Top wo Nerae! 2 02

While Lark Mercmar tries to scrub the carbon off of Nono’s skin, Casio and resident hottie Nicolas Baseran watch the girl-on-girl scrubbing action on the monitor. It turns out that Nono is actually an unregistered service robot (omg, service indeed…), even though she seems so human and can even feel pain. Nicolas seems to have won young Lark’s heart, but he has a bit of his own agenda. He sends Lark to meet up with Captain Hatori, a Gendo Ikari wannabe on Flagship Lalachan (026SS), and at the same time he gives Nono a chance to check out Dix-Neuf. Lark is a bit miffed that she needed Nono’s help before, but after donning her awesome spacesuit and arriving on the Lalachan, she’s greeted by numerous fanboys who make her feel a lot better about herself. The fanboys reveal that Lark is an elite member of the Fraternity and has even held the record for best Topless 2 years straight. Hatori, however, is very jealous of Topless (having been unable to make it himself), and so cuffs Lark to prevent her from removing her forehead seal and using her Topless abilities. Hatori goes so far as to suggest that the space monsters only began attacking after the Topless arrived, and that they might both be enemies of mankind. He then declares that they no longer need Topless, now that they have a sweet new fleet of anti-monster warships.

Back at base, Nicolas organizes a bit of meet-and-greet between Nono and Dix-Neuf. Nicolas reveals that Dix-Neuf is the oldest functioning Buster Machine, and that Topless are defined only by their “exotic maneuver super energy”. Nono tries to get Dix-Neuf to move, but even her flubbing around on the broomstick seat can’t get the Buster Machine to stir. This is the cue for a space monster to suddenly appear from a dark portal.

Hatori wants to show off his fleet’s power, but of course they are no match for the sword-like space monster with a red eye in the hilt. Nicolas decides to summon his Buster Machine, Vingt-Sept, and uses his wacky powers to change all the ships into shark-toothed sperm cells o__O. He doesn’t have much regard for the crews’ lives and launches the sperm ships haphazardly as a distraction. Lark gets really excited about Nicolas’ exotic maneuver, and summons Dix-Neuf right inside the warship to romp with Nicolas. Before they get a chance to do in the speedy space monster with their mysterious “Buster X” attack (this is sounding kinkier and kinkier…), Nono pipes up that Hatori’s ship is falling into Mars. That’s right, Nono is still in the cockpit, and her and Lark are having a bit of trouble fitting on the slim broomstick seat. Lark would rather combine exotic maneuvers with Nicolas, but Nono appeals to her sense of justice and asks WWDND (what would Dix-Neuf do?); naturally this sways Lark to try to stop the ship’s rapid descent.

Things look really bad, but Lark swallows her pride and asks Nono for help. With their combined might, Dix-Neuf’s orange flames extend and power up into blue flames and the ship is saved. Left alone, Nicolas makes like a samurai and dices the charging space monster in half with a katana, before panting “I can still do it” rather breathlessly. On the ship, Hatori mentions that even though the day was saved, eventually even the strongest Topless have to retire. Meanwhile, Nicolas gets a call from two mysterious female Topless who show a real interest in Nono and ask Nicolas for a favor. While all this mystery is going on, Lark and Nono have a bonding moment as Nono exclaims that the battle really got her heart pumping, and lets Lark listen to her lifelike heartbeat. After that cheerfulness, we see poor Chiko angrily squishing Casio with her floating sphere for not getting to go on the mission, and then Lark introduces a Topless-suit-wearing Nono to everyone.

Wow, what a great episode! It almost made it worth the months of waiting for the second OVA to be subbed. This time we get a catchy retro monkey-OP with good music and funky colors. Too bad most of the scenes were stolen from the first episode, but that might change. Production values were sky high and the action was fast and furious. Lark was great as usual, and I hope she can stop treating Dix-Neuf and Nono like objects soon. I enjoyed the bit of mystery that was introduced this time, but I’m not expecting anything too deep. I got such Neon Genesis Evangelion vibes, that I broke out my NGE OST and Megumi Hayashibara CD and reminisced about my days of memorizing Zankoku na Tenshi no Thesis (I always liked the Ayanami version best, but the original long version was pretty damn good, too). I do have to say, however, that the cockpits in Top wo Nerae are the most uncomfortable cockpits I have ever seen in a mecha series. How can they deal with that?! It was great to see that heartthrob Nicolas is having a midlife crisis trying to woo the young girls and show he can still perform at his peak, even though he senses his impending retirement. After the battle, he probably went home and iced his knees for 5 hours. The beginning had a funny bird story, and there were less FLCL faces this time. Also, I mentioned it before, but the ED is quite good as well.

Anyone know where to get the OP or ED?