「巨大ロボットが、大好きです」 (Kyodai Robotto ga, Daisuki desu)
“I Love Giant Robots”

Just as I thought, Mizuka proves to be a pivotal character in this series and boy, this series is seriously turning out darker than I expected. When Kimijima Kou claimed to be murdered, the Gunvarrel anime team was murdered – I wasn’t too blown away by the tone of the show. Killing off Mizuka in front of Kai though, was a shocking turn of events. I knew she must’ve held a lot of important information about Kimijima Kou and Airi. She knew where Airi (the real one) was hidden, she knew about the AI Airi, and what really threw me off was that she always made Kai eat these delicious passion fruit buns to reveal small town secrets. Why hasn’t Kai approached her earlier? To me this screams – eat more passion fruit buns!

What’s done is done though and as horrifying as that was, I don’t see where Kai is going to go from here. Approach Misa? Go to Tokyo and march up to Exoskeleton? I don’t think so… but I think this will lead to a whole new arc with Misa and her history. The flashbacks before Mizuka’s death were a clear indication that Misa and Mizuka were both involved in the cruise ship incident with Aki and Kai. Whether or not Misa was actually responsibility is unknown but I think she probably suggested that they go and that’s why she feels like she’s to blame. I’m still curious as to how this all links into the Committee of 300 but it was probably some preliminary “test” to test… whatever it is they’re trying to achieve. Giving Aki and Kai “inhumane” powers is definitely not what they were hoping for so I can tell you that much. It looks like Exoskeleton is still keeping an eye out for Kai though so for his sake, I hope he’s not digging himself into a bigger hole. No one seems to know what Kimijima Kou was up to or who he was – so without Mizuka, I would place all my hopes on Misa.

With all these events happening around Mizuka, I almost forgot about the Gunvarrel prototype 2 which is up and running. I honestly felt happy for them as well when the robot started walking with no issues; it’s a huge improvement from the first prototype. It’s nowhere close to the final one they had in mind, but I don’t think it’s all about creating the ultimate robot to save the world. To Aki, it’s about entering the upcoming Expo and making others happy. I always thought they were going to use the monopole to power the robot, but how? Where are they all coming from? But of course, it would be way too easy if their robot didn’t have problems. This one seems to result from a misalignment of his joints. I think it’s a little predictable for Subaru to be trapped below the robot, but we’ll have to see next week what results from that. Clearly he doesn’t die…

Full-length images: 01, 12, 13, 20, 24.

88 Comments

  1. OK, from this part on in the VN, I had no idea what was going on. Just a whole lot of shit was hitting the fan. It just left me with a big ‘WTF is THIS worth people dying over’ feeling. Kinda like what most would feel at the end of this episode – just worst.

    Megas
      1. I played the VN already & it didn’t glue with me at all. It was like they was so concerned about adding plot twists that they didn’t bother to bring the whole thing together like they did in S;G & C;H (well not so much in C;H either). But at least I felt satisfied by C;H. This was just a LOLWTF.

        Megas
  2. I dont understand how are they powering the device in the first place. I thought they were going to use the monopoles but then they introduce this wireless energy supply ray or something, then why did they need the monopoles in the first place?

    euler271
      1. No, that doesn’t make much sense. Monopoles are a physics-breaking object in the first place. Basically monopoles will allow you to get infinite energy, thus no energy beaming is needed.

        ergZay
    1. I think they use monopoles as joins to lessen the friction between joins when they move around. (see esp 10)

      Remember, the total weight of the robot is on those join + it suppost to be able to do Killbare movements.

      I thought the laser-environment-scanning thing is cool. I bet my XBox is do that too. Only in a very crude form.

      James Beaver
    2. I thought the dialogue suggested that the monopoles were being used as a generator and then the power produced by the monopoles is beamed to the robot with the laser? If they’re being used as motors *inside* the robot then that’s confusing.

    3. The monopoles are being used as the magnets in the actuator motors inside the robot. The power laser is so the robot doesn’t have to carry too much in the way of batteries or an actual engine on board, which would make it much heavier.

  3. I think they did use the monopoles in Gunpro2 but still had a whole stack left. Yeah, Mizuka’s death was really horrifying, It was quite a shock, haven’t seen such a horrible death for a while. I had trouble sleeping that night, kept thinking about my spine. She was my favorite female character until Kona took the spot in episode14. I will miss her.
    I think Kai will go to Tokyo to meet Misa now. Misa is still as mysterious, with how she didn’t report about Kai to her superior, I want to believe it was to cover Kai, not for some ulterior motive, like being a double agent for the committee or something.

    1. Well, that sound is actually just a handshake between two different modems. After that any sound you hear would be static. Granted, you can get a lot of data through in a scant few seconds, even in old-timey dialup modem days.

      Tarage
  4. Noone is complaining about the physics in this episode? Thank god, that would be annoying..

    Anyways, really good episode. One might get distracted by how the episode ended, but actually, the beginning was also very emotional. How they started their giant robot, with the main theme as background music, and finally Kai having something like an expression. Finally, he too was impressed by how this thing worked, even without looking through his little computer.

    Then this episode made it pretty clear that the Anemone(?) accident was mainly Misas fault. Misa saying “Im sorry, Im sorry”, giving up on robots afterwards, and finally, the last thing Mizuka said was to tell her thanks for her legs. This was clearly to avoid having Misa feeling guilty once again. So Misas involvement in the accident with Aki and Kai should be a bit deeper than just making them go there.

    What also makes you really sad: When Mizuka realized that Kai cant stop her legs from moving, it shows how she hesitates to knock him down. Its not the “I dont give a crap about me”-reaction you often see. Really nice touch.

    Libelula
  5. NOOOOOO!!!!!!
    Mizuka was such nice person, and I didnt get to taste her passion fruit buns…
    Worse still, it seems our megane-eyed masked warrior has got himself under the tipped-over Gunvarrel… I hope he survives, or Junna is going to have her own nightmare replayed form helpless spectators viewpoint! I cant even imagine how it would break her…
    As much as I’d like Misa to help our team now, she seems to be completely under control of Exoskeleton’s creepy boss, not hesitating to “permanently silence” even her friends. Was the gift of exoskeleton legs a “trojan horse” designed to kill her off when needed?
    So we’re definitely into the darkest hour of the series, just like the Stein’s Gate after Show Spoiler ▼

    ewok40k
  6. At first I was like “Kai, stop staring and stop her!” and was relieved when he managed to push her to the ground, but I wasn’t expecting the Exoskeleton to stand her back up (forcefully and painfully)!
    I was thinking that he could have turned her body 180 degrees so Mizuka-san wouldn’t walk toward the edge of the cliff, but I’m sure the Exoskeleton would’ve turned back around. Mizuka-san, you will be missed.

  7. Mizuka’s death was difficult to watch because of how effective it was in giving out the emotion. It wasn’t sudden but slow and ponderous. Just watching her SLOWLY walk to her death and Kai SLOWLY realizing the true horror of what’s happening, then trying everything in his power to save her then ultimately fail. The crack on her spine is especially cringe-worthy just to drive the depressing moment even more.

    On a happier note I liked how the GunPro-2 has come together, especially with all its sci-fi knick-knacks like its power laser and its imaging cameras. It doesn’t look like match, but just having a walking bipedal giant robot is an achievement in itself. I’m not worried about Subaru, I’m sure he’s fine since we haven’t reached his character arc yet.

    fragb85
  8. I’m not sure if i’m a genius or Kai is just retarded.
    There where so many way to save her. Like to make her do a 180º turn or to keep pushing her to the ground or to take it off or to break it.
    Same goes for Mizuka, why not grab that rope or fence just in front of her. If she’s suspended above the sea, the legs will do nothing but walk in the air.

    If you want to kill characters do it seriously and without flaws.

    1. Exactly!

      That started the BS route for this show & it’s just going to get more flawed. It’ll end up being nearly DLC territory if they keep it straight with the VN. I don’t know whether they just gave up trying to make sense or kept on adding more BS to an unfinished story in a futile effort to finish it – it just felt ~WRONG~

      Megas
    2. if it was that simple after kai took her to the ground it would been the end. turning her wont change the machine form turning her back. hes a boy with the no big boy toys hows he gonna break metal leg things that are solid. he tried and she tried to take off the damn thing but it was no use… finally if shes grab the rope just how long can she hold on? that thing isnt going to just stop it doenst look look very light either annnnd its gonna probbaly do something that makes her fall like keep kicking the cliff or something until she drops… thats why machines are baddd mkaaay?? she was doooomed she knew it he knew it but he reall tried if she didnt hit him tehy might have both died togeeeether with smookkibn booobies like that who wouldnt!

      GoodStuffs
    3. . . . And what’s so wrong with picking up a good sized rock & smashing the hell out of those thin ass joint servos – even a failed attempt would have been acceptable. The fall wrecked the thing so it wasn’t invincible, although the fall generated a great deal more force on impact than a rock-in-hand. Hell, its much better than trying to push her back when you’re obviously not doing a damn thing, except rearing to your death as well.

      Bah, he didn’t even go slow-mo, which could have allowed him to hit the thing so many times that he would broken both the exo’s & Mizuka’s legs – heck it’s not like she uses them anyway. It’s better than being DEAD!

      Megas
      1. Knock Mizuka on the ground (trip her or something easier than a suplex!), lift the legs off the ground, then drag her the hell away from the cliff. The immediate hazard is the cliff!

        Geh, maybe Kai was too busy playing his games to pay attention to safety drills…

        Beedle
      2. Exactly even if he can only drag her 3m each time he just have to repeat it again and again until help arrive or the thing stops.
        The legs make one step forth, push it down, drag 3m back, one step, push, drag, one step, push, drag…

    4. Great plan, lets turn around the robot legs that are powerful enough to stand upright a fully grown adult and snap her back. Or why couldn’t Mizuka just hang around supended when she’s weighed down by heavy robotic legs. Also she was in intense pain AFTER HER SPINE WAS BROKEN!

      I’ve seen all the arguments of what Kai could have done and the answer is always no he could none have done that. Its getting ridiculous already, its coming across like just finding reasons to bash Kai. Not to mention people are severely overestimating a person’s ability to think rationally when in a panic.

      fragb85
      1. I, for one am not bashing Kai, I’m bashing the damn story. It’s trolling itself.

        Making Kai do a suplex of all things to get Mizuka on the ground is just F-in dumb.

        Making him stare at Mizuka for an infinite amount of time while she head aimlessly toward the cliff is F-in dumb.

        Making him push against her while he’s obviously overpowered is F-in dumb.

        Not making him notice that Mizuka + Cliff = BAD! is F-in dumb.

        Not having him drag her away from the cliff while she was down is F-in dumb.

        Not having him smash the evil moving robot joints is F-in dumb.

        The whole scene is F-in dumb!

        Megas
      2. Okay so you’re not bashing Kai, you’re just looking for a reason to bash the show. Is it really hard to look at it from the perspective a normal teenager thrust into the situation? Any of your hypothetical situation could easily be explained by application of Occam’s Razor and not this complicated “What he could have done” scenarios you’ve tailored.

        fragb85
      3. Actually I find Occam’s Razor as a den for misunderstandings. ‘I think the plot is bad because the people who wrote it made it so’, rather than point out the bits that I think made it bad.

        I would rather hear what parts made it bad rather than that other perfectly logical yet useless statement.

        Megas
    5. People can talk all the want because they are just observing it and not in the situation themselves.I would really like to see these people get placed into Kai’s situation for once and see if they can still say the same. You guys watch the show while getting the cues all the time and expecting the bad stuffs to happen, Kai doesn’t.

      Last but not least, beside the slow-mo ability that not sure when will trigger, Kai is implied to be a normal kid all round not some super shounen hero.

      Takurannyan
    6. “If you want to kill characters do it seriously and without flaws.”

      This. The death would have looked a lot less stupid if the legs just went into a full sprint at the beginning so Kai wouldn’t have 10 hours to decide how to tackle the problem and still only resort to pushing directly against her 99% of the time.

      And the scene where the legs stood up, breaking her back and flinging Kai away was just retarded. As if the legs could produce that much torque when it’s relying on a downwards force to keep the feet in contact with the ground during that motion. The legs would have to be stupidly heavy (so Kai couldn’t suplex her in the first place) or have some insane suction power.

      Facepalm
    7. Kratos you forget something , her legs has been hack by unknown person but clearly there is only one group who broadcast kagome in the air. It’s already mention early in story. so what every you are saying Mizuka is going to die one way or another I thumb up you for explanation but you forget about what ‘s more important , who done it ?? when I see kai manage to knock mizuka down i thought she is safe for sure it’s not about GPS or what ever spec that exoscalaton legs have , well if you rewatched all episode Misa-nee told that that is freaking powerful so no irrational about how it can force breaking her spine , but It’s has been hacking bro why You don’t see it, hacking is from Virus and damn you really don’t pay attention to story aren’t you? someone control her legs and even if she try to hang on the rope lol just look how close the rope is , to the cliff, damn leg is gonna slam to the cliff and make her fall to her death plus you need to watch it 3 times at least , look it that damn legs are useless junk and give a command to walk when Mizuka fell down it must keep walking in the air : The command that was giving is to kill her , well in panic can you break aluminium with bare hand or rock lol so funny just like in SAW can to cut Mizuka to save her life from death !if in your own yes maybe,but other wow in less then 1 min you aren’t gonna have to think nor act NO , really she shouldn’t stop Kai in the first place.

      pokpok
      1. I’m going through the point of view that this is suppose to be an accident as it was mention in other episode. But this one is way over the “going off control”. If the he had turned her and the legs had turned back to the cliff this would be obsious it was not an accident and the factory would have to recognize it

        You may says it was hacked but that’s way too easy to use that. Working on programing, I know that there are no commands like goto(cliff); or die(); . I’m still wondering how the leg knew where was the cliff and where was the broken fence.
        At this point they should just say there was a hidden camera that nobody knew about and there was a guy with a joystick directly controling the legs.

      2. yeee wow i never thought of that biatch Airi youu are sooo rightttt! she did turn into sister centipede automatically and permanently? makes senseeee! shes the eyes and the hacker really is using some manual override with their own joystick controlling it! yeah really for that situation it was nearly impossible for kai to do anything on his own hes no super hero and not even nearly as smart Mr. Pleiades which was shown to have frozed when a biggg asss robot is falling on top of him! sorry i did forget that exo legs are light… LOL funny someone mention they might be flimsy cause they didnt stay intact falling over a HIGH cliff! well technically that slow mo abiltiy does make him a minor super hero but it only slow his sense of time down not make him fast like the flash… all his ability could have done was give him time to think but he had no tools he wanted to take legs off but it made her stand up right away…

        GoodStuffs
  9. I literally stared at my screen internally screaming “no no no stop what are you doing oh my god NO” at Mizuka’s final scene. I woke up the next day with it in my mind and it ruined my life for 2 days straight because it was just so freaking emotionally distressing. Her sacrifice made me hate the show, but ultimately it will only make it that much more amazing, I’m sure.
    Still ;____; I told all my friends who watch this to never speak to me about this episode..

    Kiria
  10. I facepalmed most of this episode.

    From Mizuka’s (continued) reluctance to tell Kai why exactly not to investigate Kimijima Kou, to the robot team testing their robot during a windy afternoon, to Subaru choosing to jog alongside a potentially malfunctioning robot (and worse, jog very close to its weak leg during said windy afternoon), to Kai just staring as Mizuka’s legs walked off by themselves.

    I whooped when, finally, Kai chose to do something, then facepalmed again when it ended up being a suplex – and Kai crawling on top of Mizuka instead of the exoskeleton. Tackle the legs, why don’t you, Kai?

    Beedle
  11. Correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t a rain of red rocks that zap you on touch cause at least some trouble? I mean, they’re heavy and stuff. But apparently, a horde of plastic robots is more dangerous than what basically amounts to a rain of bricks.

    I couldn’t cry when Mizuka died, mostly because we didn’t get to know her that well. All we’ve learned is that she knows Kimijima, and that she got her legs from Misa. There were some hints of greater things, but they never amounted to anything. We’ll see if there’s going to be any development in that direction, but right now, her death did nothing to me. I also had to wonder if she could’ve been saved if Kai brought her down on her side, but then just tried getting up from a similar position using only my legs, and it doesn’t seem to be that difficult.

    I did genuinely cry when everyone watched Gunvarrel walking through Iru-O. That, right there, was the crystal of everything that happened in the first 15 episodes, the incarnation of the cast’s blood, sweat, and tears. A freaking giant robot, for crying out loud! You better not disappoint us in the last six episodes, Gunvarrel!

    SingerOfW
  12. That moment where Kaito took down Mizuka was like “whew good thing he took her down” but then… damn, In my head I was saying Kaito do something man!. Mizuka was one of my favorite supporting character of the show and now… *sob*

    baseone
    1. add to this all the Gunvarrel staff, peoples killed in exoskeleton “accidents” earlier, all the people whose life support fried in the solar flares…
      Also, they did not show death of Pleiades, so I would say he’s left at cliffhanger. (Schroedinger’s Pleiades?)

      ewok40k
  13. some much dead last week : we lost our Mighty Kagami then Mizuka wow after this i’m sure that hacking robot have to do with kagome broadcast by who?? Airi chan and now that she is gone maybe Sister Centipede is not something “cute” at all.

    pokpok
  14. why the fuck didn’t he just tilt the damn thing sideways…its just a pair of legs ffs…i’m sorry but this one just felt forced…i would understand if mizuka was standing right beside the cliff admiring sunset and the thing suddenly went berserk, but kai had at least 30 feet or so to think of something, anything, but i guess thats what you get for playing a damn fighting game all day…

    NierTevra
    1. if the machine legs can get her up from lying position, i’m sure it can turn Mizuka back from sideways too.

      put yourself in Kai’s situation, he’s still a kid and had never came across this situation before, and u expect him to act like detective Conan coming up with solutions? not to mention Kai have never touch/read/study the machine legs before?

      to ppl who’s thinking Kai took too much time recalling flash back, please watch the episode again. the distance Mizuka walk from Kai being stationary and rushing to help is only a few steps. anime’s flash back is exaggerated long, how long have u all been watching anime?

      Dio
  15. I think that all the complaints and arguments about Kai’s actions in the final scene just show how much we care about where this show is headed.

    We all know that this scenario has been shown in other movies/shows before, and even then, all possible actions or methods of escape weren’t expounded upon. Why? Well, I guess it’s because, in general, people don’t have time for all of that (or the money to animate it all).

    All in all, it was a sad, frustrating scene. All we can do is take a deep breath, wipe the tears from our eyes (physically or mentally), and press on.

    NoSicko
    1. Probably because he’s drawn like he’s 14 or 15. I personally didn’t know the cast of Steins;Gate were in their late teens until recently because a fair number of them (namely Okabe, Daru, Moeka and Kurisu) are drawn like they’re in their mid-20’s. Moeka is 20, yeah, but that’s still at least 5 years younger than I initially thought.

      Da5id
      1. Okabe: “Celeb Seventeen!”
        Kurise: “I’m not seventeen, I’m eighteen!”
        That, and both Suzuha, and Moeka introduced themselves, age and all included 😛
        But yeah, I agree, Kai looks (and at times acts) like he’s 15 or 16, not 18.

        Crook
    2. lol thats not the point ok hes 18? so what hes no genius like conan detective lol nor does he have the tools that even a 10 year could use to save her… even if hes 38 unless hes able to remove those exo legs theyre still going to somehow kill her cause tahts what the person controlling them intended! thats the point. he had next to no chance good point DIO!(jooojoooo) they were so close to the edge of cliff already… so watever he could have done had to be really good and fast… too bad hes no super hero

      GoodStuffs
  16. one thing dawned to me when analysing the “exoskeleton accident” scene…
    1.the perpetrator could not presume there will be convenient cliffs around
    2.so (s)he must have been watching the meeting between Kai and Mizuka, and take remote control of the exoskeleton with the “kagome kagome” signal
    3.Mizuka was actually trying to make Kai stop digging further into Kimijima reports
    4.so somebody actually WANTS for him to continue (possibly now with added incentive of wanting to avenge Mizuka)
    5.this means that someone else aside from Exoskeleton and Misa can be involved.

    ewok40k
  17. No Google Glass for me…
    Or what ever cybernetic innovation thats coming up.
    My smartphone is the limit.

    Unless its systems are fully independent and isolated.

    Scary stuff.

    iron2000

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