Breaking the Law
There are three things that are inevitable. Death, taxes and the fact that Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio will forever re-use assets in every single game. I doubt there will ever be a time that the main protagonists will never not visit Kamurocho. After all, if the formula isn’t broken, why fix it? Admittedly, the city remains, as ever, dazzling and bright and filled with life. The other places that have featured in the franchise have also proven unique distractions for the enterprising detective or ex-Yakuza.
Released in September 2021, I found myself at a crossroads. There were a thousand releases and even though I had pre-ordered Lost Judgment, Sydney was in a Delta-strain lockdown. After much hewing and hawing, I finally purchased my copy digitally. Even nabbing the complete edition that would net me the Kaito Files downloadable content (DLC).
Knowing that the DLC wouldn’t be available until March 2022, I kept Lost Judgment in my backlog. After all, by then I’d have an extensive guide from CyricZ to lean on for anything that I might need. Baseball placements being a bit too hard? Check his guide. Unsure where to find all the squirrels? Check his guide.
March 2022 came and went before I finally managed to eke out some time between releases to dive back into the world of the Yakuza and Judgment series, and step into the shoes of Takayuki Yagami: lawyer and detective extraordinaire. Honestly, this is what Phoenix Wright hopes he could be.
Lost Judgment begins with the discovery of a body in Ijincho (a place I was intimately familiar with having explored it with Ichiban during Yakuza 7: Like a Dragon). It isn’t long that players learn that the body belongs to a Hiro Mikoshiba: student teacher at Seiryo High School and possible bully to subway pervert Akihiro Ehara’s son.
Though the question of who did the deed is never much in doubt, like with many of the games Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio is known for, there’s a hidden conspiracy lurking behind the surface. By digging deeper into how Ehara might have committed the crime, Takayuki uncovers a plot from Public Security to blackmail the Vice Minister of Health into gambling away the pension funds of the public. Honestly, the way the narrative leaps from one plot point to another is astounding. Even when the story beats might not have always landed perfectly, especially tonally, I was still in awe at how RGG managed to weave a story themed around bullying and how it can affect victims.
After my playthrough of Lost Judgment, there was definitely a lot to unpack. Especially the dynamic between Yagami and Kuwana. And while Kuwana’s quest to kill bullies that had driven others to suicide was understandable. Especially for parents seeking closure after their child has taken their own life. I might not have liked how he forced his old students to abet in murder, but I could also understand it. After all, they went unpunished for pushing Mitsuru Kusumoto to the brink. Had it not been for them, perhaps he wouldn’t have jumped from the roof of the school.
And yet, it’s a hard pill to swallow when these people now have their own lives and families to take care of. True, they might not be the most upstanding of citizens but they also don’t deserve to have the entirety of their lives ruined from a past action when they have since moved on and grown from that encounter.
Still, given the nature of Japanese society, perhaps this was the only way. In many East Asian cultures, discussions around bullying is almost taboo. People are praised for quietly enduring. And that’s not okay. Worse, bullying also feels more extreme than cases in countries such as the United States and Australia.
Yes, children do get bullied in schools in the Western world. Heck, people also get bullied in the workplace. But the instances of bullying never seem to extend to the extent that has been reported in Japan. Forcing someone to eat their own faeces? How does someone get away with that?
There is much to love about the plot in Lost Judgment. Despite that, I definitely enjoyed the story of the first game a lot more. Perhaps because it was a lot more personal to all the characters involved. The personal stakes in Judgment just seemed so much higher. Yagami was tortured by what had happened.
In Lost Judgment, Yagami had already found himself. There was a surety to how he conducted his investigations and he wasn’t as overwhelmed by the trauma of the past.
Lost Judgment also improves a lot from the previous title and peppers in the main plot with a lot of side activities. Although some might have derided the addition of the School Stories, I felt that they added to the collective narrative around Seiryo High. Plus, I got to play a dancing minigame. And who doesn’t love a dancing minigame? Don’t forget the boxing and robot battles and the motorcycle racing and skateboarding and everything else in-between.
The only thing that I felt was lacking in Lost Judgment was that, once again, there was no karaoke for Yagami. LET HIM SING, YOU COWARDS!
Combat, too, also saw some improvements along with the addition of snake style. Yagami was fast and quick on his feet. While some of the quick-time events during boss battles weren’t explained as coherently as I would have liked, they were still mostly fun rather than frustrating.
As for the Kaito Files DLC, I loved the fact that it managed to pack in such a plot-heavy narrative within just a few short hours. While there’s much to love about the Yakuza and Judgment games, there’s also plenty of needless filler where there are cutscenes that repeat information that was already learned through various other forms of gameplay.
Yes, characters need to talk and they need to remain in-character as they deliver exposition to other characters but there was something charming about Kaito reuniting with the woman he was in love with more than a decade ago. Oh and the conspiracy by her late husband to kill his old friends in order to maintain his pristine reputation. I have truly never seen anyone as slimy as Kyoya Sadamoto.
In any case, Mikiko and Jun better not disappear to America in the next Judgment instalment. I want to see them interact with Yagami! Especially after one of the main characters has actually found love.
As for the combat in the DLC, Kaito’s fighting style definitely brought back memories of fighting as Kiryu. His tank style was reminiscent of beast. Hurling around mopeds and motorcycles will never not be amusing.
Lost Judgment was definitely a game that had a lot to do. It might not have been crammed with as much side activities as Yakuza 5, but it still managed to provide me with fun distractions that I found enjoyable to invest my time in. Whether that was leading the Seiryo Rabbits to victory or talking to kids to stop them from their delinquent ways.
I suppose my one gripe would be the romance options. Stop trying to tease us with a Mafuyu and Yagami ship (actually, I’m still angry that Mafuyu appeared so little in this title), and trying to feed us with other romance options that don’t seem to care that Yagami has three other girlfriends. And why are they also so young? The only one that seemed age appropriate was the school nurse: Kyoko Hakase.
On a side note, loved the Solid Snake reference. Cardboard boxes all the time, every time.
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Interview with Hino (Oct. 2018 Animage)
There was an interview with Level-5’s CEO, Hino Akihiro in this month’s Animage. This issue also comes with a very good poster of Nishikage & Nosaka... I translated the Q&A related to Nosaka, Nishikage, or Outei Tsukinomiya in general:
Q: How come Nosaka didn’t enter the FF when he was a first year?
A: He did play soccer back then, but don’t think they had enough strong members to form a team for the tournament. Gekkou Electronics was also incomplete at the time, so they couldn’t play. In this world, soccer is the most popular sport, so they wanted to promote Ares by delivering spectacular results in soccer.
Q: What kind of lifestyles do Haizaki and Nosaka live?
A: Haizaki probably lives in his own apartment. But there are dorms in Seishou Academy as well. Outei has a full mandatory dormitory system. The dorms are strictly monitored at night, so they can’t do things like read manga. Nosaka did shop and eat in town with Nishikage, but his free time between matches was limited, so he probably wanted to enjoy it to its fullest.
Q: Were Haizaki Ryouhei and Nishikage Seiya’s names chosen based off of their schools’ motifs?
A: Their names were determined by their character images. Nosaka Yuuma’s name also came from his character image. From there, we picked their schools’ motifs based off of their names. Haizaki’s name (灰崎) comes from his gray (灰) hair, which gives off a dark feeling. On the other hand, Nosaka’s pink hair comes from his pretty name. We designed them so that when comparing the two, they’d have a yin & yang effect.
Q: Is Outei Eleven’s motif based on literature?
A: No, Outei’s motif is based on nature. The motifs for the main 3 teams are: the shining sun (Raimon), a star with a star player (Seishou), and a shadowy moon (Outei). It was impossible for us to name all the characters in Outei based on the moon, though (dry laughs). We came up with captain Nosaka Yuuma’s name first, so using his name, we based the other team members’ names off of grass and flowers.* Outei is very mechanical school and not so much natural - we purposely aimed for that kind of contrast. All of the members are all simple children, so to speak.
* The 野 in 野坂 (Nosaka) means “field”.
Q: In the ranking race during the practice matches, Seishou was #1. Does that mean Outei lost to Seishou?
A: Actually, school rankings are determined by the number of points scored during various matches. Outei joined the ranks fairly recently and is quickly catching up, but Seishou has more ranking points overall. That’s because Outei started later than Seishou. All the matches that affect the ranking points are called ranking battles.
Q: How come Outei doesn’t have a reinforcement committee?
A: Gekkou Electronics didn’t want people to think that Outei became strong because of a reinforcement committee. They wanted to show that with the Ares program, there wasn’t a need for a reinforcement committee. Also, they probably wanted to avoid any unnecessary interactions with the committee as much as possible.
Q: Why does Nishikage closely follow Nosaka?
A: To Nishikage, Nosaka is kind of like a guidance figure* to his life. After that fire incident, Nishikage was enamored** by Nosaka. It kind of made him realize: “I’ve just been nonchalantly living my life without a purpose, but Nosaka-san had such a straight mindset in life.” Of course, several things happened after the fire incident that made Nishikage’s feelings for Nosaka build up even more. The drama revolving around that will be published in MangaOne (a Web manga service), featuring a special Nosaka arc. You’ll get to see the backstory behind what’s happened so far, and you should be able to understand exactly what happened to Nosaka during that time.
* He says shishou, meaning master, as in a master/apprentice kind of relationship.
** He says “男惚れした”, which roughly translates to something along the lines of “fell in love in a manly way” and I guess it’s supposed to imply “bromance” rather than “romance.” I think he added the “manly” part to make it sound less gay, but I’m not really sure it worked. Also, Nishikage explicitly says 惚れた (which pretty much means “fell in love with”) in episode 24 to Nosaka. It doesn’t necessarily have to be in a romantic way, but Nishikage definitely has a strong, deep admiration for Nosaka.
Q: Wasn’t it hard on Nishikage, joining the Ares program?
A: He was such a bad boy yet he did a great job getting in (laughs). I think Nishikage is a good boy at heart. Plus, he’s a man of action, so he probably thought “If I want to be with Nosaka-san, I have to get into Outei!” and worked really hard. To Nosaka, Nishikage is kind of like a younger brother.
Q: Nishikage and Kira Hiroto both used to be delinquents, but were they acquaintances?
A: No, they aren’t acquainted with each other. They are from different islands. Same goes for Fudou. In fact, in this parallel world, Fudou is only mildly delinquent. He doesn’t stray off onto the wrong path as much as he did in the original timeline.
I am SUPER excited for the Nosaka arc that’ll be in MangaOne. I feel like Ares is paced way too fast for the amount of content they’re delivering. It lacks a lot of character development and team interactions, so I hope this side story will give us more backstory on Nishikage & Nosaka. I’ll probably translate it if no one else picks it up.
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Human Debris Masterpost (10/?)
I LIIIIIIVE. Welcome to the latest in a series of posts documenting (extensively) the presence of the Human Debris and ex-Human Debris cast in Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans. Today, we (hopefully in one post) bring an end to the Silent War arc. Join me as I finally resolve my feelings on the conflict in Aston’s words and Aston’s actions, and we finally get to see Akihiro use The Clamps on someone.
EPISODE THIRTY-ONE — Silent War
We return to find our Earth branch kids, barely more than children all, out on an honest-to-god warfront. I much doubt it’s something any of them are familiar with, beyond those few days outside Edmonton; I can only hope their shelter and food situation is slightly improved this time around thanks to having official government sanction.
Aston is taking out his frustrations by punching the hell out of Earth-type Grazes.
Afterwards, we find that Takaki is, predictably, much more outwardly affected than Aston by the Tekkadan losses that the Silent War is piling up. Aston remains watchful but largely straight-faced as Galan Mossa comes over to lay on some pretty but solemn words about how well they’re doing so far, the two of them in particular.
Throughout the series, we’ve seen the Human Debris are largely awkward about being praised (save Dante, who always just looks pleased by it); Aston takes the compliment with no more than a blink, and I can’t imagine he thinks that Galan is being sincere here. As ever, though, he keeps his thoughts to himself.
The next morning, we find the two of them dealing with some grousing from the troops. Aston begins the scene with his attention seemingly elsewhere, but he’s quite quick to turn his attention to the matter at hand when people start making things difficult for Takaki.
It’s interesting that everyone in the tent jumps when Aston speaks up and tells them not to question things too much. The guy in the front looks legitimately spooked, even, and afterwards one of them gripes that Aston scared him by talking so suddenly. It certainly indicates the degree to which Aston has shut down interpersonally with the onset of the war. Or perhaps he never engaged much with this group to start with? That would certainly be in line with his characterization before and after here—that he connects with precious few people even on his own “side.”
He looks slightly put-out after the fact, like he feels awkward about something. It could be that he himself isn’t sure what prompted him to speak up—unsurprising, as he still hasn’t put a finger on his feelings for Takaki—or that he’s aware that it’s an unusual thing for him to do.
Afterward, though, he and Takaki retreat to go hang out by some Landman Rodis (get used to these; they’re pretty much the mobile suit of choice for the non-Akihiro members of the Human Debris cast). Here we find Takaki talking out his feelings while Aston eats one of the energy bars Takaki turned down earlier, when Galan offered.
I know; color me unsurprised that the ex-child slave Aston is more capable of eating food when it’s offered to him than Takaki, though he has a moment of pausing and staring at the energy bar when Takaki brings up Fuuka’s cooking.
Takaki asks Aston if he feels anything (an awkwardly-phrased question, given who he’s asking it of), then clarifies that he feels like the whole situation feels off, and confides that he can’t seem to keep on top of it.
For just a moment, Aston leans over, about to say—well, we don’t know, because he pulls back into himself almost immediately, and doesn’t manage to get an answer out before they’re interrupted.
Aston then gets to watch Takaki have a very small meltdown—a mere lapse, really—when some Tekkadan kid calls Galan Mossa their captain, and this clearly gets Aston thinking. When we next return to them, we find him with a renewed determination to protect Takaki and Tekkadan, propelling himself to the front of the detachment.
He calls for the other mobile suits to follow him, demonstrating that he almost certainly has a ranked position of his own. Assuming he’s on a comparable level with Derma (who, you’ll recall, performed quite well in team maneuvers with Shino and Dante), it’s no surprise that Aston is a fine squad leader, regardless of how much he’s personally connected with those under him.
Very gratifyingly to me personally, both Takaki and Aston’s thoughts go to Chad in this sequence, the former thinking he has to be strong while Chad’s gone, the latter wondering if Chad’s awake yet. It does my heart good to see people within this show caring so much.
We return to space, where Tekkadan Main Branch is still very concerned about how little information they have about matters on Earth. Speaking of things that do my heart good, there’s also Orga’s comment that he chose people for the Earth branch that he knew he could rely on. Ah, Chad, so trusty. I wish we knew how long the Earth Branch had been in place; I’m very curious how long Aston had been with Tekkadan before he got designated “a person Orga could rely on” and sent (or chose to go) with Takaki and Chad to Earth. Had it been only a short time, leaving Aston to be taken aback by Orga’s trust, or long enough that it wasn’t such a wholly strange concept? Alas, we have no way to know.
Akihiro, characteristically working out his stress with exercise, and engaging in some renewed ship-teasing with Lafter, the first time the show starts actively highlighting their developing bond via lingering shots and other characters’ responses. He claims, when Lafter teases him about it, that the working out is just his hobby, but his thoughts are, we find, with the Earth Branch, as are everyone’s. (This layover marks, incidentally, the first time Eugene and Kudelia work closely together for any stretch of time, which is interesting to see in light of the finale.)
We get a very brief shot of Chad in one of the regeneration baths when Fuuka goes to visit him at the hospital, along with the frankly baffling tidbit that regeneration tech takes longer on Earth, despite being allegedly more advanced. I have to regard this as plot handwaving of the highest order, or else assume that there is some money changing hands behind the scenes to keep Chad and Makanai under. We know that it’s Rustal’s specific goal to draw the war out for as long as possible (or at least we know that Iok assumes so; Rustal has a bit of a funny look on his face and is, as ever, enigmatic), so it’s no stretch to see their influence here.
We have another scene that reiterates what we already knew—that Aston is willing to hurl himself indiscriminately into a fray he just got out of for Takaki’s sake, and that Galan is playing Takaki like a fiddle—so while we wait for the plot to give me something new to talk about, here is this amazingly relationship-accurate photo of the stars of this arc:
Meanwhile, the Hotarubi arrives on Earth, and Akihiro, keyed up and ready to get some actual news on what’s going on with one of his best friends and adopted kid brother, does some rare out-loud complaining about how long it’s taking to get down to the surface.
Following, there is a staggeringly interesting exchange between Radice and Galan Mossa, in which the latter comments that animals (the Tekkadan kids) just need to be fed and petted now and again, and they’ll follow orders without thinking. He singles out Aston in particular, as Human Debris, and I am left completely floored at how little this man has grasped the personality of the boy he’s jerking around. Just because Aston is a quiet sort and doesn’t complain, Galan assumes that it must be because he’s just so grateful for the attention? Like, holy shit, how can one man be so wrong in so few words? Rewatching this arc only increases the satisfaction of watching Akihiro stave this guy’s everything in with Gusion.
In any case, back on the topic of relationship-revealing framing shots…
Cee-ripes.
Anyway, Aston finally, after who knows how long in-story, has an answer prepared for Takaki’s question earlier in the episode, about why their current battle feels “off.” He posits that it’s because it’s the first time they’ve fought under anyone but Orga, and is quick to second-guess himself with I thinks and maybe nots. He’s deeply uncomfortable sharing his thoughts and feelings (and his thoughts about his feelings) this way, as we can tell by his muttering and refusal to turn around and face Takaki with his answer.
He says, though, that he doesn’t really care who the orders are coming from, as it’s Human Debris’ job to fight (whoops, it still matters). Takaki, as he’s done every time, gets upset and Aston, as he ever has, fails to predict or comprehend Takaki’s outbursts on the matter.
Takaki confesses his fear in watching Aston fight, the recklessness of it, the disregard for his own life, and nearly begs that, while he knows their work is dangerous, to please not give up from the start, because the war is drawing to a close, and soon, they’ll be able to go home. Aston agrees, but he still clearly has reservations, and we are still left with framing like this:
Two boys, two cots, two guns leaned against the wall, sharing space in a single tent, united under a single light, but still irreconcilably separate, the gap between them never bridged, a border drawn out in the form of that rear support bar. It’s unsubtle directing, but tremendously effective in leaving the audience with chills of unresolved tension.
In the final scene, we see McGillis launching solo, ready to put an end to the whole farce after a full month of hit-and-run tactics from Galan and Tekkadan. As Galan tells everyone the battle to follow will be the last one, Takaki eschews his normal squad leader position in a mobile worker and climbs into a Rodi. He and Aston share a last glance, and, as one of them always does, Takaki turns away.
Akihiro gets the preview text, with the same sort of conceit his preview was given the last time—grunting underscoring his narration, as if we’ve caught him exercising (and, in this case, complaining about Mikazuki ditching training).
This brings us on into…
EPISODE THIRTY-TWO — My Friend
We find the Arbrau forces stalking an unaware McGillis, and Takaki rapidly getting lost in his own head at the prospect of finally putting an end to the conflict. In some marvelous continuity from his very first appearance, Aston pulls Takaki out of it with talk of methodical execution of their usual tactics—exactly the same way he talked to Vito way back when.
They renew their promise to go home to Fuuka together, and, shortly, find themselves assaulting McGillis, while Galan, oh so gallantly, holds off some random Gjallarhorn goob.
McGillis pegs them as Alaya-Vijnana users immediately, and tries to call on them in Orga’s name. His language here is, frankly, kind of above their level—he doesn’t tell them he’s allied with Tekkadan, or that he has any kind of communication with Orga, but just asks if Orga has given them their orders (which of course he knows Orga hasn’t). Takaki is largely confused by this, but the more practical Aston has got no time for idle talk from an enemy. Thus bolstered, Takaki takes the lead and charges McGillis first, much to Aston’s chagrin.
Alas, Takaki is not the fighter Aston is, and the ensuing fight does not go well for them.
Aston, like a champ, even as he’s horribly wounded, manages to lockdown McGillis, who we finally get to see in a truly dangerous situation, one that is out of his control. This will become a growing problem for him, and one that made me like him way more, but we’re not here to talk about him, are we?
Mikazuki shows up just in time to save McGillis, looking none too pleased about it. He gets ready to pursue the fleeing Galan, but pulls up short as we find Takaki, not taking the time to ask a bunch of stupid questions, has already made it out of his Rodi, across the field, and up to Aston’s busted cockpit, yelling his name and already in tears.
Aston isn’t doing so hot, and his mind is in a pretty bad place, and we finally get that bit of his characterization I’ve been puzzling about from the very beginning.
Amid flashbacks to his life with the Brewers (perhaps the one on the left in the top picture is the unseen Pedro?), he narrates that Human Debris couldn’t survive if they had feelings, that the feeling of mourning your comrades would get you crushed, so you killed your soul instead. However…
The flashbacks move to Tekkadan—not just Takaki and Fuuka, but Akihiro as well, still marked with a red stripe and wearing a searing look of tenderness on his face—and Aston says that he wishes he’d never met any of them, so that he’d never have to lose a life in which he had them.
I remember watching this scene for the first time with my heart in my throat, terrified that the show would let those be Aston’s last words, and leave Takaki to carry them forever. It would be breathtakingly cruel, I thought, and nothing made me more emotional in this episode than the release of tension when Aston’s tears spill over, and he breathes out a ‘thank you’, and smiles.
Having watched the series again, my thoughts remain largely as I’ve laid them out previously: I don’t believe that Aston was ever as shut-off as he believed himself to be. Even in his own memories, we can plainly see the anger in his face as he watches Masahiro get kicked around by Kudal. But I’d also forgotten how prominent Akihiro was in his last, fleeting memories, so his heightened emotions clearly aren’t for Takaki alone. The primary difference between Aston with the Brewers and Aston with Tekkadan is that Tekkadan values his life and, more importantly, values the lives of his comrades. This means he can speak out in their defense, if he chooses to, and he can let himself get attached, because he knows that neither he nor they are going to be ordered to die meaninglessly.
Tekkadan thus becomes a place of freedom for Aston, where his opinions—seldom though he offers them—are valued, even sought out. Where he can spend his life—spend it like coin, if he chooses—actually protecting people he cares about, rather than being forced to stand by and watch them die for overseers that view them as worth less than the grunt suits they pilot. With Tekkadan, Aston can allow himself the freedom of caring and so, over time, he does. It doesn’t mean that he didn’t care when he was with the Brewers, just that Tekkadan’s approach of treating every member like family actively encouraged the caring he’d always done, and it wasn’t until he was on the edge of his own death that he realized: caring for others doesn’t just mean that you want to protect their lives, but that you are allowed to grieve for your own when you can no longer be with them.
Did Aston have romantic feelings for Takaki? Well, all that talk of the both of them going home to Fuuka is pretty telling, given that no other members of Tekkadan talk of anywhere other than HQ as being their home. But in the end, I think it matters less how Aston thought of Takaki than it does that, through Takaki and Tekkadan, Aston learned what it meant to value his own life—even if that was just in the moment of losing it.
Meanwhile, back at the Earth Branch HQ, some long-due karma is catching up to Radice. Eugene and Akihiro set to interrogating him, mostly through some very convincing intimidation and a bit of restrained violence against nearby inanimate objects. He flips on Galan like a salmon breaking the surface of a river. It isn’t until Lafter comes through with word of Aston’s death that Akihiro begins to get physical, with spasms of rage that he keeps admirably on top of, all things considered.
I include this to marvel over Akihiro’s upper body strength, as he just casually overhand tosses an adult man of no small size across the room. All that exercise is certainly not just for show! He tells Radice quite plainly that he’ll be next, after Galan Mossa, and claims the right to deal with the latter. No one contests him.
Echoing Aston’s disinclination to talk to McGillis (and Mikazuki’s disinclination to chat with anyone), once Akihiro tracks down Galan, he wastes no time attacking him, not responding at all to the man’s verbal sallies until Galan guesses that he’s lost a family member. Even afterwards, he doesn’t really engage except to grimly return a taunt—that if decent people die first on the battlefield, congratulations, Galan Mossa, on being such a decent man.
Afterwards, when Lafter calls to him, he tells her he’s alright, adding, with bitterness like we’ve never heard in his voice before, that he’s alive. This bitterness—over surviving when the people he cares for most dearly keep dying all around him—is something he’ll have the whole rest of the series to carry, and it’s not over for him yet. But, all in due time.
We get one last mention of Chad before he’ll be back onscreen, as Takaki requests permission to deal with Radice himself. When challenged by Mikazuki—who has a dangerous impatience about him, very ready to gun the man down and be done with it—Takaki proclaims that the issue is the Earth Branch’s problem, and per Chad’s word, he is in charge of the Earth Branch. The others take him at his word, with Akihiro commenting, once they’ve reconvened in the hall outside, that they don’t really know what happened, so it’s best for Takaki to make the call, for all that the Turbines gals think he’s too kind a boy to kill someone.
That’s the last of the Debris cast for the episode, save another shot of that recurring photograph of Aston, Takaki and Fuuka, seen as Takaki goes back home, and, as Fuuka realizes the significance of his coming back alone, his narration draws the Silent War arc to a close.
I hope no one got too tired of me rambling about Aston, and everyone will join me next time for the wrap-up from this arc and the beginning of the Mobile Armor story, at which point these write-ups should get back down to a reasonable length again.
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Human Debris Masterpost (8/?)
So in the wake of the series ending, I have several other meta posts I want to write eventually (another one on Gaelio, one for my sparkly new ship, one on spirituality in the setting...), and I am still working on some fic stuff, though the second half of that Gaelio+Rustal fic is on temporary hold pending verification of some information circulating on Japanese Twitter about Gaelio in the epilogue.
But in and around that, there’s still no shortage of red-stripe watch to document. I actually went over the word limit on Tumblr for this post (at least, that’s what I’m assuming by the fact that Tumblr won’t let me post the damn thing), so I’m going to do a two posts back to back. Sorry for any inconvenience, but the first two episodes’ worth of material are too short to post on their own, and I worked too long on Episode Thirty’s post to let it sit another two weeks. Lets get on to it, with...
EPISODE TWENTY-EIGHT — Battle Before Dawn
We go a little while with no sightings, but Shino’s unit is on the advance patrol in the hunt for the Dawn Horizon, meaning we get their reaction to the bad intel.
The complaining Dante we only see from the back (you can spot his red hair), but they show Derma’s face as he reacts to the rather more ships then they had been expecting.
As the battle gets properly underway, Akihiro gets launched in the newly remodeled Gusion (Full City, a coffee roasting term?), proving much more capable of speaking up and giving his men orders out on the battlefield than he is in the cafeteria. He tells his boys to go dance with death (or so the subtitles claim; I am a tad skeptical of this), providing a marvelous example for Ride in going all out.
Shino, being Shino, gets distracted admiring Akihiro’s sweet ride and gets caught by surprise by an opponent who wasn’t as K.O.ed as he thought, but gets rescued by his underlings. Derma lays down some covering fire to fend off a new enemy trying to close in, and Dante swoops in to finish off the opponent Shino was engaged with. He tells Shino not to go charging in alone, to which Shino replies that he trusts them to have his back.
I‘ve talked a bit before about how I’d like to see more interaction between these two, but I wonder how much time they really have clocked together? If Dante is a habitual back-up for Shino (as seen here, but also in the Brewers arc, and even as far back as the very first episode), it’d suggest they’ve been paired at work for quite some time. Perhaps that influence helps explain Dante’s unusually chipper attitude compared to Akihiro and Chad in season one?
Akihiro being a little unnervingly excited about The Clamps that Seisei mechanic (who has a grisly imagination for weapons and a quirky difficulty with naming themes, it would seem) has equipped Gusion with. He’s actually a little annoyed by the surrender signal he gets in response to this, the latest in a long string of them, which definitely draws some attention to all the hot-bloodedness boiling beneath that straight-faced surface of his. I suppose he’s not actually used to surrender signals—the Brewers never went in for them, nor Gjallarhorn. It’s probably the first time he’s had to take personal surrenders since the CGS days, and I suspect he wasn’t in a position to be doing much of that back then anyway.
He wants to stay out on the field, not considering being completely out of ammo reason enough to go back and resupply when he still has The Clamps, but Lafter points out that Ride is not fine (Ride has, in fact, been getting kind of nervy and desperate as his first true space battle wore on), and Akihiro is his captain. He accepts the rebuke without further debate, painting as true what he will be awkwardly telling Lafter considerably later—that he trusts her wholly on the battlefield.
Sandoval’s ship, we find, is largely defended by Human Debris—like Akihiro back in season one, they don’t seem to wear the stripe on their flight suits—who won’t surrender because they don’t have that option. Sandoval finds them convenient in this regard, but unlike Kudal Kudan, does not seem to take a tremendous amount of pleasure in it. Mikazuki goes through them like wet paper.
Shino’s group comes in to relieve Mika just in time for Sandoval’s personal goons to come out, and Dante shoves Derma away in favor of drawing attention to himself, leading him to get tangled up by the first proper showing of the nonsense the Hexa frames can get up to—not just the wires, which we see Gjallarhorn using periodically, but the grappling hooks. He takes Shino’s order to jettison the arm they’ve caught, and the trio retreat.
This could all start to get a little bad, as Tekkadan is getting worn down, falling behind in repairs, save that Arianrhod takes this opportunity to show up and start attacking just everybody, starting with Derma, who has no idea why this is happening to him.
The show is not entirely clear on this itself—I assume Arianrhod’s claim is that they’re here to break up the squabbling, and that means putting down both sides, which means some attacks dished out to Tekkadan while there’s still plausible deniability about their alliance with Gjallarhorn-via-Isurugi.
In any case, Orga and Isurugi both know who the big prize is here, that being Sandoval himself, and command their pilots to focus on capturing him. And here comes a bit I mentioned way back during the introduction of the Turbines—the reason you would ever even consider putting your one hacker in a mobile suit.
And it’s so he can hack into the systems of defeated mobile suits and get you data from the enemy side! It’s seriously gutsy, too—you’ll notice he’s just floating there in his flight suit, hatches open, easy victim to any stray shots fired his way—though I assume Shino and Derma were covering for him here. In any case, good job, Dante! Seriously, this is really cool—the long engagements, the pit stops for repairs and snacks, the electronic warfare, just the whole nine yards. I’m hardly a connoisseur of robot anime, but it’s the first time I’ve ever seen anything with this particular touch of realism, and I very much enjoyed it.
And that brings us to the end of this episode, as Iok and Juliette enter the field.
EPISODE TWENTY-NINE — The Trigger of Success
There is a lone snippet of Akihiro at the beginning of the episode as the fight wraps up, with Akihiro suggesting they need to go fight Arianrhod as well to claim their prize, being told by Lafter and Azee (much as they did when the boys were ready to take Carta up on her 3v3 challenge) that doing that would be the stupidest possible decision and they should definitely not do that.
Later on, though, we get a bit more material, as Hush corners Mikazuki in the cafeteria hoping for some personal mentoring. Akihiro bails out the door immediately, saying that he’s going on ahead.
It would seem to suggest that they were eating together, though we weren’t shown that directly. It wouldn’t be much of a surprise, though; they’ve been exercise buddies for goodness knows how long. Akihiro was not the only red-stripe in the cafeteria, though!
As Eugene and Shino do some mild heckling from the sidelines about Hush asking Mika to intervene with Orga re: him being able to pilot a mobile suit, the conversation is getting some very close attention in the background courtesy of Dante and Derma.
This was, I think, the second I fell in love with Derma on my first watch-through; I adore him and Dante hanging out and watching this conversation with the intensity of people who know they aren’t at the top of the pecking order around here and have a particular interest in how newbies trying to jump the chain on seniority is going to affect them personally. It’s also the first confirmation we have that they’re actually hanging out together outside of deployments and man, I’m so curious as to how that relationship looks.
I generally get the feeling most of the Human Debris cast don’t really hold grudges (other than poor Vito, anyway), focused mostly on just trying to stay alive, and expecting much the same from everyone else. Also, it’s easy to imagine the Human Debris kids with the Brewers were largely sorted by squad and didn’t socialize much with other kids outside of that unit. You wouldn’t want too much communication going on; after all, all indications are that they actually outnumbered the non-slave Brewers pretty considerably. Not a situation in which you want dissension bubbling under the surface.
That is to say, I doubt Derma holds all those dead kids against Dante in particular, but I wonder how they first started bonding. Under Shino? Some kind of common interests? Dante making a particular effort to extend a wing after Aston (the only surviving member of Derma’s group) went with Chad to Earth?
Anyway, Dante and Derma’s stink-eye here delights me to no end.
We move onward to Allium Gyojan’s office, where Orga is having the single most Mafia Shakedown style scene he will ever get, a task for which he has, hilariously, brought along Akihiro’s team to assist, giving us this great bit of Akihiro getting to menace Allium over the phone line.
(Ride. Ride, please.)
I checked, but Shino and company to not appear to be in with the crowd on the street. On the other hand, I can imagine Dante’s computer abilities being put to good use as they were moving in, so perhaps they’re elsewhere.
And that’s it for this one! Not a huge amount of activity here, but we’ll be getting loads of it as we move forward into the next arc, so lets get at least a start on it, with the next post.
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