I use this title only because Akushiba the Mail-Runner’s pride commands me too.
Summary:
Kakisu starts delegating orders to the Sentan Island military, and decides to rename the area the Far East Autonomy to encourage more self-reliance among the people and soldiers. Watching the scene behind a fence is Shidara, who seems to slowly be going crazy. Akiyuki’s doing secretarial work as part of his Xam’d training, and asks why they’re delivering letters to their enemy, the Northern Government. Akushiba says by that logicthe northern refugees are enemies too. It seems most of the crew despise the Tessik refugees just as much as the Northern Government. Without Nakiami, the crew won’t have a guide to plot routes, but Ishu’s too stubborn to forgive her. Back on Sentan, Haru and Furuichi are helping with the recovery operation. Kakisu gets a visit from the mad scientist about an applicant for his experiments.

Nakiami heads onto the Tessik ship while at the same time a couple of the Tessik crew search for what turns out to be an “Ongoro”. She has a better command over it and returns it to Zeygend. While the crew of the Zanbani keep wondering about what Ishu and Nakiami are really going to do, Zeygend tells Nakiami of the “Sun-Maned” Kujireika, who’s become a chief of the Tessik village and is trying to take back the Holy Land. Nakiami is the righful chief of the village, and Zeygend tries to convince her to return and take back her throne (if you could call it something as grand as that) and he offers her an Ututu seed. Akiyuki realises that he’s forgotton to deliver Haru’s letter and asks Akushiba to do so instead, using the mail-runner’s pride to get in his favour, and when that fails, resorting to blackmail. Turns out Akushiba really is fast.

On Sentan, Dr. Kanba reveals to Kakisu he’s put a Hiruko from the giant Xam’d into the depressed Shidara; Kakisu’s anger is justified, but the scientist belives that as long as they’re are performing anti-Humanform experiments here, they’ll already go down in history as war criminals, so they should try and do as much for their side as possible while they can.

Ishu talks with Akiyuki and tells him Nakiami is just a name she herself gave to her. At the same time, Nakiami is led off of the ship, pretty much disowned by Zeygend, seemingly against her wishes. Zeygend also mentions that Ishu is the “Writer of the Crimson Revolution”. Ishu and Nakiami meet, but Ishu still doesn’t want to forgive her or accept forgiveness. Akiyuki convinces Nakiami to go about apologising in a different way.

Back on Sentan, Furuichi tells Haru he wants to become an ASP pilot. The two find Shidara sitting in a ruined building, but she suddenly changes into a Humanform Weapon and hits Haru. Furuichi leads Shidara away until the ASP units show up shoot her down; Kakisu arrives and harshly deals the final blow himself.

Aushiba shows up  the next morning, exhausted after delivering the letter, and the Zanbani crew leave the port. Later, Ishu finds a letter stuck in her door and opens it to see a sunflower. It’s Nakiami’s form of apology, as she can’t write.

Next Time:

Battle with the giant Humanform Weapon.

Thoughts:

Poor Shidara ;_;. I didn’t think that she’d end up in such a pitiful way; on the contratry I believed she’d have been comforted by Haru and made into a character with a bigger part to play or something but as soon as the fact she’d had a Hiruko put in her was revealed, you knew that she was probably going to die very soon. It did serve as some small amount of action which was good to see after a couple of episodes without many fights. Nothing that interesting happened on the Zanbani side of things (Nakiami and Ishu make up, Akushiba proves his SUPER SPEED-O) except for, you guessed it, new questions and maybe 2 answers. We now know that Nakiami appears to be of royal descent so it’ll be interesting if we her ending up fighting for her village or somesuch occurance. But what’s an Ongoro, or an Ututu seed or a Sun-Maned? Why is Ishu known as the Writer of the Crimson Revolution? This series needs to balance questions with answers; to the characters all these terms and events are standard things, so the creators may be trying to keep things as authentic as possible, but I wish things were a bit less confusing.

Kakisu… Well, people kept saying that he was going to be an antagonist and I believed he exact opposite but it looks like they were right, for now at least. It raises the question: how far is he willing to go so that they can win this war? He’s obviously got a good sense of morals, he himself ordered the prioritisation of  reconstruction over armaments, but maybe there’s a reason why he’s going against them beyond the fact it’s for the good of the people; he was quite ruthless in the elimination of Shidara. But the previous events make him seem slightly self-sacrificial, if nothing else, as he doesn’t care about being known as a war criminal, only that he can help the people of Sentan Island. However, there’s an unmistakable darkness/frustration in his eyes when he kills Shidara.

One thing I noticed is that Kanba has the same patterns on his face as the Tessik tribe, so does that mean he’s got a relation to them? He even said he understands the loneliness of not having a place to return to.

Also, I am so looking forawrd to Haru kicking ass ^_^.

Akushiba’s speed is so awesome, he turns straight men gay.

Omake:

SHUT UP AND EXPLODE?

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