Summary:

Witches, from the 504th, led by Junko Takei attempt to make contact with the Neuroi hive over Venezia but Operation Trajanus fails when the representative is annihilated by an even larger hive that descends on the Romanga region. Back in Fuso, Yoshika receives another mysterious letter from her father. With Michiko in tow, she seeks out Mio at the naval base and overhears Lynne reporting the dire situation from Gallia. Radio contact is lost and Mio returns just in time to throw her out.

Yoshika is even more agitated when she sees a new Striker unit being loaded on a flying boat and realizes that Mio is returning to combat even though she can no longer call shields up. Easily breaching the lousy security and charming all the guards with loli-yuri, she commandeers Mio’s old Striker and launches off in pursuit. Moved by Yoshika’s strong desire to protect her friends and missing her great cooking, Mio lets her onboard. But as their plane nears Europe, it comes under attack from a F117-type Neuroi.

Reaction:

I cannot remember if the Neuroi situation depicted here is congruent with what happened at the end of the first season but the Lack-of-Pants-ness works its magic on me once more – I couldn’t really care less whether this series makes sense or not just as long as I get to enjoy these great characters and lots of yuri innuendo again. My rusty memory (and tin ear) also smoothed my reception to the changeover of Mio’s seiyuu from Saeko Chiba to Saori Seto. Until her HOHOHO which was definitely less HO-some than before.

Overall a fairly pleasant set-up episode and re-introduction of the two main Fuso characters. The aerial battle featuring the levelled up non-Fuso witches of the good ole 501st was pretty gratuitous but as it was pretty and provided some action to kick things off, I was happy with it too. That brief scene on the Adriatic beach was also a nice lightning acquaintance with Charlotte’s casually pragmatic level-headedness and Francesca’s fangy and strangely adorable whining. I’m already looking forward to next week’s episode where the rest of the old crew will, no doubt, come to the rescue at the last minute. Looking forward even more to my favourite dog-eared tsundere Karlslander, Trudie~~♥

I think I was going to say something about the prominence of the Yamato and its status as a signifier of World War Two sub-text and the LOLness of how the producers have a World Setting and Military History Advisor on the staff – who might this is Suzuki Takaaki be? But, against the might of the Lack of Pants, it stood no chance: Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent and pantless.

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1. The Twelve Days of Christmasu~ Day 9
2. The Twelve Days of Christmasu~ Day 8
3. HAPPY DECEMBER’S 159-DAY!!! (12/15/09)