Kuromukuro – 17

Ken and Yukina were actually able to witness Muetta’s fall on a video feed, so when all geoframe pilots are on standby, Ken is understandably anxious and unwilling to sit around doing nothing.

He doesn’t sympathize with the Efidolg, he just wants his beloved princess back. He wants her on their side. They simply have to channel his energy into something productive.

The commander lets Ken and Yukina take the Kuromukuro out, and Yukina using its newfound recon toys to find…a bear, along with her commenting on how a walk by the river could be fun, keep things light and breezy.

It’s easy to forget how stressful a situation Yukina is in: co-piloting a giant alien mecha with a samurai whose lost princess looks just like her. You gotta keep your wits about you somehow; Yukina does it with wit.

The leader of the Efidolgs sends Yorba down to retrieve their two agents, and he comes down in style, in the “Bluebird”, a huge flying geoframe with a dragon’s form, slicing through Earth fighters like they were warm butter and deflecting their missles.

This show has always done a good job showing how implacable Efidolg technology is…if only the people wielding it had the discipline to match.

(Also good? Never going too far up the chain of command, at least on the Earth side. I’m sure there are conference rooms full of suits determining our characters’ fates – I just don’t need to see them. The show seems to get that.)

I can’t help but love an episode in which Ken and Yukina have to stop trudging in the river looking for Yukihime so they can stop an immense USAF C-5 Galaxy transport from crashing into the damn lab.

I also appreciate the valorous portrayal of the Air Force transport pilots, who complete their mission even though their bird is on fire and going down. We didn’t see the faces of the fighter pilots Yorba slaughtered, but thankfully we get to see the faces of some luckier ones, who survive thanks to the Kuromukuro.

Getting back to Efidolg arrogance and suspicion being their undoing, Yorba isn’t satisfied with simply picking up Mirasa, though to his credit, he doesn’t buy her lame story about Muetta dying for a second. It’s almost as if Mirasa is lying for the first time, and it’s not her forte.

I’m not convinced Yorba is as concerned with avenging Muetta as he claims, but I’m willing to bet that’s as good an excuse as any to pick a fight with the black glongur that’s been giving his fellow Efidolg so much trouble. So rather than return to base with crucial information, he satisfies his desire for a real fight.

He gets one, but at first, he tosses the Kuromukuro up above the stormclouds like a cat flicking a toy in the air, bashes at it while it falls then flicks it back up before it falls too far. It’s a battle Ken and Yukina can’t win without the power of flight…so it’s fortuitous that they gain that power, thanks to Mr. Ogre, who it turns out has a flying geoframe of his own.

Once the odds are evened, Ken gives Yorba a run for his money, until Yorba exercises the better part of valor. Back to the mothership he goes, a Mirasa richer but Muetta-free.

As for the winged benefactor, he asks Ken to consider whether he’s been wrong all along about the “ogres” destroying the Washiba, then releases them at a safe altitude, convinced he’s not quite ready to hear the whole truth.

And Yukina? She hears a bit of her father in the Ogre’s voice, because let’s face it, he probably is her father. It’s as if he’s Darth Vader, only he’s been helping his kid all along, instead of waiting until the bitter end to do so.

But as he said, more answers will have to wait until a future encounter between them. Until then, after such a harrowing battle, I’d say Yukina and Ken have earned another break.