Robotics;Notes - Episode 4

After their thrilling efforts at Robo-One, and success in terms of ensuring that their club survives the threat of being disbanded, it's time to start looking for funding and resources to complete said club's grander robotics project.

With this in mind, Aki clearly decides that it's not what you know but who you know that's important, leading her to the doorstep of JAXA and... her father, the president of one of the Japanese space administration's branches.  With plenty of emotional blackmail stacked up, she looks all set to succeed before other issues intervene and ruin her plan.

As Aki spends the episode alternating between finding other ways to earn the money she and the club needs and trying to persuade Kai and new (not to mention reluctant) recruit Subaru to do anything productive, we're also filled in on some other aspects of the show's world, with oddball transfer student Frau Koujiro moving into an impressively sized place of her own while established contact with Kai, and Subaru turning his attentions to the forthcoming Robo-One World Cup in which he looks to Kai's skills to assist him.  As for Kai himself, we pick up some more information about the disease which afflicts both himself and Aki, before a mysterious signal arriving at Kai's tablet bring the episode to a slightly ominous close.

After a thoroughly enjoyable episode last week, this latest instalment of Robotics;Notes was a more sedate affair which concerned itself with setting certain elements of its premise up and filling in some of the gaps in its narrative above all else - something which was undoubtedly necessary but isn't all that thrilling to watch after the slick entertainment that directly preceded it.  That said, the additional building blocks put into place within the series framework seem promising enough to be worth putting up with a less memorable episode for provided that the show executes well on them all.