Monday 4 November 2013

Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Ars Nova - Episode 5

Haruna and Kirishima may have been defeated in last week's episode of Arpeggio of Blue Steel, but they haven't been entirely destroyed, which proves to be an important development in events this week.

Having been discovered unconscious (can an AI be unconscious?), Haruna finds herself in the care of an impressively large and lavish house which seems to be mostly empty but for a made and a young girl named Makie, who instantly takes to Haruna (or Haruharu as she becomes known), dressing her up, messing with her hair and generally treating her like the friend she's never had.  With nothing left of Kirishima but her core, her comrade instead finds herself occupying the body of a stuffed toy, which only further increases Makie's love her these new acquaintances.


Of course, there's more to Makie than just a friendly little kid, and Kirishima is quick to note that the home they're currently residing in is also noted as the base of development for a prototype human weapon, the vibration torpedo (no, I refuse to make any jokes about putting a vibration torpedo into Iona) - a weapon whose gestation is publicly attributed to Makie's deceased father, only this story is anything but true on a couple of counts.  With events unfolding quickly, these two Mental Models are going to have to choose their allegiances, and fast...

As I suspected, this was another episode largely shorn of any naval action (aside from a brief cameo from Takao, which seemed to exist almost as acknowledgment that they hadn't forgotten about "the boat bits"), but on the plus side it did have some surprisingly strong moments of comedy as it brought AI and human child together in an amusing way.  Putting that to one side, the rest of the episode's plot is daft and just begging to have holes picked in it, but I'm not going to do that because I think it's already patently obvious that I'm not watching this show for the plot.  Thus, having enjoyed a few laughs at the hands of this week's instalment, I'm hoping we can get back to blowing up big boats again next Monday.

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