Macross Delta Episode 4 : A Shocking Debute. No, Really. You have no idea.

Right, so. Macbeth Delta Episode 4 : A Shocking Debute. It's aptly named folks. Before I extricate the alarmingly sticky components of this episode. I just want to remind everyone that this is the bloody theme song.

I post this as if someone told me that, I would have been skeptical. Oh look, another triangle.

Anyhow the story picks up again on planet Windemeer, home of the Blowhard Knights and settles particularly on one Bogue. Or Bouge. Or Bourge.

I'm calling him Booger.

Booger is doing what the Blowhard Knights do, rambling about fighting and wind. This continues until Lord Hermann turns up, who is everyone's favorite uncle or somesuch. Cut to some dank cave, where Windemeeran Princess Whatserface is singing exhaustively at crystal things to the delight of one Roid Brehm- who's name is so bad I can hardly think of worse.

This in turn is interrupted by the arrival of the Princess' Brother, who needs her 'Song of the Wind'. Which, along with the crystal things is effectively causing roidrage.

Further revelation of things like 'Why are the Blowhards so pissed at Earthlings' are then prevented by the main theme. After fun is had inside of you, we come back to a celebration at Rugyumyum, officially welcoming Manic Pixie Freyja and also for some reason Shlub Immelman into Musical Girl Squad and Delta Squadron respectively. They are to have their debut at a Waccine perfomance on planet Randor. Waccine.

First up however, Ernest has some words for the audience- which are cut short by other members of the Tactical Sound Unit. I have taken the liberty of writing what I believe he would have said.

-" I have to wonder what I was thinking. You have a berserker illness and someone says 'How about we have magical girls sing at the sick?', and we did it and it worked. It WORKED, Biojissure wobblefucks smoothing the rage aperturewhatervers. It's nuts, right? Goddamn nuts. But it worked- and here we are. It's... it's a good thing, but I don't even know what's real anymore. I know, I know, I look confident in my smashing mafia guido outfit- but it's just a facade. If I didn't have my booze... Well, fuck it, ARM WRESTLING TIME!" 

But cut off he was and off he goes to arm wrestling, at least after everyone toasts the newest members. Pixie swears to devote her life to Musical Girl Squad and Shlub is tapped to speak but we are saved from his stupid stupid words by another cut. People are drinking heavily, Ernest is beating arm-wrestlers two at a time, fried fermented spiders are put on offer and a local Ragnan woman attempts to seduce Ace Pilot Messer by gently waving her tits at him. Screenshots can't capture that though and I can't be arsed to figure out how to animate a gif to that end.

Her efforts are thwarted by a local brat who informs us that not only does Musical Girl Squad's singing soothe the Roidrage-afflicted but attending live performances provides a measure of resistance to Roidrage. Hence why they have, again, Waccine performances. Waccine.

We also learn, cutting back to Shlub and Pixie's table, that the performances really do have to be live as Musical Girl Squad generates Biological Fold Waves which are again what cures Roidrage. Recorded songs are next to useless.

...

Take a moment, dear reader, to imagine you are at some manner of feast with some random person's child sitting at the same table in arm's reach. They are talking with a bit of food on their face. Most people would inform the child to clean up. A parent might reach out to wipe said food away.

Shlub, on the other hand...

NO.

Yes, that's what it looks like. Shlub wipes the food off of some little girl's face and then pointedly licks it off of his finger.

This is a weirdo destined for a love triangle involving a 14-year-old. They shouldn't be recruiting him for an elite unit, they should be fitting him for an ankle tracker and issuing a court order keeping him well away from schools and playgrounds.

Purple Elf Girl takes an opportunity to tell Shlub that this performance could be attacked so he should follow orders. You can easily guess how that pans out. 

Meanwhile at the bar Commander Arad is being asked if Pixie and Shlub have been informed about fold receptors. Despite Pixie and shlub being told about Biofoldwhatevers at the table a little earlier, apparently they have NOT been informed about biofold receptors.

Ace Pilot Messer then avoids the further risk of boobs being gently wafted at him by returning to base while Pixie bemoans eating too much.

Fortunately Shlub is right there with a curative drink, lacking additives. This time.

They then retire to the balcony to chat and ask Pixie if she has adjusted to Planet Ragna. She has, she says, as it's much like her hometown. Aside from the fact that it is absolutely nothing like her hometown in any way.

Outside of Rugyumyum, the eldest member of Musical Girl Squad, Mikumo, is doing the perfectly sane thing that is aggressively attempting to seduce the literal stars.

Or communing with her Star Goddess, assuming she doesn't believe she IS a Star Goddess.

Mikumo has a question of the stars though.

Did she forget, or did she never actually know in the first place but they kept her around just because she wandered in? Like Shlub. So many questions, so few answers that could possibly be good.

Moving on and the SuperMegaZord detaches one of it's aircraft-carrier arms that Shlub likes to throw himself off of and we're enroute to planet Ragna. Despite being the rankest, on many levels, of new recruits Shlub has been issued a top-of-the-line VF-31 Siegfried Jetmech that he has only seen for the first time now they are enroute to the mission. A mechanic aptly notes they are pretty much wasting it on him. All the same, the charming lesbian couple of Musical Girl Squad has seen fit to custom-tune it for Shlub's personal petty preferences so he doesn't have to wear a helmet. Unless things go squiffy in which case he's supposed to use a different helmet.

Pixie, suffering from self-doubt, turns up and we learn that an offworlder visiting her planet gave her a space-MP3 which set her on the Musical Girl Squad path. Shlub gives her a pep talk reminding her that she can fly if she risks her life and Pixie realizes that she doesn't need to worry about the performance because she'll be dead by 30 anyway, stating as much.

It is then revealed that Windermeerans such as Freyja all die young in return for extreme physical capabilities of an undisclosed nature and glittery tentacles on their head.

Finally we approach Randor. Musical Girl Squad is in a huddle and Space Nudist Mikumo asks Freyja what she will be singing for. Freyja is saved by answering by another member asking what Mikumo sings for. To avoid admitting she has no goddamned idea, Mikumo responds with an unnerving proposition.

If Pixie fails to satisfy Mikumo tonight... Mikumo will kick her out of Musical Girl Squad.

Oook. Well, Shlub is in good company. Apparently.

Then they huddle and flash Musical Girl Gang signs at each other before showtime. Music plays, Musical Girl Squad throws themselves out of a jet and spout "Music is love!", "Music is hope!", "Music is life!", "Music is mystery!", "Music is energy!" and finally "Music is Shrek!" while nanomaticholofuzzhits transform their attire into the Biofold-lubricating cocktail dresses.

The entry goes well for the most part except for Pixie's who appears to have had no training for this whatsover. She is saved from certain death via terminal impact with the stage by Jetpanties. 

Or a bad case of laserburrito indigestion.

Fortunately she is Special, like Shlub and the crowd is less appalled by her incompetence as enraptured by her adorable fumbling. Once she's straightened up and Mikumo has had an opportunity to ask the audience to hear the 'Songs of a Goddess' Pixie introduces herself as the newest member of Musical Girl Squad- Freyja Wion, from Windemeer, who loves apples and...

Clearly her mind is on the troubling task of satisfying Mikumo tonight.

The performance begins with Musical Girl Squad's first song, 'Uncertain Cosmic Movements'. Mikumo takes a moment to remind Pixie that if she flubs it she's fired.

The performance goes reasonably well with Musical Girl Squad Holonanomafuckiting their outfits into schoolgirl uniforms and pointedly jiggling their breasts to launch the first song. Though it turns out Pixie's biofold receptors remain unlubricated and inactive despite Mikumo's motivational efforts and Shlub performing the Merkin Maneuver for the audience. 

Fortunately they are suddenly attacked by the Blowhard Knights of Windemeer. After an initial volley of missiles classier singing is heard, heralding an a Roidrage Outbreak.

Said roidrage outbreak, clearly controlled by the singing, takes specific control of the planetary defense force of Randor, forcing Delta Squad to fight them while Musical Girl Squad triea to get over how the Blowhard Knights have disabled their holographic backup dancers (which were actually biofold amplifiers). Ace Pilot Messer does the heavy lifting while Mirage the Space Elf tries to disable the enemy jetmechs nonlethally and the now expected cat-stroke dogfight begins.

Shlub, meanwhile, special snowflake that he is, eschews using his state of the art fighter jetmech to dance around and fistfight

'Biofold Amplifiers' active or not, Mikumo is the first to start singing again and, now that there is a fair chance people will die, Pixie joins right in with head tentacle erect and glittery.

Uhhh...

Well, Booger's not wrong.

 Anyhow, Biofold Receptacles Lubed up and Active, Pixie finally earns her keep and the music starts to cure the Roidragers. Meanwhile it's announced that elsewhere in the galaxy the Windermeerans have conquered a planet with their army, prompting the Blowhard Knights to reveal themselves, nanoholowhatziting their jetmechs to reveal their coats-of-arms, transform their jetmechs into knight-mech-mode, do a bit of skywriting and display a holo-image of Chancellor Roid Brehm..

Delta Squad and Planet Randor's defense force collectively allow them to do this uninterrupted. Polite to a fault really. The Blowhard Knights really took advantage of it. At the end of it a translator reveals a deep attraction to Booger.

I'm sure they would.

At the end I could not possibly prescribe an accurate amount of alchohol for this, though any number of drinking games could be made for it.

My disdain for Hayate Immelman has hit new levels and quite frankly this is a universe that desperately needs Space Child-Protective-Services. If it weren't for the reckless use of Roidrage to target civilian populaces by the Windermeerans I would heavily argue that these Blowhard Knights are quite possibly the good guys.

Ah well. Here, have a music video that is both more and less creepy in ways I find much more acceptable. Audibly not-work-safe. Visually... Uh... Well... You'll see.

Macross Delta Episode 3 : The Merkin Maneuver

It's that time again.

If you should happen to recall where we left off Commander Arad of the supposedly elite Delta Squadron had just recruited lifetime aimless wanderer Hayate 'Shlub' Immelman apparently impressed by his lack of any formal training, disdain for authority of any sort and the curious ability to survive throwing himself off of a very tall mech. Manic Pixie Dreamgirl Freyja, meanwhile, has been selected by Musical Girl Squad to join their ranks after passing the super-special extra audition that only she was offered in which she spread her bio-fold receptors to cure a man pretending to suffer from Roidrage who politely waited for her to warm up instead of ripping off her unnerving head tentacle and bashing her skull in on the spot.

We rejoin the story with Mirage being cruelly stuck with 'training' Shlub by Commander Arad after she takes him on a flight with the intent of making him sick. Which works but backfires when Shlub vomits on her afterwards. We are spared the sticky details on that however and skip ahead to Freyja sitting at a table giggling about telling Shlub how she didn't fail despite his predictions to the contrary. She doesn't have to wait long as Shlub turns up to throw his uniform in her face.

At which point he casually mentions he as joined Delta Squad. He's heard of her good fortune as well, though.

Which is a rich thing to say for someone who got their position largely by virtue of showing up and attempting suicide.

One of the local Merpeople then shows up with another member of Musical Girl Squad and we learn that the female members of Musical Girl and Delta Squads stay in a female-only dorm before the group arrives at Rugyumyum, home of the Merguy and male dorm, which clearly has no such restrictions.

Unfortunately there is a brief moment of awkwardness as it turns out the aggressive salesmerchildren from the market live here as well.

Though Shlub and Freyja make an awkward effort to explain that it is actually the children's fault for putting a phone on Freyja- but they are saved this effort by the arrival of this episode's true star.

This reasonably pissed off creature is the terror of Rugyumyum. It's the god-king/queen of the local Mercats and channels it's existential terror at being a lazy hybrid that must constantly refrain from a cruel urge to eat itself into a deep and abiding hatred of everything non-Mercat. Such is why it is at this moment raiding Rugyumyum for fish despite living in the sea where fish are still more plentiful. It knows no mercy, is tireless and bears an instinctive hatred of Mr. Immelman in particular.

So, needless to say I am a fan,

SHLUB DOWN!

As an additional bonus, Shlub proves allergic to Mercats.

Anyhow people babble for a bit, one member of Magical Girl Squad implies another two are lesbians and that a third's sexual preference is uncertain.

I have heard it said that the reason for this is that Venus is actually a guy. It's fine, of course, but certainly explains the confusion.

Also there is a member of the Magical Girl Squad named Venus? Really? First name isn't Sailor though, eh? Seems a bit on-the-nose all the same.

Move on to the next day- wherein Shlub has seen fit to exempt himself from training, much to Mirage's irritation.

I don't imagine, sadly, that she should bother reporting this to Commander 'Fuck the people who actually train for this, aimless wandering is a sign of hidden talent!' Arad. But Shlub hasn't been simply upraising a middle finger to just about anyone who foolishly wishes to put any effort into keeping the obnoxious little bastard alive on a battlefield.

I hope Ernest at least learns never to try teaching Immelman something again.

Really, the nerve of these people. Don't they understand that Immelman is a special snowflake of nigh-magical talent?

So what has Shlub been doing all this time? Pretending to fly while standing on the edge of the carrier deck, taunting death with it's exclusion from the script. Here Mirage finally finds him at which point he requests to fly for real. Despite seething with fury she obliges because otherwise this episode would be another 20 minutes of Shlub peeling space-potatoes.

Up they go. It turns out that Immelman is actually a bit rubbish at flying- but not because he's a rank amateur- oh no. It's because his jetmech's ai keeps interfering with the way he wants to fly. So Mirage shuts it off, at which point Shlub completely loses control of the jetmech and would have plummeted to his death but sadly Mirage the Space Elf is obligated to be professional and turns the AI back on.

Mirage takes the opportunity to try and explain the importance of training while Shlub tries not to vomit into his flight helmet.

Afterwards Shlub attempts to gain vengeance on the Mercat Godling.

Seen here shortly afterwards slapping the taste (and rebreather) out of Shlub's mouth.

Naturally he was busy doing this when he was supposed to be in the classroom, stressing again that he has learned fuckall from his previous lesson. His location is given away to Mirage by a woman with a terrifying brain parasite, whom I will get to later.

Mirage is understandably pissed about having her time wasted. Shlub predictably doesn't have any fucks to give, stating that it should be enough to attend practice because...

Yep. Delta Squad's job is to protect Musical Girl Squad as they perform on the battlefield... Nonviolently, Shlub apparently believes. It's unclear what at this point Shlub believes Delta Squad does to protect Musical Girl Squad despite having seen them fight in their defense firsthand.

Perhaps he believes they pull faces at the enemy. Or maybe- and he would not be entirely mistaken to believe this- maybe he thinks it's all about dancing nonviolently with the attackers until they get bored and go away.

Purple Elf Woman points the inconvenient detail of this out to which his reply is to ask if she really enjoys flying that way.

She replies that she's a warrior, that she flies to protect. Shlub pretends to understand and walks away.

Mirage, for once, makes some effort to drum the idiot out by presenting Commander Arad with her plan for a final exam. A dogfight in which he must land a hit on her to pass. Grudgingly, and I suspect not without modifications to the plan, he agrees.

Word gets around however, most notably to brain parasite girl.

WHY IS NO ONE HELPING HER?!

Selectively ignoring the green creature slowly eating this unfortunate's brain to the utter indifference of her colleagues, Brain Parasite Girl feels that the Final Exam in fact indicates Shlub and Mirage are falling in love. Or, at least, that she's falling in love with him. Her colleagues are skeptical, but sadly I realize Brain Parasite Girl is surely reading the script.

Mirage the Space Elf, first to deck the eminently punchable Hayate Immelman seems tragically doomed it would seem to being part of the obligatory love triangle. Because naturally the narcissistic and suicidally stupid Immelman is naturally irresistible to women he belittles the aspirations of, vomits on and mostly serves as a source of stress for.

They're even arranged in a triangle in the intro.

At this point Shlub is ignorant of any affections and there is some hope he will remain oblivious. More in regards to Freyja the Manic Pixie Dream Girl who I might note is literally and objectively 14 years old. (It's not squiffy because she'll be dead around 30 you see.)

It has not been stated what age Mirage the Space Elf is, but hypothetically they would be allowed to purchase a space beer.

But DEAR GOD that's enough about Shlub for now, yes? Let's see what terrible trials are befalling the aforementioned Pixie.

Practice is going poorly. It turns out that her fold receptors are not activating. Perhaps her bio-fold receptors are stuck together, or have been overstimulated and have not recovered yet. Why is this important?

The bio fold waves then, when augmented by cocktail dresses and an excess of flashy lights- along with some singing- gently massage the biomark generators of the Var-Syndrome-Afflicted Roidragers until their brains stop being red.

So, very important that Freyja's 14-year-old biofold receptors are properly lubricated and trembly.

But let's not dwell on that any further for the time being. Freyja and Shlub meet up and Pixie lies about how well her singing is going while in a rare moment Shlub states :

'I've put zero effort into this and for some reason I am doing poorly.'

It reminds me of Ned Flanders' parents, actually.

Shlub's punchability is reaching dramatic new levels here. Naturally, of course, he resolves that he will pass the final exam and wipe the grin off of his instructor's face. Freyja laughs at this, prompting him to note that she has a creepy laugh, which to be fair checks out completely.

She insists she's laughing about how hard he'll fail, which he denies will happen all while her head tentacle glitters and flops around excitedly.

Now we cut to the Final Exam. The rules are thus. Shlub and Mirage will dogfight in jetmechs firing paint rounds. He must land a single hit on her to win, whereas she can shoot him indefinitely and not win.

So basically so long as he manages to not crash all he has to do is get in a lucky shot. I suspect this modification was made by Commander Arad. Another competent pilot by the name of Messer would serve as the judge- though with such a ruleset it is not clear what there is to judge.

In fact, with a bar set this low you would think it would be quite difficult to fuck it up- but screwing up is the one field for which Shlub qualifies as an idiot-savant.

Within the first two seconds of the dogfight Mirage lands more than enough hits to have utterly killed the idiot, but those shots don't count of course. Mirage notes that passing such a candidate would mean they would only die in their first battle- which Shlub and Pixie in fact would have had Mirage not regrettably saved them the first time.

Mirage happily unloads shots into Shlub's jetmech until the ship's AI, sick of being made to look stupid, evades some shots.

The poor Jetmech AI. Brain the size of a planet and they've put this idiot in command of it.

Unwilling to be shown up by a toaster... again... Shlub elects to shut off the ship's AI. This goes just as well as the last time the idiot did this and he immediately loses control of the jetmech. As an added bonus he calls Mirage 'Vomit Girl', Yes, that's right, he's mocking her because he vomited on her earlier.

Classy guy, our Shlub.

Commander Arad briefly considers the possibility that he has in fact recruited a complete moron and orders Mirage to eject him from the jetmech. This proves impossible as Shlub cut off remote control along with the ship's AI.

His sorely deserved death is averted as video of this dogfight is being relayed to Pixie by other members of Musical Girl Squad who have theorized that Pixie's Bio-Fold Receptors don't properly lubricate unless someone is in danger of dying.

Their theory is proven out as Pixie begins singing with a freshly glittery head-tentacle, bio-fold receptors quivering as she realizes Shlub might just bite it.

Tragically, this song magically makes Shlub a capable pilot, allowing him to remove his helmet (Pilots wear those just for looks, right?) pull out of his death-spin and furthermore manage a rarely seen backflip he learned from the Mercat Godling, which one of the Musical Girl Squad members had the nerve to suggest should be called the Immelman Dance.

I insist it is only fair to call it the Merkin Maneuver instead. Indeed, if you click that link I am sure you will find there can be no better name for it.

At this point actual Ace Pilot Messer steps in to shoot Shlub up a bit more and while Immelman whines about fairness (despite these new hits still not failing him). Messer then states what he believes to be is a simple truth.

Which is sadly mistaken.

Again, Hayate Immelman could charge death and death would flee from him. He could not die if he wanted to, and his actions IF he WISHED to die would be hard to separate from the actions he has taken anyway. Again thus far he has taken military equipment he was not trained to use into a battlefield, completely ignored any security measures on a military base, THROWN HIMSELF OFF OF AN AIRCRAFT CARRIER and in this episode alone gone out of his way to die in a crashing jetmech until the musical plot intervened.

So it's perhaps just as well that at the end of this Shlub has learned very little. On landing he finds Mirage still wondering how the idiot managed to suddenly master his jetmech and land a shot on her (poor elf, there is no fighting the plot) in her jetmech when said idiot knocks on the cockpit to say he's sorry and understands there is more needed than just flying... but that he still dislikes all this shooting business...

Mirage fails to apply the windshield wiper.

But hey, he'll show up to the training classes now. Maybe. Mirage is amazed of course. He then hops down to brag about how the Final Exam was in fact 'easy-peasy', with Pixie there to call him the Lucky One.

Commander Arad meanwhile basically admits he has no idea what he is doing really. When it comes to having no fucks to give, the commander of Delta Squad reigns supreme.

In the glittery-bright future of humanity there is only Derp. Derp, and J-pop.

In conclusion, don't drink on this one. The temptation to overdo it is far too great.

Macross Delta Episode 2 : Hayate Immelman, Performance Autist

I try to do this on request and "My Buddy Cray" has requested further reviews of Macross Delta. So further reviews will be done! Episode by episode until requests cease or I do. I am shamelessly spoiling these, not that there is that much to spoil.

In Episode One you may recall a working class shlub was fired for having no particular interest in working and spent his last day with a big ol' bridge-burning-bonfire rescuing a stowaway manic pixie dreamgirl until a green man's brain turned red due to a mysterious song and thus a squad of green men went berserk with roidrage with their embarrassingly-slow-in-context chicken mechs only to be stopped by MUSICAL GIRL SQUAD who soothed the afflicted with mech fondling, holographic dancers, skimpy dresses and also some singing- only to be stopped briefly themselves by the Blowhard Knights of the Great Wind who attack for reasons presently unknown putting Musical Girl Squad into a tight spot requiring the judicious use of jet-panties.

Do you ever get a strange burning sensation in embarrassing places...

...and then you're flying? You may be wearing jet-panties.

This continues until Freyja, the Manic Pixie Dreamgirl, starts singing to help out Musical Girl Squad and drawing fire prompting a rescue by Schlub with the Mech-ex-machina, who promptly hallucinates and gets shot down.

Thus we rejoin the story as it is.

Manic Pixie and Shlub are in the process of falling to their death. Fortunately, a competent pilot has mistaken them for a military unit on their side and saves them- it's a member of Delta Squad they met before. What a coincidence. Said member cannot remember Schlub's name and asks but Schlub fails to reply as they have recently shit themselves and don't want to admit it.

"Hah, not the guy who stained this seat! That was the guy who abandoned a perfectly functional piece of military hardware for my convenience! Hah Hah!"

Anyhow, their rescuer sets them down and the Blowhard Knights having 'gotten the data they required' depart leaving Musical Girl Squad to finish deroidraging the Green People and flash gang signs while invoking their heathen Goddess.

Thug Life, PEACE.

After the battle the rescuer of Shlub tracks him down and he thanks her, Purple Haired Elf-Lady of Delta Squad responds by decking him and saying all of the boring rather sensible things one might of someone like Shlub. Things like 'You hijacked military equipment.' 'You could have gotten a lot of people killed.' blah blah blah.

This is the important part, and makes Mirage the Purple Elf instantly the most sympathetic character in the series thus far.
SHLUB DOWN!

Shlub's response is to criticize her flying as being off-beat during Musical Girl Squad's intro.

This counter is somehow effective.

Mirage seethes, states complaints should be directed to her superiors and leaves with her commander.

Meanwhile Pixie meets up with Musical Girl Squad who compliment her singing and say they look forward to seeing her on their base planet of Ragna. This of course utterly engorges Pixie's glittering head tentacle.

So, Musical Girl Squad blasts off to notice in reviewing the details of the conflict that Pixie's singing is especially roidrage-reducing. A full percentages more biofoldy. They also notice she's got that thing on her head, which marks her as Windermeerian, the same race as the Blowhard Knights.

Also the commander receives a file he requested on one Hayate 'Shlub' Immelman.

They cut away to the Blowhard Knights who are mad they were recalled from the last battle. They say things at each other and we learn one of them is named Roid which is rather unfortunate for them I think.

Shlub and Pixie are now on Ragna! How they got there is never explained, but Pixie is apparently the first to arrive and expresses surprise that Shlub is there as well. So... They wished themselves there?

Anyhow banter ensues and they wander the planet taking in such sights as the superultramegazord Musical Girl Squad is based in along with mer-cats and aggressive merchant children they steal a phone from.

Pixie gets special permission to audition for Musical Girl Squad and Shlub gets a request to meet the Commander. So naturally he slips away to casually explore a military facility that has precious little in the way of security. The leadership is very trusting. Indeed, perhaps too trusting...

I find fault in this 'Honor System' security of his, but he's intrinsically likable.

So, while Pixie fails the audition Commander Arad finally finds Shlub wishing he was an albatross. He's accompanied by one of his ace pilots who is reasonably unimpressed with Shlub. Nevertheless, Arad makes the offer.

My people tell me you are an aimless drifter- YOU'RE HIRED!

Arad babbles about tasting the wind a bit and risking one's life, prompting Shlub to show off how edgy he is by attempting suicide, intentionally falling backwards off of the UltraMechaZord. The Plot will not allow him to die, sadly, so a powerful gust of wind sets him gently back on top of the deck, impressing Arad even more than hearing about Schlub's past experience as a migrant worker.

Meanwhile Musical Girl squad holds a special audition for Pixie in which they simulate a Roidrage outbreak, trapping her in the equivalent of a subway car with a hulked out citizen who at least appears to kill a woman before... Patiently waiting for Pixie to start singing from her tactical fetal position on the floor.

Her singing works, or one of the other people babbles about numbers anyway and it turns out this was in fact the final audition and Pixie has Passed.

Yer a Musical Girl, Pixie.

Holograpic nanowozzles fuzzmicate her attire into the vital-for-singing impractical cocktail dress to Musical Girl Squad's accolades.

Meanwhile Shlub, who cannot die, recieves further high honors from Arad. Seems he's willing to fly for the super-elite Delta Squadron, but only if he doesn't have to follow orders and can play by his own rules. Which Arad allows.

I would like you to try picturing this with any air-force in a real-world nation.

"Hello I would like to join the U.S. Airforce's Thunderbirds, Commander."

"Get out." "Why of course Sir, do you have previous experience?"

"I drove a forklift and piloted an abandoned plane for a bit. It was fun."

"I'm going to have you escorted out."  "Flying IS fun. Wonderful, wonderful. You can start immediately."

"I hate the military though, won't take orders and expect to play by my own rules."

"Oh fuck off you hippy-dippy crackhead! How the hell did you even get IN- You know what, that's it, you're going to the lockup until you sober the fuck up or come down off of whatever the fuck you're on. I should fucking ship you off to goddamned Gauntanamo for wasting my time with this shit. You think we just hand out million-dollar war machines to wandering shitbags who ask- and to join THIS unit, with people who have spent their entire lives thus far mastering skills learned in the course of INTENSIVE traini-"

"Feel free."

And so Shlub pats one of the free-for-the-asking war machines while Arad silences his ace pilot who is reasonably baffled about why the hell his Commander not only lowered the bar, he dropped it on the ground and kicked it.

It then turns out this particular war machine is assigned to my favorite, Mirage the Purple Elf who sadly does not punch Shlub again, sufficing to growl at Shlub to get away from her plane.

So in summary, everything about this episode further makes it clear that Pixie and Shlub the Performance Autist are the Chosen Ones from whom Death Himself will flee.

On the bright side, he can be punched. Maybe it will happen again!

I would say this episode is best complimented with a good ten percent more alcohol and a viewing companion with even a fleeting exposure to any given military.

NEXT TIME

Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress : Kabanes of my Good Will

       
What if I told you there was a series in which a Feudal psuedo-Japan came under assault by a zombie apocalypse, which was answered with a renaissance in steampunk technology to fortify settlements and link them via a network of railways plied by armed and armored trains?

Because that was what I was told. If you aren't sick of the concept of zombie apocalypses, then it's hardly unappealing. I in particular have a weakness for steampunk technology in fiction.

This series follows the adventures of Granny Glasses.

He is the Smartest Man in His World and please understand this is the soul of damning with faint praise.

You see the natives of this world have developed the railway system and novelty goggles but can't quite figure out how to kill the dreaded Kabane (Not-Zombies- more on them shortly) reliably and can't really be arsed to work at the problem. Far too busy with the mundane tasks of shitting themselves with fear and keeping a boot on the throats of the peasants.

Glasses, though, understands this is a losing strategy and in his spare time works on a hideously inefficient new way to kill the Kabane.

But what are Kabane? 

"I need you to sign for a package, ma'am."

Kabane are formerly human individuals bitten and thus infected with a magical virus that turns them into glittery not-zombies which are compelled to kill or infect the uninfected. For seemingly no rational reason whatsoever the disease encases an infected individual's heart in iron. This detail should have been a warning sign for me, but I didn't take it to heart at the time.

For some reason it is of paramount importance these iron cages and the hearts within be pierced, even though it is demonstrated that decapitation at the very least renders them immobile and thus disposable-at-leisure.

Why they so rarely attempt to decapitate Kabane remains, at this time, entirely unexplained. Many people in the meantime however have gotten themselves killed or nearly killed continuing to attack the single best defended point on a Kabane.

Sort of like refusing to shoot a bulletproof-bikini-wearing assailant anywhere but the tits or crotch.

Anyhow, Glasses is one of the precious few people who seem to think having ineffectual weapons against this threat is somehow a bad idea and spends his spare time developing a new weapon that can pierce the Kabane heart-cage. At point blank, making it somewhat more idiotic than attempting decapitation with a sword. But hey, at least his heart is in the right place. His mind isn't, but his heart is.

Unfortunately for him, he gets busted collecting ghoul-bits for his weapon tests and thus put in jail. Fortunately he breaks out of prison while his home town gets overrun with not-zombies allowing him to run home and grab his experimental weapon for a field test.

It works and he kills an attacking Kabane while of course getting bitten, because he had to let it all but climb up his nose to land a hit.

Whoopsie.

Things are looking grim for Glasses but unnanouncedly it turns out he has a theoretical cure for Kabane infection! Which you would think might be more important than his other projects, but perhaps he was too ashamed to tell people what the theoretical cure is. With good reason! Here, let me walk you through it.

It's the only functional one after all, if marginally.

Step One   :  Strap Searing-Hot Metal Against the Infected Area.

Step Two   : Bolt That Crap in Place.

Step Three : Hang Yourself.

This works.

It may take awhile.

Now, this all takes place in the first episode. Indeed, this just sets the stage and while I personally found it rather silly I was gently compelled to follow through on the next few episodes wherein it turns out Glasses' efforts have not cured him but made him a Kabaneri. Which means he's faster, stronger and more durable than your average human being and only in any danger of becoming a mindless beast when hungry.

What does he eat now, you ask? Blood. This is, eventually, explained to him by Ninja Girl who is also a Kabaneri and goes on to prove she is an insufferable twit with a death-wish, abandonment issues and a chip on her shoulder significantly larger than she is.

But let's get back to that curious dietary requirement, for it's the point at which I stopped caring about the well-being of any characters in this series. The implied premise was that this was a fuedal japanese steampunkish zombie apocalypse- but that was a deception.

These ain't zombies. These are damnable vampires and Glasses is just the latest breed of edgy 'good' or half-vampire. This is sheer bias on my part, mind. I am aware of this. I just have a deep-set overwhelming hatred of vampires as anything other than something to be purged even from fictional existence.

Chalk it up to living through the edgy dark romantic era of Ann Rice's peak popularity when every last pancake-makeup-faced goofball dreamed of being the edgy edgelord that was the vampire Lestat.

So, burn them all lest they spread.

On a technical level this series is gorgeous, unfortunately the setting is largely ruined by some of the dumbest fictional mouthbreathers seen in modern fiction.

If you lack my bias against vampires and are content with watching suprisingly humanoid amoebas flail through a vambie apocalypse, this is an excellent series for you. If you like zombie apocalypses and/or steampunk you will primarily find yourself mentally screaming "SHOOT THEM IN THE HEAD YOU GOBSHITES!"

If you are one of the latter, I will advise against drinking at all as you seem rather angry.

For the rest of you, get as close to alcohol blood poisoning as you dare. Me? Should I watch it, I watch it out of spite. I maintain a hope that in traditional melodramatic style something will threaten to destroy the world... and then succeed.