Impression:

Well, this episode was all about Saki. You know how I thought that we would be jumping straight into a love triangle? That was wrong. I haven’t given up on Saki having romantic feelings for Haruto, I am actually more convinced at this point, but they will just have to wait for now. The kiss was the end of the actual intimacy and Saki jumped into one of the other mechs. I am going to jump ahead in the story to the part where Saki helps Haruto fight the Dorssian army because I want to talk about the mech itself. Yes, the Vlavrave did not kill Saki the way it did with that soldier and fighting occured. I found this particular robot to be pretty interesting. Its main weapons are these rings that can act as brass knuckles in a sense and then be manipulated as remote-controlled weapons. I really like the rings because they are different from what we normally see. Sunrise has always given us remote-controlled guns, but the rings have both short and long ranged applications, which is great. Carmilla, as it is called, also has spider legs in the back that can propel the mech laterally which gives it great levels of agility. Overall, this Valvrave deserves a scale model that I should build. On the emotional side of things, we find out that Saki wants to be famous. It seemed egotistic at first, but then they get into an abusive family that has led to her current mentality. Like I said, this episode was all about Saki.

The stage is an escape from your normal life.

Current Opinion of the Show:

I want to say that I am happy with what went down in this episode, but I feel like I am grading things on a curve. What I mean by that is that I might be stuck with thinking that things are better than they really are because I have hated the writing that we initially got from this series. Overall, Saki’s desire for fame being tied to abusive parents and multiple failures was written fairly well. I think that it was bordering between a satire on the lives of child stars and forced character development for a main character that they have been neglecting. I guess the one good thing I can say about it is the fact that they didn’t spend too much time showing the actual abuse. The glimpses of her parents were enough to push the issue home. I could have done without the way that Saki used Haruto, but that is more of a personal issue because I realize ow it fits in with her character development. The last thing I will say about Saki specifically is that I think Haruto reaching out to her at this stage in her development pretty much guarantees a romance developing between the two. I am not sorry for always talking about that. The next thing that I found interesting was the Dorssian army. A-drei has been sent in as a spy and they seem to be calling what they think is a bluff from the kids. ARUS can’t protect them now because that Cain guy knows more about the Valvraves than he is letting on. That leads me to the thing that I am really excited about which is what L-elf is investigating. I still want to say that the soldier from ARUS blew up because the Valvraves have DNA identification, but the idea that the students were meant to be a part of an experiment is very interesting. If this is part of some experiment, then I want to know who is behind it. Also, if all of the mechs get student pilots, then I can’t imagine that Yamada won’t eventually get his hands on one. Everything is starting to get really exciting and I am very glad that the series is starting to turn around. No horribly timed singing in this one.