Well, I’m pretty late since it seems that the news came out while I was away. Good to see that they’ll be pressing Blu-ray Discs for this OVA. Here’s to hoping that the third season will get the same treatment.

Let’s go over a checklist of this show, shall we?

• Animation production by SHAFT
• Directed by Akiyuki Shinbou
• Ending theme by ryo of supercell
• Casting includes Hiroshi Kamiya and Miyuki Sawashiro

SHAFT is probably the only other studio that I’m willing to watch a show on the basis of “nothing” besides the fact that it’s from them, the other being Production I.G. The third point is more than a nice-to-have but the fact that an ending theme is awesome doesn’t make a series awesome. Also, while I like Kamiya and Sawashiro, they are not really a make-or-break for me in terms of “I’ll watch this because this person’s voicing a character in this show”.

Well, it seems my predictions from the last episode has proven to be incorrect since Ichiko and Suzume did end up joining up with Yumemi. I personally found the ordeal a little weird although I really enjoyed the part preceding it.

From what Gntarl said in this episode, it seems as though he might be off to give Munto a hand. I had initially thought that he would have some troops with him on that airship but it seems it’s just a one-seater.

Well, with only one episode of this show left, I hope things aren’t going to be too rushed in episode nine. Yeah, I know, nine episodes only, it’s pretty whacked up I guess. Although the first and second OVAs wrapped themselves up neatly, they did leave room for future developments. I’m not sure what they’re going to do here. I mean, while the first OVA made it seem as though everything was swimming, that wasn’t the case with the events of the second OVA. I guess, at the end of the day, they can always expand on the story or the universe more if they felt like it.

So it seems that my hopes of finding out more about Gridori from the last episode has been dashed. I know that people usually say that people aren’t dead if you don’t see their bodies but I think we’ve seen the last of Gridori if you ask me.

I’m not sure about everyone else but I myself am a little doubtful as to whether I got everything that Munto said to Yumemi during the second half of the episode. Watching it again would probably help though I’m hoping more will be revealed in the coming episodes. Perhaps more context will be provided in the upcoming movie?

The next episode’s preview seemed to hint at Ichiko and Suzume’s appearance but I’m not going to count on it coming true as I just can’t think of any plausible reason as to why they would suddenly get beamed up to where Yumemi is.

Ah, this was truly an epic episode. I really liked the conversation that Yumemi and Munto had in the beginning of the episode. I think both voice actors did a very good job in that scene. Reusing the same music that they played during the end of the third episode also nets this episode major brownie points on my part.

With regards to the change in animation, I’m sure everyone can notice the difference in the amount of lines in the hair. I don’t really have a problem with Yumemi’s new design but I think Leica suffered quite a bit with the switch. I hope she’ll look better in the next couple of episodes.

Things aren’t looking too good for Munto although we can see he’s alive and well in the previews. I presume Gass is the one that’s going to save him although I don’t know how that’s going to turn out since Gridori was able to capture Gass. And speaking of which, since Gridori was flinging those black lines around, is he also an Outsider? He also put on a Munto face, so is he of the same dynasty/family or something? And what about the armour that he put on? I mean, the armour looks just like the two yellow and grey robots we’ve seen in the past. So many questions surrounding this guy, I sure hope that at least some of them gets answered.

Contrary to what’s going on in the skies above, the events unfolded in this episode quite steadily in a sensible manner. There wasn’t anything that was confusing about the plot and the viewer is certainly not thrown into a world of disarray like what happened in episode four.

I really liked the phone conversation that Ichiko and Yumemi had when I saw it in the second OVA and this feeling surfaced again when I viewed the same scene in this episode. Suzuka asking Ichiko to let Yumemi go was awesome too although I had completely forgotten about that scene and it caught me by surprise with a smile on my face.

Given where we are in the second OVA, it seems like the small amount of material we have left is probably not going to be enough to cover the entire air time for the sixth episode. Does that mean they’ll switch things up half way through the episode or something?

I’m sure anyone who watched this episode could tell that there was a major shift here from the previous third episodes (besides the obvious change in visuals). A lot went on in this episode, so much that you could almost argue that more happened in this one episode than the last three combined.

To me I think the pacing may have been a little too fast in this episode although the next two episodes should bring things back to normal from what I remember of the second OVA. I think this episode wouldn’t have been so bad if they had just tried to provide some more context to the battles. I guess they didn’t see a need to change much while adapting this portion of the second OVA.

Besides the pacing problem, I don’t really have any other qualms with this episode. The animation is really well done and I’m really looking forward to the new material that’s (probably) going to show up after episode six.

Now from what I understand, there’s been no information as to what studio is going to manage this. I guess the obvious choices are going to be Production I.G and ufotable. I’m leaning towards I.G myself because I’m used to I.G’s art (considering that they did the animated cutscenes for the game) but I’d be cool with ufotable too.