hontou ni sou omou?

Meido Roberta breaks out the heavy artillery against the Colombians and the Lagoon crew take over. Garcia’s happy memories of Roberta are shattered by her skilled exercise of bloody violence. It’s not long before Revy goes head to head with Roberta, with the former getting knocked out cold as a result. The Lagoon crew flee into town, towards their boat with Roberta in hot pursuit. Meanwhile Balalaika mobilizes her troops to go to the aid of Dutch. Cliffhanger ending with Roberta clinging to the back of the company car and we see her eyes for the first time. 50+ screencaps ahead and not a single one of them of the meido! LOL.

Rock provides an interesting perspective as usual - he envies Garcia’s certainty that he will saved by his meido, that he has someone that he trusts so completely. This brings on a snarky diatribe from Revy that perfectly illustrates how Rock’s expectations are, ostentably, completely different from Garcia’s. Together with the idyllic dream of home (which has got the Higurashi OP butterfly!), this sets up Gracia for his crisis of faith later.

Revy finds another way to torment the boy, telling him that if Roberta’s as strong as she is, she’d love to use her Cutlass pistols against her. Or something. The problem with this, of course, is that the universe is listening and has a funny way of responding.

Just before the gunfight and taking cover.

So much for trying to get away quietly. The Yellow Flag’s bar owner blames Revy for the mess again and her bad-tempered shouting gives her crew away and causes both parties to stop fighting. Sooo funny. Especially when Revy makes a “Doh!” face. The Colombians’ leader even starts to argue contractual terms with Dutch.

Some blah blah between Garcia and Roberta that included some Spanish that I couldn’t follow at all [but Rock seems to be quite the linguisit!] and despite having Gracia as a hostage, Roberta shoots anyway.

Revy pushes Garcia away, returns fire while heading for the cover of the bar (against the protests of the bar owner). Roberta unleashes something like an M203 shell at her and the blast knocks Revy out. Somehow I found Dutch’s smacking of Revy’s cheek with his pistol to be extremely funny and fitting. As foreshadowed in Ep 7 (and pointed out by Skane), we finally get a vivid demonstration that Revy is not invincible. Which makes her even more interesting as a character as invincible characters quickly become irritating or ridiculous or both.

It also underlines how each person in the Lagoon crew has a specific role to play and how hobbled they are without Revy. I was half-wondering if Rock would have to administer the Snow White treatment to Revy. Or as they would say in FLCL: Mouth to Mouth!

Any Balalaika screen time is Good Time - even if her pose with her sentai squad was a tad ridiculous. (If there’s one complaint I have about this series, it’s the ridiculous poses e.g. Roberta in this ep with her umbrella gun and Revy’s two-hand ‘die cock stand’ pose in Ep 6. I wonder if those are set pieces straight from the manga?) The military origins of Hotel Moscow are explicitly flaunted. Her Sergeant (and apparent 2IC) addressing her as Captain (tai-i dono) and there’s a Corporal at the scene of the Yellow Flag. The sergeant also mentions something about how it’s been a while since they’ve been in a war. Looks like we’ll be getting more background that ties Balalaika with Roberta in the next episode, after that brief teaser about Roberta’s codename in the intelligence report.

A nicely balanced episode. There was, of course, plenty of action mixed with background information and introspection as well as teasers and groundwork for future episodes. If only Fate/Stay Night (already having great characters) could have had this kind of pacing and development!! More discussion when the sub is released.