FMP! The Second Raid – 04

Summary:
Picking up where we left off last week, our heroes have been ambushed by Gates and the sisters. Xia Yu Lan beats up on Mao, smashing her through a door, but neither one is able to hurt the other badly, though Xia Yu Lan does appear to have the upper hand. Their fight is eventually interrupted by the other squad of foot soldiers from MITHRIL, forcing Xia Yu Lan to escape. Kurz in his M9 has his hands full fighting Xia Yu Fang’s AS and loses an arm to her swordsmanship. He eventually runs away, only to be pinned down by Savage-class ASes. Sousuke makes his way out of Gates’ ambush but is unable to hurt Gates himself, due to Venom’s lambda drivers. He starts to run, leading Venom away. In the midst of all this, Tessa feels that something is wrong and starts to concoct a plan. Kalinin reminds everyone of what they said during the briefing, about how all Cretans are liars. He then gives orders from Tessa, moving everyone into their new positions. Vincent Blueno is still relaying their transmission to Gates, so Gates knows exactly what they’re planning. He gathers his troops and surrounds a room to cut them off. Instead, he finds that the MITHRIL ASes are on the level above, and it is he who has been surrounded. Sousuke and company destroy the other ASes, but cannot pierce through Venom’s lambda driver generated shield, so Sousuke himself jumps in. Gates wins their intial clash, but his AS starts to overheat. Clearly agitated, he has no choice but to blow open the top of the room, flooding it with water. The respective parties make their escapes. Vincent Blueno, on the other hand, has gone missing according to MITHRIL people dispatched to his apartment.

Words cannot describe how awesome this episode was…
…but I’m going to try. There is tons of three-way action, as each member of the Wurz squad is fighting a separate enemy. They are all good battles, but I am most impressed with the fight between Mao and Xia Yu Lan. There are several moments when I thought Mao was done for, but she pulls through, partly thanks to the other squad coming and saving her. I also enjoyed how they used the “all Cretans are liars” bit from last episode to pull off a feint on Gates’ group.
I applaud Kyoto Animation for another superbly animated episode. Every bit of action is well detailed and comes with full effects, from the mist to the explosions. The fights are also wonderfully choreographed.
I take back most of what I said last week about this being alternate adaptation to the novels. They seem to be developing the Sousuke hating Arbalest story little by little, so that’s good. And the story is back on track now with Blueno as the traitor and Sicily being the next episode. They probably won’t cover the entire escapade though, as the preview didn’t show anything past Sousuke, Mao, and Kurz in the Fiat.