After a season and three-quarters of familiarization with its combat information displays, you know the Sidonia has hit the fan when pilots start turning red, including Izana. Sure, it’s due to a loss of communication, but I still found myself tensing up with apprehension at the sight of those graphics, especially considering you could call Izana and Nagate’s off-camera experience a death flag of sorts, and as I stated last week, none of the other three pilots are anyone we know, and are hence disposable.
Kobayashi tends to agree with that assessment, as she orders Yuhata to formulate a plan to eliminate the Gauna, not support the recon platoon, a course of action that essentially abandons the platoon to their deaths, Izana included. This is certainly upsetting, but it keeping with Kobayashi’s M.O.
Surprisingly, it’s Kunato who manages to get Nagate and Tsumugi/Mozuku to sortie, stating that it’s as good an opportunity as ever to test both the Tsugumori Mk. III and chimera in non-zero-g anti-Gauna operations. Kunato couldn’t give two shits about Izana or the other recon pilots, but he knows the loss of Izana will negatively affect his “hold” on Tsumugi.
As Nagati and Tsumugi enter formation and race to Planet Nine, Izana loses her kabi cannon when swarmed by Gauna, and notices they follow the cannon. When she releases her fuel tanks, they follow those as well. These moves buy her some survival time, but the planet is hardly hospitable-looking to humans, and with no fuel and very limited survival provisions, Izana is hoping for a speedy rescue.
When Nagati and Tsumugi are suddenly separated by a powerful Hyggs beam, and Nagate starts hurtling backwards into the planet’s atmo, it looks like the rescuers are going to need rescuing as well…
But even though his impact with one of the countless islets floating in the upper atmosphere (which look so tiny when far away, but are actually quite big compared to Tsugumori), his Mark III is tough enough to withstand that impact unscathed. Nagate himself is stunned, but eventually comes to his senses and stands up, very surprised he’s alive.
But Considering the one who fired at him and Tsugumi turns out to be a resurrected Benisuzume, complete with giggles, will he regret surviving that impact? Tsugumi orders Nagate to find and save Izana while she duels with the red Gauna girl, but Beni looks like her equal in combat, if not her better.
Far from the relative safety of Sidonia, on a strange and hostile planet crawling with Gauna, faced with an old foe previously believed dead, and with Izana plummeting into the soupy clouds to an unknown fate, things couldn’t be worse for Tanikaze Nagate. Can he save his friend and maybe-lover, without losing Tsugumi to Benisuzume? It’s snuck up on us, but there are just two eps left to sort everything out.
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