[Fish Sandwich]

This episode is a little too breakneck fast for its own good, I think. The bizarre choice in how Izu gets wounded here is probably in part due simply to sloppy direction, though. I can imagine that scene was written with the intent that it be immediately clear all these characters were in the same place, and at some point along the process that just got lost.

Not that I want to take too much of the blame off of Yuuya Takahashi's shoulders, because even ignoring the problems in the execution, I was still really hoping there would be something more clever going on when Izu inevitably got the robo-tentacle treatment from somebody. The fact that she was always conspicuously not targeted whenever MetsubouJinrai needed more goons when basically everyone else was on the table was something I was happy to simply file under suspension of disbelief, but at that point, the show loses the ability to randomly turn off her plot armor and have me buy it. Perhaps there is something more to this, and it's all just another amazing long-game genius move by Takahashi that will all make sense a couple months down the line, but even if that's the case, right here and now, it hurt my ability to get into the episode.

Which is a shame, because on the whole, it's a great time. The upside of it being overstuffed is that there are boatloads of story happening, and outside of the above, all of it is generally as rock solid as usual. The way Horobi tries to make Jin hate humans by refusing to get repaired after sustaining injuries that shouldn't be a problem to fix would be something to question, but fortunately, Jin's childlike state of mind means it's entirely in-character for him not to be able to think through the logic of who's actually at fault at that point. Speaking of the complicated nature of HumaGear mortality, apparently we are actually done with Ikazuchi already. I kind of assumed being one fourth of the organization's namesake would've guaranteed him some extra importance, but no dice.

It was also cool seeing Horobi make the decision to take that hit in super slow-motion while linked to the Ark the same way Aruto can be to Zea. It's a nice little parallel, and I appreciate reminders that these characters are technically supposed to be processing information significantly faster than just a regular person can. There's probably a lot more interesting potential the show has yet to tap from that, but for now I'll just be happy that Aruto finally said "Learning complete" again. I actually think that's a super sweet hero catchphrase to say before turning the tide against some bad guys, and it was slightly worrying when the last time we'd heard it since the premiere was out of a dodo's mouth instead. That phrase was on the promotional posters and stuff, guys! Use it more!

Anyways, yeah, Aruto was great here, and since he's still so good at doing the subdued rage bit, I should probably start remembering his actor's name by now. So props to... *Learning in progress* ...Fumiya Takahashi (no relation to Writer-san, I presume) for turning in another strong performance.

I was going to make a snarky joke after that bit about how letting him do some proper acting even totally justifies how weird it was that Aruto randomly shows up untransformed after already showing up as Zero-One to use Breaking Mammoth... but then I had the epiphany that since he clearly specifically wanted to have that face-to-face chat with Jin to hear him explain his actions... it actually makes total sense why things played out that way. So I guess the fact that the episode moves so fast might be making things seem less coherent than they are, in which case this episode might be even better than I think it is. Huh.