IS: Infinite Stratos – 02

Don’t bring a lightsaber to a sniper rifle fight. Doesn’t have quite the same ring, does it?

And so we’re back for a second week, the second of 12 weeks in fact. If you recall the first impression, you’ll remember that while I wasn’t amazed, I was pleasantly surprised at the fact they cut down on breast screen time. I think a lot of us were thankful for that. But, can the second episode stay almost breast free for a second time? Well, yeah. Pretty much.

As you can recall, Ichika was challenged to a duel by the wonderfully British Cecilia Alcott. However, there’s a slight problem with that. You see, Ichika doesn’t actually have an IS. And the school can’t supply him one because he’s a dude. When all hope seems lost, Chifuyu cuts in explaining that he’s being supplied with a government IS, which is incredibly rare. Despite there being an entire school for training IS users, there are only 467 IS Cores on the entire planet. An IS unit needs an IS Core to function, so without the Core, no IS. As some smart ass student explains all this, she mentions the creator of the IS Core, Dr. Tabane Shinonono. Shinonono? That sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Oh yeah! That’s because it’s Houki Shinonono’s older sister. How convenient.

So he’s got an IS. A personalized IS at that. The duel is set and it looks like he could actually have a chance! What could go wrong? What about the fact that he doesn’t even know how to pilot an IS? The first time he piloted one was during the examination and even that seemed to be a complete mistake. He’s not learning anything from classes either, so how on earth is he going to beat Alcott? Quite visually disturbed about this, he asks Houki for help, asking her to teach him about the IS. Her embarrassed reaction is almost painful to watch (mostly because Ichika just can’t take a hint) and she eventually gives in and accepts….

And beats him senseless over and over again in kendo training. It seems that Kendo is actually a brilliant way to train yourself for IS combat (I’m really not sure why) so they continue with that for some time. As the day of the duel arrives Ichika finally receives his personalized IS, Byakushiki. For the second time piloting an IS he actually seems to be pretty damn good. He activates the suit and Chifuya mentions that they only have a certain amount of time to use the arena, so the machine will have to sync with Ichika during the battle. He flies(?) out into the arena to face Alcott in her personalized British IS, Blue Tears. He spots her up in the sky, trash-talking and such. He says some cliché badass anime lines and then SUDDENLY SNIPER RIFLE.

That’s right, Alcott’s weapon of choice (oh God, I feel like listening to Fatboy Slim now) is a sniper, and she pretty much owning Ichika. As he soon finds out while looking for his weapons that his IS, the Byakushiki, is a close-range fighter. Because of this, he seems to only have a sword at this point in time. He gets his ass kicked by missiles and all sorts until he finally gets the hang of piloting the machine. His energy supplies start to run low and all hope seems lost, until his IS finally syncs. It transforms into the Byakushiki V2 (not really) and his sword transforms into a lightsaber. As he dashes towards Alcott to deal the final blow, his energy reserves deplete completely and Alcott claims victory. Turns out that his new lightsaber sword actually drains his own energy to hurt the opponent. As green-haired mechanic puts it, a double-edged sword. It was also the sword that Chifuyu used in a certain battle before she turned old and crusty.

As Ichika and Houki are walking back to their dorms, Houki asks in her usual painful manner whether or not Ichika would want to continue his training with her. Be nice though incredibly clueless he agrees and Houki gets all happy. Everyone lives happily ever after and Alcott thinks of Ichika in the shower. Nice to know there’s nothing new in the world on Anime.

End Thoughts

The best thing about that one IS going to NZ? It goes to Wellington. That’s right, I’m the second dude who can pilot an IS.

Robot turn her on. Now that the class knows, her life is over.

Thunderbirds are go!

“Don’t worry. This is only my second time piloting an extremely explosive and expensive piece of machinery that not everyone understands. I”ll be fine.” Yeah right.

How are they keeping this up?! Two weeks and two episodes without any large amounts of fan service? They must be loosing stock or something because this seems to good to be true. They will probably have the mother of all hot springs / beach episodes and everyone will be talking about for years to come. The pace certainly slowed down this episode and they explained a few finer details about the IS, and to be honest that’s what I’m really interested in. I don’t care if someone’s older sister actually invented the goddamn thing, I wanna know how it works! Of course it would base itself on a sort of ‘living machine’ principal where the machine syncs with you and all that jazz. Could you relate it to the heart of the cards, or something? That would be awesome.

And like I said earlier, it’s just so goddamn convenient that Houki’s sister just so happened to INVENT the IS Core. That might as well play a massive role in the story, and it’ll probably come in fairly soon. Oh, and she’s gone missing as well! Gone into hiding, making a massive IS army, most likely. Or captured. Why must you make it so obvious! And I apologize for my false information last episode, they don’t actually play super soccer or super golf. They do actually fight, but only for recreation, which is a little disappointing. I would’ve paid to see super golf.

And I’m truly sorry, people who are fans, but I just don’t like the mecha designs. They look alright when the characters are inside them, but just on their own they are ugly. And it doesn’t help that the 3D tech they use in the battles just makes things look ugly. I really think 3D is what anime needs to catch up on. You’ll be surprised how much 3D is actually in anime episodes you watch, and it usually goes unnoticed. However, when 3D is used for the characters, that’s where it sucks. If they invested in a new tech that used mo-cap, then I would be interested. Have you ever seen a properly mo-capped 3D scene in anime? If you have, please let me know, I wanna see what it looks like.

Judging from the preview, it looks like we’re gonna get introduced to a new character! Not only that, but it if I’m not mistaken, it could be a loli character, and a Chinese one at that. She’s the Chinese representative and is also another friend of Ichika’s. He’s pretty popular, isn’t he?

About Hato-kun

I'm Hato, born and raised in glorious New Zealand and a self-proclaimed awesome person. I started writing here in July and I'm loving it so far! I'm Metanorn's go-to Moe Man (lol) and the games guru, so don't be shy to say hello!