Summary:

After another successful mission in space, Haruka looks down on Earth and can see her hometown where the Imber had come for her. When she says that she wants to see the Imber’s hometown, it shows her an image of space. Since it’s now summer, Haruka and friends are soon off to a seaside school on a southern island. Though they’re excited to be at the beach, the real reason they came is for some start-up experiments with the iDOLs. As the Imber is getting lowered into the underground base for maintenance, Ritsuko asks Haruka what color she likes. Haruka chooses pink, so Ritsuko decides to go with it. For the time being, the other girls have fun on the beach, but Haruka stays dressed because she’s too embarrassed to show her swimsuit. Yukiho has no such inhibitions and surprises everyone with her large chest. Their fun is interrupted by a loud noise and a pillar of flame coming from what Iori calls an iDOL combustion experiment. Haruka decides to go take a look at the Imber, so she heads underground where the iDOLs are being worked on. To her surprise, she finds the Imber opened up with its Core exposed – it is the true Imber, as Azusa explains to her.

Azusa continues on to reveal that with the destruction of the moon 107 years ago, they discovered a silicon structure from a crater left by a piece of the moon crashing into the planet. These became iDOLs after research led to the creation of the Prometheus interface. The Imber was the first of these. Although development of the iDOLs was generally fine, they found that the problem was that the iDOLs only responded to girls and were very particular. What they don’t know is what the iDOLs are really thinking or if the iDOLs can even think. When Haruka insists that the Imber has a heart, Azusa suggests that what they perceive as the human-like reaction from the iDOL might just be mechanical reflex actions. Even if they found the other two unidentified cores out of the five total, it wouldn’t bring them any closer to the truth, and they have no way of figuring out the truth. When challenged by Azusa to assert definitively that iDOLs have hearts, Haruka is left speechless. With all this on her mind, Haruka leaves Azusa, but is soon called into a hanger by Ritsuko. It seems that because Haruka said that she likes pink, Ritsuko has painted part of the Imber that color. Having noticed that Haruka was acting a little strange, Iori later says in the bath that the Imber is nothing more than the Imber and that it’s fine for Haruka to be herself.

That night, Haruka decides to take the Imber out for a ride over the ocean, and they end up stopping by some ruined buildings in the water. It is here that Haruka tells the Imber that she learned some stuff about it today from Azusa, and even though she doesn’t understand the Imber, she feels that the flower that it gave her is representative of its true heart. Haruka wants to learn more about the Imber, but first, she wants the Imber to know more about her, so she opens her jacket to reveal her bathing suit. With the Imber now recording her, Haruka starts reintroducing herself. She soon gets interrupted by the sky magically lighting from to the orbital ring that they call Confetti. Admiring the view, Haruka asks if the Imber is really from up there, and when the its eyes light up as if to say yes, Haruka declares again that she wants to know more about the Imber.

Preview:

So, aside from the fact that Haruka’s interaction with the Imber is getting creepier and creepier (the whole part with the Imber recording Haruka after she showed it her bathing suit just seemed wrong), I actually think this episode was a step in the right direction. They’re now developing more of the back-story to the iDOLs, and Azusa’s explanation makes the question of whether iDOLs have hearts or can think or whatever seem less asinine than it originally did. I still don’t like the fact that the Imber is Haruka’s pseudo-boyfriend (or pseudo-puppy depending on how you look at it), but I don’t mind it quite as much in this context.
I’m hoping that we’ve now gotten past the worst/most mediocre parts (aka. initial bonding with the iDOLs) that this show has to offer and are getting to better parts. The twins Ami and Mami have finally shown up, and they look to be part of what next week’s episode is about.

25 Comments

  1. 亜美真美キタ━━━━(゚∀゚)━━━━ッ!! (Ami and Mami are here–!)… but I could do without the hentai robot 😛

    GJ Tatsufumi Tamagawa (storyboard/episode director) as usual — he’ll probably post something about it on his blog sometime soon.

  2. what is so good about this show? seems generic as hell. I hate the fact most anime depicts some really fake shit relating to how people in anime talk or respond. A show i like that has people who do not act like retard? NANA… yes i know it is about love and all that, but people actually act like people and i want to see that more from time to time 🙁

    Anyways is this show really entertaining or is it the generic show with generic characters with the generic reactions?

    Daniel
  3. Geez….I don’t know man….is Haruka in love with the Imber or something? I’ve only seen girls did that to the boys they like in anime but to a giant robot or mech?

    dward
  4. Let’s see, first we had a chicken costume, now a crab!? what’s next? a kappa?
    https://randomc.net/image/Idolmaster%20XENOGLOSSIA/Idolmaster%20XENOGLOSSIA%20-%2008%20-%20Large%2003.jpg

    /me tries to imagine what caused this
    https://randomc.net/image/Idolmaster%20XENOGLOSSIA/Idolmaster%20XENOGLOSSIA%20-%2008%20-%20Large%2024.jpg

    um, flashing at Imber to bond with it? (like Imber’s AI is a pervert or something :O )
    https://randomc.net/image/Idolmaster%20XENOGLOSSIA/Idolmaster%20XENOGLOSSIA%20-%2008%20-%20Large%2028.jpg

    Sailor Enlil
  5. iDOLM@STER Xenoglossia 08 see’s Lucky Star 06’s 4 naked lolish girls at the beach/onsen and raises it 5+ naked lolish girls at the beach/onsen.

    The two shows might as well just thrown down right now and go all out for our enjoyment.

    Kaioshin_Sama
  6. mikemil828

    Possibly interesting and unique dynamic, a girl trying to woo her giant mecha

    Heh reminds me of one of Church’s lines from Red vs. Blue

    “Tucker I’ve had it with these mixes species offspring. Your abomination is bad enough. The last thing we need is a Jr Caboose running around with a 135mm cannon for a head!”

    On another note: THAT IS THE DAMN LUCKIEST MECHA IN THE WORLD!!!

    Hudson
  7. Most every other series in this sort of genre (or by SUNRISE) has some kind of awesome plot twist in episode 8 that kicks tremendous ass and raises the bar.

    Idolmaster jumps off the deep end with a girl stripping for her mech. I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry.

    Spectrum
  8. MY EYES BURN FROM LOOKING AT SCREENSHOTS OF THE CHARACTERS DOING THE MOST RIDICULOUS THINGS!!!!!! And they have already been doing those things throughout the series, too!!!!!

    What makes me keep watching this crap are the stereotypical and generically-developed cliched-by-Sunrise characters. Dammit Haruko and cosplay girl are so damn cute and crazy respectively. Everything else: the concept, the mechas, the plot, the exploitation of Mai-Otome Zwei 1, the mecha-has-a-heart thingy; sucks.

    Here’s my take on that last idea: yes, mechas are tools for your use, and they are human-shaped just to look familiar and cool. But no, they do not have hearts unless their AI was specifically programmed to act like they do. And for some reason nearly all mechas in mecha shows have some sort of AI that was NOT PROGRAMMED BY HUMANS (implied, anyways). Yes, you should take care of your mecha, treating it correctly, making sure it doesn’t get damaged a lot, and personalize it; BUT DON’T MAKE LOVE TO IT GEEZ. That is all.

    pakxenon
  9. Daniel: If you want a show with mechas AND well developed characters (that doesn’t take more than half of the series to actually get the story going) you should check out Bokurano, one of the best shows this season imho 🙂 Of course, it has no fanservice and no moe character designs.

    I dunno, I temporarily dropped the series after 2 or 3 episodes, but reading the review I’ll probably never take a look at that series again … that’s kinda sick … a perverted mecha oO;

    Minikui
  10. ah I get it..
    This is another weird robot x loli girl series…which will ultimately end up in lesbian between friends..

    I bet this series is by freaking sunrise..
    Correct me if I am wrong.

    q
  11. Funny how people are making assumptions without watching the series.

    Surprsing that you actually gave the episode positive feedback. Now I can’t wait for SRN to sub it.

    Dis
  12. DEAR HARUKA AMAMI I AM GOOD I WANT TO BE MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM AKATSUKI GOLD GUNDAM TO COME IDOLM MASTER XENOGLOSSIA FOR JOEL PEREZ I HAPPY GOOD RULES BANDAI AND SUNRISE ROBOTS AND GUNDAM LOVE HARUKA AMAMI AND JOEL PEREZ THANKS YOU GET FOR YOU AKATSUKI GOLD GUNDAM FOR JOEL PEREZ THANKS YOU I LOVE YOU

  13. The Makoto crab scene was more fanservice for me than the whole bikini party scene… S-So cute.

    Haha, Makoto is my favourite character and it hasn’t even focused on her yet. I’m assuming I’ll only like her more.

    Alex

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