Xellos-_^, after Ep 10, one never does see tragic heroines in quite the same light ever again. -_-;;

Steven, I still don’t get quite a few of the mecha references, mainly because my mecha knowledge is still pretty weak but what I do get has been hilarous.

re: spoilers, you have a good point - while my policy is discuss them quite freely, especially for series where the statute of limitations has long expired, I’m considering being just a bit ambiguous about the biggest spoiler of this series. ;)

In ep 12 the coolest thing is chibi-Ruri sitting on Akito’s shoulder and giving him directions. That image of chibi-Ruri returns later in the series, by the way.

The way the series zigs and zags really confused me the first time I watched it. It was only later that I realized that this show is in part a satire of the mecha genre, and part of the reason why the story line zigs and zags is that they’re trying to arrange different kinds of situations for referential humor. Since at the time I didn’t know a lot about the history of anime I didn’t get most of the references, so it came off as confusing to me.

…with all due respect, since you’re giving away everything here, shouldn’t you be tagging these posts as spoilers? Especially when you watch the next DVD; you’re about to learn, and presumably write about here, the single biggest spoiler of the series.