First Impressions / Sora no Otoshimono

「血斗（マツリ）は誰がために」 (Chito (Matsuri) wa Da ga Tame ni)
“For Whom is the Bloodbath (Festival)”

Wow, what an episode. What starts off as an innocent festival quickly turns into a cork gun survival game with 10 million yen (~$100k USD) on the line. For that, we have to thank Mikako and the undertaker-like target practice store owner she hired. However, things take a turn for the better when Nymph releases the protection on Ikaros’ memories and unintentionally restores her abilities as well.

Compared to last episode, the plot takes a significant turn here, which should please everyone who’s been eagerly awaiting this moment. After Ikaros totally plows through the competition with her aerial gatling gun (A-10 Thunderbolt II style), Nymph approaches her and insinuates how it must have been a nostalgic feeling doing so. Nymph then forcibly interrogates her about being the Uranus Queen and talks about taking her back to the Synapse, leaving Ikaros with nothing to do but state that she’s a Pet-class Angeloid Type Alpha. Losing patience, Nymph decides to hack Ikaros’ memory protection and force her to remember.

From her memories, Ikaros recalls how her master in the sky (Miki Shinichirou) ordered her to go to the surface and annililate anyone there. Overwhelmed by the influx of memories, she ends up breaking out in tears, much to Nymph’s amusement. The laughs don’t last long though, as Nymph quickly realizes that all of Ikaros’ emotions and abilities were completely restored as well, forcing her to fight. During their exchange, Ikaros shows her supremecy with her Aegis shield and Apollon arrow (which has the power to destroy all of Japan), reiterates that she’s a Pet-class Angeloid who intends to return to her master, and begs Nymph to leave. The Electronic Warfare-class Angeloid Type Beta hesitently does, but not before questioning what Tomoki will think of her once he finds out she’s a weapon of mass destruction.

Things then turn back to Sohara and Tomoki, who are the two remaining competitors of Mikako’s survival game. Unbeknownst to Sohara though, the gun she has happens to be real since the target practice owner slipped a couple in to the cork guns. As Tomoki runs for his dear life, Sohara imagines all the good things she can do with Tomoki once she wins the money, and ends up firing at him. Luckily, Ikaros arrives in time to eat the bullet, which initially looks like it kills her but doesn’t phase her in the slightest. The target practice shop owner then returns as another remaining contestant, takes out Tomoki and Sohara, and gets a 50% cut of the winnings from Mikako. Afterward, Tomoki tells Ikaros never to do something that reckless again, causing her to break out in uncontrollable tears and cling to his back.

 

I’m a bit surprised that Tomoki either didn’t notice that Ikaros was crying, or didn’t realize that she’s showing emotions for the very first time. Things concluded quietly on that scene, so I’m really looking forward to where things go now that Ikaros has emotions. You could immediately sense that she was much more human at the end there, so they’ve already tickled my tastebuds with this “new” Ikaros. That said, I wonder what will happen to Nymph once she reports back to the Synapse about Ikaros awakening as her former self. Better yet, I wonder if Nymph will be punished for causing it in the first place. Either way, I can’t wait to see how all that unfolds.

Aside from that, the whole cork gun survival game was pretty funny to watch, especially with the old ladies taking part and trying to gun down Tomoki. Eishirou was pretty cool with his sniping abilities too, but his close-quarter gunfight with Mikako was all types of awesome. I’m pretty surprised how well their fight was choreographed and wish they showed the hand-to-hand portion as well. Other than that, there was a bit of drama when Ikaros was wiping everyone out and Eishirou dove out to try and protect Mikako. The semi-serious screenplay there was a nice touch, but the comic relief was even better when Tomoki shot Ikaros in the head and told her to stop owning everyone. That, in conjunction with the opening yukata fan-service scene really helped round out the other portion of the episode.

Lastly, we have another ending song/sequence again — this time about the “Wild Seven” from the survival game. I tend not to talk about these too much anymore, but I’m still impressed by how AIC ASTA can churn these out on a weekly basis with a new song and all. It sure gives the impression of a studio that has its act/business together.

 

ED8 Sequence

ED: 「ウイルドセベン」 (Wild Seven) by 桜井智樹（保志総一朗）, 守形英四郎（鈴木達央）(Sakurai Tomoki (Hoshi Souichirou), Sugata Eishirou (Suzuki Tatsuhisa))
Watch the 8th ED!: Mirror 1, Mirror 2, Streaming ▼

Preview

30 Comments

  4. now that’s something worth being shuffled around like a deck of cards
    (due to the whole thing happening within the year instead of spreading across 3 years

    nice extras up @ the begining (though for Nymph…that’s another story)

    info600
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  6. Tomoki is one of the best harem lead!!! He is frikin hilarious! He actually accepts his pervert side in full force!

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  16. Well they did most of it surprisingly well, but unfortunately it was still disappointing in one respect. In the manga she really was just as surprised as any else that she was still functioning after taking a bullet, but since in the anime she’s already aware of being a nearly unstoppable killing machine first, the fact that she doesn’t hesitate to jump in front of a bullet to save Tomoki loses any significance.
    It also looks like the next episode is going to cover the chapter where she learns how to lie, yet what is the need for this now that she’s been restored to her true self and has already deceived him twice; once by claiming she didn’t know a bullet wouldn’t harm her, and then again through omission by pretending nothing else happened? I suppose I’m being too hard on it, but the order of events in the anime causes so many things to make no sense. At least this series introduced me to an excellent manga that I might have otherwise overlooked.

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  18. Parse Error:
    Ikaros did mention that she wasn’t sure if she’d be okay after eating that bullet, so Tomoki still got the impression that she did something pretty reckless. His concern for her at the end is why she’s crying, so I don’t think the effect was completely lost. I can’t speak for the manga, but her line there didn’t come off as a lie to me.

    Either way, thanks for pointing out some differences!

    divine
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  19. True, it definitely works from Tomoki’s perspective either way and the audience would already figure she’s that devoted anyway, so I suppose it’s not so bad after all. I’ve been going through this process of having to come to terms with each the last few episodes, but I guess that’s what I get for being too impatient and reading the manga before the anime finished airing. As for her crying, I think that was meant to combine both a reaction to his concern as you said, and her being terrified over exactly what Nymph said as she teleported out, where the latter was the only reason in the manga because it happened at a different time.

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  21. Any assumption Ikaros was sure she’ll be okay eating the bullet relies on a lot of subjective interpretation, so with the simplest way of looking at it she truly didn’t know if she would be alright afterwards. There’s no hints, nothing to indicate otherwise.

    Newprimus
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  22. Holy crap, Nymph is such a bitch. I was glad that Ikaros awakened, but she stopped short of kicking Nymph’s ass. That Apollon arrow is like a portable nuke, presumably with unlimited reloading ability, and her Aegis shield is seemingly unbreakable. Now that I think about it, Nymph might be back at Tomoki’s house watching cartoons and eating snacks, and Ikaros is going to have to lie about herself and Nymph now that she got her memories and abilities back.

    samu
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  25. I, too, am glad that I started to watch this series… with, of course, much thanks to Divine’s reviews. =)

    It seems Ikaros’ artillery is Greek mythology-based… Artemis, Aegis, and then Apollon… (could easily be just Apollo, but I could just as easily be wrong. LOL!)

    Ikaros’ true identity being “Uranus Queen” reminded me of Uranus in Battle Arena Toshinden. =)

    RasenShun
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  26. @Newprimus –
    I don’t know about “a lot” given that the memory of her specs and capabilities was restored, and if she were completely clueless about bullets, she would have no way of knowing it wasn’t going to make it clean through her and continue on to Tomoki anyway if she didn’t put up Aegis since she can do that now. It’s still merely one way of looking at it, but not one that I pulled out of thin air. Really I just vented prematurely before I digested the change from what I expected, and all the other scenes were excellently adapted even by my absurd standards.

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  28. I have to agree the manga deliver this part of the story better, it just alot more funnier with the way how it was done in the manga, and yes I wish we get the chance to see the third angel since she is actually my favorite out of the three, the clumsy big breast funny personality one. But I doubt it unless this is a 26 episode series or a second season.

    Mike
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