Summary:
Ryoko is up early this morning making boxed lunches for her movie filming today with Tomigai and Kyo. But as she steps out of her apartment, her Celebra-Icon activates and she finds herself standing on the wing of the Oceanus. Inside the ship, the crew is breaking up from a meeting, and Shima tells Kyo that he’s taking Ryoko in as a Celebrant. She seems suitable as a Wizard, so Shima wants Kyo to train with her. He orders Minato to take care of Ryoko’s transfer preparations, but Dita appears behind him to report that Ryoko has already arrived. The group finds her on the bridge, after she’s already become friends with the AIs. She presents everyone with the food she made, but May-Yu and May-Yen get jealous when she gives some to Lu Sheng. As Ryoko is having fun filming the ship and the crew, Lemures reports that Ryoko isn’t showing any of the normal awakening patterns – a good thing.
After watching Shima and Minato, Ryoko tells the two that they’re well matched together. That makes Minato really happy, up until the point where Shima suggests it’s just Ryoko’s imagination. Ryoko and Kyo then go film Lu Sheng practicing his martial arts, but May-Yu and May-Yen catch them. The two girls try to stop them from interfering with Lu Sheng’s training, even though he had permitted Ryoko to film in the first place. May-Yu advises her sister to watch out for Ryoko because Ryoko could be aiming to take the rear seat behind Lu Sheng in a Zegapain. Meanwhile, Shima and the others are in a conference about Ryoko and the other potential Celebrant candidates. It seems that out of all the candidates, Ryoko is the only one who has completely awakened. The Oceanus is faced with a low number of new recruits again, but Shima says that both quality and quantity are important.
Ryoko continues to film the real world, and even catches Chris sleeping with Pieta. Walking with Kyo, she starts thinking about what the AIs would be like if she were the one who programmed their models. In her imagination, Ryoko sees all them as cat people, with everyone finishing their sentences with a “nyaa~.” Kyo then takes her to the ZEGAPAIN hanger and shows her the mecha. Ryoko thanks him for protecting everyone up to now, but Kyo knows that now Ryoko will have to fight too. Ryoko is aware of the dangers, and yet she’s still decided to protect everyone. She wants to become stronger and fly higher, together with Kyo. When the two return back to the server world, Ryoko feels like she’s forgotten something important. The script she wrote falls out of her bag, reminding her that she was supposed to be filming today with Tomigai. She and Kyo rush over to the park and apologize to him, but Tomigai doesn’t mind. He is more concerned about the flickering light that’s on his forehead, the Celebra-Icon.
Ryoko eventually returns to the real world where she gets suited up and placed in a simulator. At first she is hesitant to take Shizuno’s spot behind Kyo, but he tells her not to worry about it. The two of them do very well in the combat game together while Shizuno and the others watch on. Shizuno remembers how Kyo had told her earlier that he wanted to change Wizards so that he could protect and be with Ryoko. Shizuno wonders to herself if getting rid of black magic with a kiss is only something that happens in fairy tales. In front of Shima, however, Shizuno praises Ryoko for her abilities. Looking at the combat data, Minato becomes amazed that Ryoko and Kyo are making phenomenal progress. Shima thinks that they’ve acquired a Witch, which is a Wizard who has a sort of special telepathy or data link with the Gunner.
In the next days, Ryoko spends most of her time filming in the server world. She continues to think about what she’s able to accomplish together with Kyo: becoming stronger, flying higher. Eventually, she and Kyo are sent out on a reconnaissance mission to a tropical island region in the real world aboard the Altair. Back on the Oceanus, Shima is in video conference with Commander Isola who is currently stationed in Europe. Isola is concerned about their losses in Africa, and Shima notes that the Gards-orm are rapidly developing new weapons. However, Shima also reveals that the Oceanus side has new quantum weapons currently in development. After this exchange, the Oceanus is alerted of enemies approaching the Altair. Ryoko tells Kyo that she’s decided not to be afraid, and Kyo vows to himself to protect Ryoko. The crew of the Oceanus watches in amazement as those two work together and dispatch the entire group of enemy ships. Shima says that there’s no mistake: Ryoko is a Witch.
Even when the arms of the Altair get hit and damaged, Ryoko takes only 20 seconds to reroute the circuits to get them working again. The battle is soon over and the Altair lands on a sandy beach. Above them, dark clouds begin to form. The Oceanus detects that there are four Holonic Loaders out there – the Altair, the Garuda, the Hraesvelg, and an unknown. They realize too late that it’s a Gards-orm ship. Indeed, Shin is piloting the new mecha and targets the unsuspecting Altair from above. Kyo and Ryoko are chatting happily when they suddenly get a warning telling them that their Light Armor is shifting phase and disappearing. The computer then tells them that they are being transferred back to the Oceanus, but Shin launches a powerful beam weapon at the Altair before this can go through. The flaming carcass of the Altair arrives in the Oceanus’ hanger, and Shima orders both pilots to be saved quickly. However, Dita reports, “Transmission Failure. Apparition Data, Lost. Kaminagi Ryoko, Destroyed.”

O_O
Wow, this episode had it all. I was laughing at Ryoko’s delusions of all the AIs in cat form, and thus I became fooled by the light-heartedness of the first half of the episode. And then the ending: Ryoko and Kyo get ambushed by Shin in a brand new mecha. and then get teleported back to the Oceanus. You can tell that the damage has been done, but it doesn’t really hit you until Dita says her final line. So I thought they did a fantastic job with reversal and suddenly killing off Ryoko.
I’m very skeptical that Ryoko is gone for good because she’s too important a character for them to just knock off halfway through the series for good. There are several possible scenarios for her return. The Oceanus might find someway to bring her back, but I like the idea that she’d lose her memory and the story would parallel the Shizuno and Kyo relationship. Or maybe the Gards-orm will bring her back and Kyo will have to fight against Ryoko in the future. And then there’s the issue of Shizuno. With Ryoko gone, Shizuno becomes Kyo’s Wizard again. But with her current attitude and with the way RyokoXKyo was going, I just can’t see a ShizunoXKyo outcome. Maybe there’s something big is store for Shizuno too.
With all this character drama, it’s easy to forget that this is supposed to be a mecha show. The Gards-orm’s new Anti-Zega weapon seems able to dispel the Holonic armor, making it quite a deadly weapon. Maybe now we’ll actually have some more interesting battles. I’m curious to see what weapons Shima’s side is developing too.
There should be lots of plot development coming next week, and we’ll get to see how Kyo reacts to Ryoko’s death.

29 Comments

  1. The sheer abruptness of her “death” just seems to scream “she’s not gone for good!!!” to me. On the other hand, I have to admit that it wouldn’t surprise me if she were gone for good. Although I don’t want her gone. (I WANT KYOxRYOKO!!! NNNNUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! T.T )

    Guess will just have to wait and see……………….

    Shinji103
  2. I’m quite sure Ryoko’s situation is made to parallel Kyo’s when he died in a previous life.

    I expect her to come back but with incomplete memories (ie: forgetting that they were close once)

    now doesn’t that sound familiar to you?

    yeah, he’s in shizuna’s shoes now

    drama!

    T_I
  3. Well, here’s a somewhat possibly good sign: on the character page on the Zegapain main site, Ryoko is listed before Shizuna, right after Kyo, who is first. Thus, judging by the unspoken law/habit Japanese anime has of listing their characters from most important to least important, Ryoko is more important than Shizuna, which could mean she is indeed coming back.

    Of course, this could just mean Kyo never forgets her and her presence continues to have a lasting effect on him, or something like that maybe.

    And of course, there’s the possibility that the order of characters has no huge siginifcance at all. If this unspoken rule of character listing were always true, Rin would have ended up with Sia in Shuffle! instead of Asa. But then, Navel isn’t doing this show…

    Argh, and we’re still back to waiting to find out what the heck is gonna happen.

    DON’T LEAVE, RYOKO!!!! NNNNUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! T.T T.T

    Shinji103
  4. guys, I think you’re watching the show for the wrong reasons. well maybe I’m too harsh… you’re putting too much into this darn pairings

    I think Zegapain has as much to do with pairings as Fate stay Night, Tsukhime or Air…

    if you catch my drift…

    T_I
  5. Ryoko is listed before Shizuna, right after Kyo, who is first. Thus, judging by the unspoken law/habit Japanese anime has of listing their characters from most important to least important, Ryoko is more important than Shizuna, which could mean she is indeed coming back. –Shinji103

    If so, then… Shizuno is the one who’s gonna make the ‘sacrifice’ (die, leave Kyo, etc) later on? zomg..!!

    ise
  6. guys, I think you’re watching the show for the wrong reasons. well maybe I’m too harsh… you’re putting too much into this darn pairings

    I think Zegapain has as much to do with pairings as Fate stay Night, Tsukhime or Air…

    if you catch my drift…

    I couldn’t agree more, this show really isn’t about the pairrings if you ask me. It’s really developing to become quite an interesting story too bad the subs have only gotten to episode 9.

    Sol Fighter
  7. The subs will catch up soon. Haha, Chris looked cheesy. But what a shocker episode this is. She can’t really be gone. I don’t think she’ll really be gone. I find it interesting that the Celebrant Icon now has pink and yellow colours instead of the blue.

    koyuki-san
  8. All this build up spent on Ryoko only for her to “go” so abruptly. The story has me really drawn in to a point that when she went, I was actually really surprised. Even if she does come back, Kyo has already shown us that a revival doesn’t mean the character really comes back in a sense. All indicators say while we won’t lose the the name, face and voice, we will lose a good chunk of everything built up over the past 13 episodes…

    It’ll be interesting to see how Kyo handles this and how much it contrasts against Shizino’s recovery of Kyo vs Kyo’s recovery of Ryoko.

    Blade
  9. Royoko is coming back especially as it is only ep 13. Its too early for a main character to die. look at spoiler below.

    Show Spoiler ▼

    Even if she comes back it probably means she is coming back but not as the same one as she will definitely lose something like kyo after that much damage. We just have to wait how extensive that damage might be.

    Any way i am more interested in kyo’s past before he lost his memories, especially Shizuno’s role in it. They seem to be spending quite a lot of time depicting shizuno’s emotions whenever Kyo talks about ryoko or something relating to her. hopefully they will explore their past relationship more thoroughly in the coming episodes.

    shadow-chaser
  10. If this show really isn’t about pairings, then I hope Kyo and Shizuno won’t be a couple at the end of the show…
    If they will, then this dramatic death’s purpose was to clear the way….

    eurys
  11. Okay, it seems people misunderstood me.

    Indeed I am fully aware that the pairings are tot the ultimate central point of this show, and I’m not watching this series for that reason alone.

    Ryoko’s death here is undeniably an incredibly significant event, and whether or not she’s gone for good is extremely important.

    And yes, she’s my favorite female character and I hope she comes back and gets together with Kyo. But I am not watching this series merely for the pairings.

    Shinji103
  12. It just happens that I ran into many types of people that would care less if the series goes to hell or not as long as abc hooks up with xyz. It happens more with fangirls than fanboys, though.

    However, I think that kind of one track mindedness is dangerous to your health. Especially if you expecations are brutally shattered.

    T_I
  13. I really don’t understand why some people tend to get harped on the idea that so and so pairing must occur else this show is worthless.

    There is so much to this plotline than just simple relationships. I was honestly lulled into a false sense of ease because of the whole character/relationship build up through the first set of episodes. It didn’t dawn upon me that main characters could be just killed like that. Even when I first thought of the idea of characters dying I, Kyo’s rebirth made it seem like it wasn’t such a big deal. Arque’s death managed to bring us sympathy to her even though she had only had a handful of character build up. To have Ryoko taken away contrasts so much with Arque’s death that it really surprised me. Until she was lost the whole idea of wet damage and dry damage didn’t really have as much significance.

    Then there’s the science of things, kudos to the writers for making good efforts on current concepts. I also find the whole humanity eradicated, servers, the enemy to be really interesting. The mecha are secondary and is quite refreshing to focus on a good story.

    Blade
  14. I tell you this: (this is al made up from my mind so I might be wrong but…)

    1) Ryoko comes back as the bad chara
    2) Shizuno supports Kyo and calms him (mor or less), we get a huge hint about his past with her
    3) Ryoko bad chara+ More close friends becoming bad charas+Shizuno’s tears and grief= HELL FOR kYO BEGINS XD
    4)Shin kissing Ryoko in front of Kyo ^^

    ahhhh I love the symphony od destroyed hearts and grief inside the charas thius is the reason of why Zegapain is really interesting for me I

    RickaZ
  15. I tell you this: (this is al made up from my mind so I might be wrong but…)

    1) Ryoko comes back as the bad chara
    2) Shizuno supports Kyo and calms him (mor or less), we get a huge hint about his past with her
    3) Ryoko bad chara+ More close friends becoming bad charas+Shizuno’s tears and grief= HELL FOR kYO BEGINS XD
    4)Shin kissing Ryoko in front of Kyo ^^

    ahhhh I love the symphony od destroyed hearts and grief inside the charas thius is the reason of why Zegapain is really interesting for me I really want to know if at the end the bad charas destroy Kyo’s server MwaAHAHAHAHAHAHA (of course Kyo must do some kamikaze thiung so at the end when they destroy the server destroy themselves as well^^)
    I’d give a 10 to that =^^= and then Shizuno crying at the pieces left of his server…. PERFECT!

    RickaZ
  16. i was both sad and happy Ryoko died. My reason for y i was sad was she seemed good with Kyo and happy cuz Shizuno seemed good with him too. So its kinda mixed emotions i guess.

    For me i’d like to see Kyo’s past and what role Shizuno played in it. it’s pretty interesting to me. i’ve been watching zega pain for about a couple months and this episode was great. hopefully the subs come out soon

    azngurl

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