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「ハルパーの鎌」 (Harupaa no Kama)
“The Harpe Sickle”
After all the crazy battles, it’s somewhat refreshing to get a dose of the game’s intermission side of things to set the stage for the upcoming battle — Operation Plantagenet. It’s the codename for the plan to retake North America from the Inspectors, except it comes with the added twist that it’s in cooperation with the Neo Divine Crusaders. They say your enemy’s enemy is your friend, but I’m not so sure that applies when your enemy’s enemy is your enemy as well. In any case, it’ll be interesting to see how that pans out, now that Graien Grusman (Kanemitsu Nobuaki) has taken over the Earth Federation and put it under military rule with the help of Kenneth Garret (Takaoka Binbin). At the moment, it looks more like a coup d’état than simply invoking martial law, regardless of whether the higher-ups decided it was the best course of action to defend Earth from the alien threat. This of course is more on the political side of things, meaning that the trickle down effect to our protagonists remains to be seen.
Overall, this turn of events did showcase the franchise’s tendency of having betrayal and corruption as recurring themes, much like in the case of Nibhal Mubhal (Ishii Kouji) who’s seen conspiring with Wendolo for unknown reasons. The same can be said about Mitsuko, who’s been doing whatever she can to profit from the war, even if it’s contacting Vindel from Shadow-Mirror. Her capitalist ideology is pretty ludicrous to say the least, considering that she’d sell out mankind to dimension travelers and aliens just to make Isurugi Industries rich. Quite honestly, I can’t see what good all the money in the world will her if aliens took over the Earth.
Other than that, recovering Mai (Orikasa Ai) from a Judecca fragment and mention of the T-LINK Twin Contact System has me looking forward to seeing SRX in action sometime in the near future. Surprisingly, the fact that Mai somehow managed to survive burning up in the atmosphere at the conclusion of the L5 Campaign was glossed over for the most part. Instead, the story simply reiterated that she’s still suffering from the brainwashing that she was subjected to by the Aerogaters before she was made the core of the White Death Cross mobile weapon. There was brief mention that Ryuusei and Rai still don’t know that she’s alive, so it’ll be nice to see their surprise when Aya decides to let them in on the news.
Coincidentally, the Earth Federation isn’t short on any sort of firepower now that Dr. Radom has made Arado into her pet project of sorts and bestowed him with Wild Wurger. While it goes against all common sense to give a captured soldier one of their prototype Personal Troopers, I had to just cough that up to how characters switch sides fairly quickly in the SRW stories. In Arado’s case, it’s somewhat believable that he’s turned a new leaf after being reunited with Lat, learning that Shine is staying on board and continuing to fight, and receiving preferential treatment from Kai though. It probably helps his personality when he’s not subjected to constant “tuning”, which we all know Seolla still has to endure. Speaking of Seolla, the Ace Attacker Ver.W music that played when Arado took off was a nice touch and got me kind of pumped that the prospect of him bringing her over to the Earth Federation side so that they can unleash their Twin Bird Strike tandem attack.
As for the tail end of this episode, it seems Neo DC is supportive of the Harpe Mission that will put Brian Midcrid out of office and turn the Earth Federation into the “capable” military that Bian Zoldark wanted. Of course, the fact that Axel in his Ashsaber is among them makes all of that suspect, since Shadow-Mirror appears to have their own agenda. At least, that’s what the preview seems to suggest with Shadow-Mirror making a move of their own. Earth Federation, Neo Divine Crusaders, Shadow-Mirror, and Inspectors. Things can only get messier from hereon in, with another faction slated to arrive later on.
On the lighthearted side of things, Kusuha’s health drink and Lamia’s broken polite Japanese when talking to Axel were pretty funny. I got a good chuckle out of the latter, simply because Axel thought Lamia was messing with him.
Preview
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It was funny how they took all the relevant intermissions from the current point in the story from the game and all blended them in in this episode. They pulled it off well. It couldn’t be helped since we had around 3-4 episode straight which composed mainly of fighting scenes. I was so pumped too when Ace Attacked Ver W started playing but looks like we’ll get all the action next week.
Since I watched it, I’ve been thinking and overthinking it, they showed Axel and Lamia fighting only once, not twice. People who know secrets from the game know where I’m going at. Show Spoiler ▼
I’d be so shocked if they pull it off. They even included the Gespenst MK II type S sooooooooo…
One can only hope, seeing THAT unit would be awesome.
Im just glad they launched the wild wurnger though it doesn’t have its weapons added yet its to build up the tension between arado and seolla. Also the next episode is something im looking at thinking something is going to get jacked shortly because in the game it got stolen before harpe. Over all the shadow mirrors are going to start taking a greater role i can’t wait.
Nothing happened to the Wurger. The Falken got swiped, but once Arado joined the team, the Wurger was always his unit (them Mai gets the -L proto, but I doubt that’d happen)
i didn’t say the wunger would be stolen i said SOMETHING i have a feeling that Show Spoiler ▼
. also i would love to see the L type as well besides their going to start having more units – though there are not enough pilots to fly them all -you can’t deploy them all anyway
^ lol, somehow I forgot that they didn’t do that already. 😛
Such a good episode, lol. Going along perfectly with the games. I’ve been replaying them, just so I can do it all again. XD
Kusuha’s glass of toxic…. Health drink returns! She even has her own cute logo now, though it should have been a skull and crossbones.
System error + Yes, I can’t = awesome!! LOL
Nice story ep.
You know, I think the reason why there are logos in her glasses is because the drink’s so potent, even the residue in the glass will have some effect on you.
Yeah, 150 morale FTW!
This was a good setup episode, but next week is going to be EPIC!
“Nibhal Mubhal”
Is this character explained anywhere, ever ? He never does anything, doesnt explain his motives, doesnt have any allegiance, what is he for then ?
These are all very good questions. I honestly have no idea who he works for.
Big spoilers, read at your own risk, I tried to sum up what I remember of him, which isn’t much. There’s probably errors so if another crazy-about-SRW person could make corrections it would be appreciated.
Show Spoiler ▼
Pretty much spot on as far as I can tell. Although I have a question. May I also bounce a random thought off you about Nibhal’s possible identity? Big spoilers for OG and speculation ahead.
Show Spoiler ▼
And a little bit back on topic with the series. Is anyone else getting more excited that we’re drawing closer to seeing Show Spoiler ▼
“To sum it up”
To sum it up, not you, nor anyone else, knows nothing beyond baseless speculations.
Correction the Zovorg Alliance and the Ze Balmary Empire are two different entities. They are not allies. As the names suggest the Zuvorg is an alliance of planets and Balmar is an interstellar empire. The 7th Balmarian Fleet is what is called the Aerogators. It was the Balmarian empire that sent Meteor 3,filled with Extra Over Technology, to Earth to see their war potential both technologically and as psychodrivers. The Balmarians want to assimilate humanity into the empire.
The Zovorg Alliance has no such intentions.The motivations of the Inspectors as the name suggest is to inspect developing civilization to see if they are a threat to the Alliance and wipe them out. The Huckebein’s Black Hole engine was a test by the Zovorg if Earth was a danger understanding it solving the flaw. Shu Shirakawa sabotaged the Black Hole Engine to buy Earth time. Guests were negotiating with the EFA for them to give up all mobile weaponry at the Antarctica meeting. Guests to hide their true identity use imitation Balmarian technology. Then Shu shows up in the Granzon showing not only did he perfected the Black Hole Engine he made it far more superior to any they have, as DC’s starting kick off. It was a slap to the very face of the Zovorg Alliance. Seeing the mobile weapons of Earth equal or far superior to their own the Inspectors intend to take over and steal Earth’s technology. Note the Inspectors and Guests are the far right hawks of the Zovorg Alliance.
The relationship of the Zovorg Alliance with the Ze Balmary Empire is either that of a Cold War or a very Hot War. Earth is just another front in their conflict.
@ Reddy ^
The variant I’m familiar with said that Shu noticed a flaw in the Black Hole Engine’s design that would cause it to fail and decided that it was a test that the Earth couldn’t afford to pass at that time, so instead, he took measures to reinforce the Huckebein’s cockpit so Rai could survive.
Though I think in OG2, Wendolo said something about the Vanishing Trooper incident being caused by them as a penalty for messing around with Balmarian tech…not that anyone should ever trust what that guy has to say.
@Karry: Yeah, you’re exactly right, but you could have at least said thanks.
@Zack: Your thoughts are interesting, and I wouldn’t be surprised either to see an OG3 commercial at the end.
@Reddy&Shiden: Oh yeah, I totally forgot about this side of the story. Either way, it just shows how much Shu is badass.
So are we going to be seeing the HTB Cannon sometime soon? I don’t want to have to wait until episode 24 to see it.
You do realize this ep just showed Mai still being mentally unstable right? Add to the fact that R-2 Powered is still most likely not fully repaired yet. We’re most likely not going HTB Cannon for another 4 or 5 eps.
Heck, the Chokijin reappearing will probably happen first before SRX even gets combined for the first time at this rate.
Every episode, in the OP. Other than that, we’re not even close to being there yet.
Kusuha’s glass of toxic
I can never understand why no one ask her to try it herself first. Even in other anime when you know someone is a bad cook and ask you to try something they make, all you need to say is tell them that the number one rule of a good cook is one that try its own food first before letting others taste it.
not all people hate kusuha’s health drink ^^’
Show Spoiler ▼
maybe she’s already tested it and think it’s great. after all it really gave energy boost… with massive side effect…
The thing about Kusuha’s health drink is that it actually WORKS. It just tastes so bad that it knocks people out but the victims feel like sunshine when they wake up. And not everyone actually gets knocked like Selle pointed out.
I think I just realized the secret behind Kuzuha’s health drinks… it makes the drinker appreciate life more thus increase stamina and moral… either that or the drinker got stronger after a NDE like Super Saiyans and Shamans do.
For some reason, the tactical gear worn by the coup troops reminds me of the gear used by the JAM ground troops in Yukikaze…
Axel’s rendition so far seems to be less of a jerkass compared to OG2; in OG2 he was hellbent on fighting Beowulf, even following orders grudgingly, but here, while he’s still got the residual grudge, he’s also calmer and more willing to follow orders and put things on hold.
Also, Yuko Mizutani’s portrayal of Lemon is really pushing the whole Evil is Sexy Voice vibe.
Still, while not exactly the greatest of episodes (no awesome moments to stand out), it’s servicable and sets the stage for next week, where appropriate Oh Crap music ought to play: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS9IVh-awwg
Well its fairly obvious that this show is using the more sympathetic version of Axel from the PS2 remake, where he actually was a decent guy. The portrayal of Beowulf as an evil, murderous person is proof of that.
well he isn’t the insane kill crazy charater in the gba version i have in that one hes an ass espcially to lamia he doesn’t like the w series that much