Fudo’s challenge of the week is to find an escaping Apollo, and the prize for catching Apollo is the chance to pilot the Vector Units. Apollo wants to dash off to save Baron, even though he doesn’t know which hairy stalk Baron is in. Fudo wants to teach the students the value of working together, while he gets a massage from Sophia. Naturally, there are ridiculous booby traps, and so Pierre teams up with Silvia while Sirius works the pimp juice with Reika. Jun teams up with Tsugumi, but her explosive allergies take them out of the running early on. While Pierre teases Silvia about being Apollo’s lover in a previous life, Sirius waxes poetic about wanting to split (and thus lessen) Reika’s bad luck. Meanwhile, Apollo finds the Vector Sol and takes off, just as his pursuers catch up. Pierre and Silvia win the day when Sirius is forced to save Reika from a trap, and he makes some kind of snide comment about wasting time saving a “trap detection tool”.
Even though Apollo has blasted off, he has no idea where to go. This is the cue for the monster of the week, and so a spiky purple hand appears in Valley City to aid several Harvesters. Apollo decides to help out, because he especially hates the Harvesters. This “mythical beast” burrows underground and presents the Deava team a nasty challenge; this is exacerbated by their lack of teamwork. The situation changes once Silvia takes a blast meant for Apollo, and Pierre reminds Apollo that everyone on the Deava side has lost friends. We then get a flashback of how angry Harvester soccer fans in England harvested the entire stadium after Pierre missed a penalty kick off the top post. This inspires everyone to unite into Aquarion Mars, and Pierre is able to sense where the spiky hand is (did it have a pompous mythical name?) and kick a fireball at it. This totally exhausts him, and so they reform into Solar Aquarion to catch the remaining Harvesters, but the Harvesters form a barrier and get away.
Unfortunately, the animation was not as good this episode, and the gattai was just a quick “moeruuuuuuu” with no interesting dialogue. You really have to hand it to the Shadow Angels; they know how to get it done. They’ve lost a few of those really crappy units that the Vector Units can kill, a handful of Cherubim Soldiers, and one purple spiky hand, but their Harvesters have yet to be stopped. The whole thing reminds me of how bad I am at real time strategy video games, but I think even I could beat Fudo. Sirius had some truly awesome moments between trying to work the magic with Reika (who kept her clothes on for once!), and trying to hunt down Apollo for thinking Sirius’ prized Roman coin was a chocolate coin and chomping down on it. Pierre was kinda cool this episode, and man those Shadow Angels take their soccer very seriously!
That arrow trap reminded me of the end of Hero…
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I don’t know why I continue watching this series when I find so many things wrong with it. I guess the campiness over-wins my ability to stop watching.
… and yes, I do love how the “bad guys” are mostly winning. I find it more surprising the “good guys” aren’t trying harder or having some shinji-like depression over their inability to actually *win*. heh.
Is it just me, or is this series getting boring? The monsters seem to be in enemy-of-the-day mode. The past few episodes were mostly lesson in life.. work together, learn to crawl.. blah blah blah. Although good, I find myself yearning for more biblical mythology and a deeper storyline. Do I sense some yaoi angels thrown in for good measure?
I think the problem is that Fudo sucks. There needs to be more campiness, more gattai, and more angst. Kudos for the absolutely absurd monster design this episode, though. The bad guys don’t get enough screen time.
I second the call for more campiness!
Instead of sourcing material from “Hero”, they should take a page from “Independence Day” and have Jun hack into the alien harvesters and upload a virus XD
Hahaha, David, they should plant infected humans in cities to infect the whole Tree of Life, like how they make those ant baits where the ant takes poison back to the queen!
Like… Reika!
OMGWTFBBQ devious!!!!!!!
I wasn’t thrilled about this epsiode either — the animation obviously dipped and I dunno, Pierre angst just isn’t as convincing as Reika angst.
I have a bit of an issue about Sirius calling Reika a “trap detection tool.” He seems to actually like her — sorry, I peeked at episode 6 — so it seems counterintuitive to call a girl you like a “tool.”
Hey cmon do the post on naruto 134!!!!
I don’t know why I keep watching this show. It got basically nothing that I like but still I enjoy every episode. The only character that I find interesting is Reika and I hope they give her an episode or more of her own soon.