty. I figurd she would be the typical cutesy shallow character in the show. But I guess Nono fits that bill. Hmm, I wonder what Buster Machine Nono will get to pilot, this episode surely threw me for a loop on that aspect.
Someone should email Gainax because they spoiled this beautiful article of yours and they didn’t even put any spoiler warnings into the episode!!1
I agree with you about Chiko! I thought for sure she’d be one of those annoying cutesy types, what with the popsicle and kiddy hairdo, but she’s quite moody and angst-ridden. I’m also not sure what Nono will get to pilot, although maybe they’ll make some uber new Buster Machine for her (or they’ll find some ancient powerful Buster Machine). Until then, however, she’s stuck in that ugly box-mech at the Buster drive-through =(.
Kabitzin, the preview in the next episode has some alien Buster Machine that they uncovered. That might be the Buster Machine that Nono gets to pilot.
Is there a lot of fanservice in this series?
DON’T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT!!
That’s the great thing that I like about this show…is that the characters don’t fit the stereotypical bill.
Lately I’ve been a bit discontent with anime because it has become SO predictable. Especially with the character personalities (e.g. “The Rival”, “The Onee-sama”, “The Glass Wearing Best Friend”, “The Cutesy Loli”).
This show rocks so much because all the typical character conventions have been thrown out the window.
Even if you think you knew how this character was going to behave, they then go and do something totally different and unpredicable. They’re moody!
The Onee-sama:
Lark has to be the shortest Onee-Sama I’ve ever seen!
Lark doesn’t even want to be the Onee-sama (I’m not sure I’ve ever seen an Onee-sama not want to be an Onee-sama)
She is not always sure of herself and is a bit insecure (yet she will then turn around and kick ass when motivated)
The Cutesy Loli:
Chiko had me fooled completely at the end of episode 2. I thought she would be ditsy and childlike but it turns she can go back and forth from a “Cutesy-Loli”…to a serious, competitive, hot tempered Rival!
The “Underachiving Heroine”:
Underachiving heroines are typically the shortest characters in anime yet Nono’s so tall!
She’s actually…not that underachiving. She’s been kicking ass in all aspects with only slight trips into flake-land (and she’s not easily discouraged)
This series takes me back to my early days of anime!
mk2000
Episode3 is the most enjoyable episode right now for me.
Since it ends in a very heartwarming way, and Nono’s cuteness goes up from tooth-decaying levels to Industrial Sugar factory level.
And I thought she could never get any cuter!
Chiko is suprisingly a great character afterall, but what’s more important is that Lark still kick @$$!
However the most surprising part is that the packaging of Quatre-Vingt-Dix!
An underware set for a Buster machine? A Plastic wraping that screams “action figure”!?(It even a cutout hook for hanging on walls!)
BTW, Is there anyone who thinks that Quatre-Vingt-Dix actually responded to Nono’s verbal questioning of Chiko? as oppose to Chiko’s sudden change of heart that is. It looks that way to me, I mean. My conclusion is that, Nono’s power is probably an enhancer for Topless, rather a Topless herself.(from Ep2,3)
Well, Maybe the upcoming ep.4 will shed some light on this. ^_^
Haha, I thought Quatre-Vingt-Dix looked like a plastic wrapped action figure too ^__^. And Chiko acts so different from how she looks!
The idea of Nono as an amplifier is intriguing.
On the subject of what Buster Machine Nono will pilot, I was initially thinking that she would somehow inherit Dix-Neuf, because the ED segment shows her and Dix-Neuf together in several scenes. The new “alien Buster Machine” in the Ep.4 preview could dispel that notion, but ya never know…Gainax will prolly surprise us again.
>Ender
Good point, I didn’t think of that! Just to give my two cents, I thought that Nono would inherit Nicolas’s buster machine, given that Nicolas noted that he was getting ‘too old to be a Buster pilot’. But maybe this isn’t fated to be, given that Nicolas is fraternizing with wierd-looking twins?
Those iron rods that the female pilots have to sit on sure look uncomfortable. Nicholas is a lucky that he has a bicycle seat attached to his rod.
I noticed that too! I wonder if that is something he added to his Buster Unit, like how you can bring in those lumbar support things for your chair. He is an old geezer of a pilot, after all…
Hehe, that’s just too corny — lumbar support units *and* head-mounted stickers?! O_o
Also, just as a side note, wasn’t it wierd that Chiko’s special attack was driving the temperature down to -10000000 Celsius? Especially as the coldest achievable temperature is -273 degrees? And one would think that monsters that live and fly in space would be uniquely protected against cold-based attacks, given that the ambient temperature of deep space is asymptotically close to absolute zero? I smell a fish! ^^
I have just seen the raw version of epi 4 and the only thing that I can say is that you’re all wrong… ^^ but maybe one of you is right? Anyway, i don’t want to spoil anyones fun so I am might as well stop here.