Summary:
While Sheryl films her corny pilot-training documentary to make everyone remember Galaxy, Grace thanks Mikhail for letting Sheryl usurp training time. However, when Graces realizes that Mikhail is the younger brother of Jessica, a whole lotta old baggage is brought up. This affects Mikhail on the next mission and his shot grazes Alto’s new VF-25’s head, allowing the Vajra to get away. Alto is very pissed, and mocks Mikhail and Jessica.
Alto later learns that Jessica was an elite sniper who was banging her married superior. In a truly boneheaded move, the commander dumped Jessica before a mission, and Jessica “accidentally” misfired and killed him. During the court-martial, Jessica committed suicide. Anyway, on the next mission the team goes to investigate a small Vajra nest nearby, and Brera is advised to destroy the nest to foil Ozma’s team. Brera takes out Klan Klein with ease. Alto does his melee thing and this time Mikhail is able to take the shot; unfortunately, Brera dodges the shot and still succeeds in destroying the nest.
Reaction:
I’m surprised that Alto didn’t joke that being a skank runs in Mikhail’s family as well. It was pretty lame how after that whole flashback, Mikhail still missed the shot, and Brera still got away. If I was Alto, I would be absolutely seething with fury. Alto actually had some really nice moves this episode, especially when he used his missile spam to cut off Brera, and then used the rifle to close in. You know that if Alto was teamed with Ozma, Brera’s VF would be a heap of space junk right now.
Ironically, in real life Alto is a pitiful melee fighter. Even after landing a surprise punch to Mikhail’s face, Alto was immediately mounted and destroyed by Mikhail’s vicious ground-and-pound. I liked that the VF units are so expressive, especially in the fantastic scene where Klan Klein slapped Mikhail’s VF. I also liked the mystery, and I wonder who Brera is working for (since that person knew exactly where the nest was). Grace intrigues me as well, especially after she cleverly hacked into the secretary’s laptop’s camera in order to spy on Leon’s meeting with President Glass. And who keeps hacking Ranka’s official website? Finally, that green pantsu-thief is obviously a baby Vajra, and Ranka’s first single, “Cat’s Diary,” was kinda sucky.
22 Comments
All signs are pointing to Grace as a possible infiltrator from beyond the fleet who is also backing Brera.
Besides Alto-hime is a lover not a fighter, can’t ypu tell by how many times Mikhail has struck out (Grace, Sheryl, and Klein) compared to Alto-hime’s home runs?
Besides given how Kabuki-hime can recover from an Ozma class beat down in the span of five minutes, Mikhail’s puny fists do nothing to Alto-hime’s looks. The blood of Meltrans and Mako-cakes do run strong in that one.
I guess in the future, band-aids heal everything. You can take a burst of direct rifle fire to your armor suit, and one nose band-aid is all you need to fix you up completely.
I wonder about Grace as well. She has proven herself to be oddly adept at spying, which does not seem to be a common manager trait. You don’t see Ranka’s manager spying on anyone. I wonder why Grace would use Sheryl as a cover, though, considering that Sheryl does not have direct access to many important political figures.
Alto must’ve seen Klan and decided to to lay it on Mikhail. Who knows what Klan (in macro form) would have done to Alto has he tried to beat up Michel.
Yeah, even though I don’t really enjoy mecha action, Alto’s fighting was sweet
Like I said, Ranka’s manager chose the wrong part of town to market her debut single
Dere-dere Klan sure was a sight, though Mikhail had to ruin everything.
Mikhail didn’t miss - its more that Brera has Phase Shift Armor on his Freedom VF and plot armor to reinforce it, so Mikhail did no more damage after Alto took the leg.
I tell you, Alto is sweet only on Klein-neesama… which is why Sjeryl annoys him some, and Ranka gets neglected, but he’ll always take a moment to stop and listen obediently to her without being snarky like usual. Anyone else notice that? Canaria and Klein-sama, oneesama types both, always get Alto to listen to them
Did Michael really miss twice? I thought Brera’s hax saved him the second time.
@Haesslich:
Alto is a pretty sensible guy. He’s had serious discussions with everyone without giving attitude at some time or the other. I don’t think Klein gave any reason for Alto to be snarky.
You can’t blame him for wanting to banter with Sheryl. It would be a terrible waste not to.
Jacobian - I’ve yet to see Alto ever talk back to the oneesama types, unlike say… Mikhail. I wonder if Alto always wanted one, given how he reacts to them…
I think Mikhail was on target with the shot on Brera, and he does graze the head, but I believe Brera was able to dodge the shot (at least partially). This may be due to Brera’s haxxor VF. Either way, even a headshot would not take out Brera’s VF, so what was the point? A better idea would have been to take out Brera’s propulsion system.
Also, this is an interesting theory about Alto with sisterly types. I will have to look out for it in future episodes.
Brera Yamato or Kira Stern flies the VF Freedom. I wonder what best to call him.
Sheryl does have that oneesama side to her, but she only seems to use it with Ranka, which should make The Legend of Zero interesting. I think the only time that Alto saw it was in the shelter in episode 3, before he decided to commit to SMS after thinking about wanting to do things (like pilot) because he wanted to and was willing to work for it, as Sheryl-neesama did to become the Galactic Fairy.
plus, I suspect he let Mikhail beat on him as it would give Mikhail less satisfaction to beat on a passive target than a good fight would’ve. Or he didn’t want to beat Mikhail up in front of Klein-neesama.
I was expecting Michel to scream “ZETSUBO-SHITA!” any moment but alas it never happened.
@Haesslich:
Alto starts a conversation with Klein when Sheryl starts writing lyrics in the middle of their date. He no doubt respects her, but he didn’t seem shy in talking to her. Sheryl’s every bit as snarky, but she too seemed to hit it off positively with Klein (no doubt the origin of Sheryl x Klein fandom).
Klein’s just a straightforward sort of person. It seems odd for anyone to want to pick a fight with her… a certain fool excepted.
I think Mikhail missing that last shot probably was due to the Valkyrie Hax Factor, Klein couldn’t touch Brera either.
I would say that added a little depth to the situation, the fact that even though Mikhail did all that soul searching or what-have-you, he still missed because hey, that’s life. Too bad the whole episode seemed a little thin and kind of hackneyed.
Grace is my bet for Brera’s puppet master as well.
jacobian: Alto, from the first time he met Klein, kept looking up (or staring) at her. Some people suggested it was because it was the first time he’d seen a Maclonized Zentradi, but Episode 5 kinda blew THAT idea out of the water (he knew about the Zentradi Island, and seemed used to the large-sized stuff while Sheryl wasn’t), so I think it’s more that he just sees something in Klein which keeps him nice and polite. Similarly with Canaria, since he mostly bitched about Mikhail rather than getting snarky with the doc.
I didn’t get the feeling that Alto was letting Mikhail win. Alto was pretty pissed off about the friendly fire thing, so I think he just got schooled by Mikhail during the fist fight.
He’s not THAT incompetent… and he’s always had that rivalry going on with Mikhail, sorta like a lower-level version of Guld and Isamu’s. I don’t think he was really trying though, else he’d have put in a few more jabs. Even if Canaria CAN throw him around like a dishrag.
You know, I used to have a Gizmo plushie! ^_^ I used to be scared of that movie though! Almost as much as the Michael Jackson Thriller video… good times
It’s obvious… it’s Leon who’s hacking Ranka’s site. If she got too famous then her ‘illness’ would be exposed or something or another. Leon knows what’s going on I suspect. And I agree, Arthur the cat he is not, but pantsu thief is definately a vajara. No Guvava unfortunately
Hmm, I wonder if that incompetent manager is working for Leon also. What better way to keep Ranka out of the limelight than to give her a sucky manager…
The manager rocks, what are you talking about? She does a good job keeping Sheryl on task and she saved her from certain doom in ep 3.
Er, I mean Ranka’s manager, not Grace.