Welp, if last episode was a basically an 80's Tomino episode of Mobile Suit Gundam, this episode is straight out of 90's Gainax... right down to the egregious fanservice. Bleh...
Also, I was joking about the problematic polycule with the Space Ghost of Char Aznable I didn't think they'd actually go for it lmao
speculation
If Machu and Nyaan are the Amuro and Char of this love triangle (Shuji being Lalah makes waaaay more sense in retrospect) then we can add toxic Yuri to the genre tags here, it's been kinda amazing seeing the ED make both more and less sense as the show goes on
(that visual storytelling through blocking tho)
A lot of people are going to draw comparisons to FLCL here for the first half, and yeah I see it. Teenage angst isn't what interests me in the show though, it's the political commentary: here's hoping Tsurumaki can connect the dots successfully to make the personal political (as I suspect is his intention), but also I get nervous when a character like Nyaan gets depicted in this way since I'm reflexively expecting The Swerve: I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt and wait to see how it plays out tho.
Next week: we assassinate a fascist!
The clan battle had me rolling, I love these weirdly competent psychopaths
also, while I get why people are referencing MS:G, I feel like people are sleeping on the potential of Gundam Zeta. Like is Machu actually Kamille? Would that make Chalia the new Quarto? Or will we get Quarto again (cannot event?)?
I mean, homegirl picked a fight with the Space Po Po like twice now, she's definitely Kamille coded
Also:
Safe to say that Gquuuuuux is Tsurumaki's tribute to the whole of UC and not just 0079 specifically