In the thirties, a young Hyoubu Kyousuke moves from the mainland to Japan to live with his new adoptive father Baron Tsubomi and his daughter, Fujiko, who is an esper like him. Imperial Army Captain Saotome Eiji asks the children to join his special ESP unit, which mimics a similar Nazi program that makes use of espers for the accelerating war effort.
They join the unit and watch themselves be advertised in the newsreels as Japan’s newest weapon. The unit falls out of favor when Fujiko gets in an altercation with a policeman and naval officer. Rather than submit to standard military training, which will harm their powers, Eiji proposes a duel: the ESP unit versus the Navy’s new Mitsubishi Zero fighter plane.
As last week ended in something of a cliffhanger, and we’re in the middle of the season, now’s as good a time as any for more backstory on Hyoubu. Specifically, the show backs up many decades to when Hyoubu first meets Fujuko (and learn she’s his adoptive sister), to when he first gets involved with the military. It’s fun to watch this proto-PANDRA come to life. And like that later group, this is more of a family than a military unit.
We also like how one seemingly minor incident with the cop and naval officer gets blow into a situation where the entire unit is punished and the whole program threatened. It’s as if the military higher-ups were just waiting for an excuse to shut them down. Fortunately, the unit enjoys the support of Baron Tsubomi. But knowing how things turn out in the present day, the mood is bound to sour sometime in the next episode.
Rating: 7 (Very Good)
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Its interesting to see this ESP Unit of WW2 Japan. I’m actually interested in seeing how the war panned out since both Germany and Japan had esper teams. Since the Alliance still won against Axis, I’m wondering what America, England, and the rest of the Alliance had that could combat against an esper military?
Anyway, really liked this episode, even if Japan seemed like they wanted to gloss over their desire to enter the war, and how much of an impact they made in the war at large (“we aren’t getting involved in that unsightly war in the West” my foot!). But I can understand them not really wanting to get into that, but that’s neither here nor there. This episode is about Kyosuke!
We see our young villain protagonist here, still innocent, and still wanting to be accepted in a society that shuns him. It seems the only place that espers are wanted is still the military, and these group of espers understand that they are regarded as weapons, but what else can they do? It seems that esper rights haven’t progressed much in the last 80 years or so.
Kyosuke’s father seems to have been happy studying ESP, until his own child turns out to be an esper. He then seems to display hatred for the poor boy’s abilities and forbids the boy from using them, right before dying an early death. However, Hyoubu has the desire of any child to be accepted for who he is, so he is tempted by Captain Eiji into joining the military ESP unit, Fujiko also joins, but for the more selfish reason in that she wants to be the best esper in Japan, and knowing that Hyobu is stronger than her, irks her. Everything seems fine, except little Kyosuke forget that one of the biggest rules in anime is: NEVER trust a fox-faced man with glowing glasses. It will surely be the death of you.
I liked the new ED a lot too, as it showed the relationship Kyosuke had with each member of the team and that he held them all as family. As we know that tragedy is on the horizon, I will be excited to see what happens to the Generation ZERO unit.
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