Allison & Lillia – 17

「大義の翼」 (Taigi no Tsubasa)
“Wings of a Great Cause”

Episode at a Glance:
Treize apologizes in advance to Lillia if their plan doesn’t go well, but she merely laughs it off, saying that they won’t know until they try. Motivated by the thought of a reward kiss, Treize pulls away from the planes escorting them, only to later crash into one and send it plummeting towards the water. Afterwards, Lillia and Treize feign innocence on what just happened, but the pilots in the remaining planes aren’t amused. When things settle down again, Lillia decides to question the local air force as to why they’re doing this, and the commander eventually reveals that they’re staging a plane tragedy to make others aware of the poverty situation in Torokashia and possibly provide aid. While Treize feels that such a plan won’t fix everything, he also thinks that it may unexpectedly work, so he inquires about who came up with such an elaborate scheme. Unable to get an answer, Lillia protests to everyone about such a stupid plan, making the commander realize that she’s a kind-hearted person; however, he still feels that such sentiments won’t save a country. Giving one more chance to save themselves by escaping, Lillia and Treize refuse and are about to get shot down along with all the children.

Before that happens though, Allison comes swooping down and leaves everyone awe struck, making Treize wonder how she was able to respond so promptly even if the emergency distress signal from the other plane activated. Claiming that that’s a secret, Allison then tells the Torokashia Air Force to back down and turns themselves in to the Federal Air Force. Infuriated by her inteference and provoking remarks, the commander tells his men that he’s never seen a plane like hers in the Federal Air Force and commands them to shoot it down. However, Allison easily shoots them down instead and makes it back in time to thwart the commander as well. Despite being sent into a downward spiral, he manages to recover and begins firing on Allison, who allows him to close in so that he’ll waste all his ammunition. Once out of ammo, the commander resorts to a kamikaze attack, which forces Allison to shoot him down.

With the Torokashia Air Force off their backs, Lillia and Treize focus on trying to land the plane with the help of Allison’s advice. While a lot rougher than a proper landing, Treize manages to land the seaplane, only to realize that he’s hit some shallow bedrock and that the plane’s taking in water.

Next Episode:
「ご褒美のキス」 (Gohoubi no Kisu)
“Reward Kiss”

Impressions:
ALLISON! Wow I miss seeing her on screen and boy did she make an entrance. Her entrance was really surprising to me though, because I actually forgot that she was going to make an appearance this week. This was mainly due to the fact that I was so absorbed in the explanation behind why the local army wanted the seaplane to crash while on route to Rachika. It turns out it was a conspiracy after all, but for a good cause in its own twisted way. Torokashia, the country where these pilots and children are from, is suffering from poverty and need to secure government aid in order to improve their lifestyle. Needing a way to attract the attention of the government officials in the capital, these men decided imprint a tragedy into the minds of everyone by staging a plane crash tragedy where a lot of children perish. It was an interesting revelation to say the least, but not quite one I would’ve personally predicted.

In retrospect, I find that I enjoy stories with conspiracies a lot more than I realize, so this series has constantly kept me entertained in that regard without me even knowing. This episode was particularly enjoyable for me though, because of all the dogfights involving Allison, who’s just too damn good of a pilot now. I mean, she went as far as letting her opponent close in on her so that he would waste all his bullets, and Trieze who realized this, actually felt sorry for the other party (…as did I). The scene that followed was also exciting to me, because I was thinking kamikaze attack then as well, so it was pretty climactic to see Allison forced to shoot down the other plane. I think it would’ve made more impact if the commanding officer died because of this, but he did manage to eject in time.

In any case, the excitement doesn’t end there with this arc, as the seaplane is now sinking after a rough landing that ended up in some bedrock. There was also the talk about a reward kiss from Lillia to Treize if he’s able to get them out of this situation, so it looks like we’ll actually get to see that next time. (Apparently Treize can’t swim though, so this might just be some CPR.) Finally, I found it pretty funny how Allison was calling Treize a prince and he was thanking her on behalf of Ikstova, but Lillia had no idea what they were talking about.

Cast:
– Lillia (リリア) / Mizuki Nana (水樹 奈々)
– Trieze (トレイズ) / Yoshino Hiroyuki (吉野 裕行)
– Allison (アリソン) / Kuwashima Houko (桑島 法子)
– Commanding officer (隊長) / Kazama Yuuto (風間 勇刀)
– Pilot (操縦士) / Konno Jun (金野 潤)
– Pilot (操縦士) / Oohara Takashi (大原 崇)
– Pilot (操縦士) / Katsunuma Kiyoshi (勝沼 紀義)
– Carlo (カルロ) / Fukuen Misato (福圓 美里)
– Girl (女の子) / Nishino Youko (西野 陽子)
– Boy (男の子) / Sasaki Hinako (佐々木 日菜子)