Level E 08-10

Yes, they’re still out there

It’s been a long while since some Level E has graced its presence here on Metanorn. Well, mainly because I’ve been sort of MIA these past few weeks due to massive amounts of work and school related stuff. Spring break is finally here for me but it just means more work. Nevertheless, it means that the winter anime is nearing to an end. So bear with me on this three episode review but indeed a lot has happened and it’s only getting better even with so little episodes left.

A couple is on a trip in the mountains for Christmas. Meanwhile Craft and his men are in the same mountains waiting the arrival of an alien spacecraft. The Princess of the Macbac race has come to Earth for ‘observation’ purposes but really it is to find a mate and it’s Craft’s job to escort the Princess during her trip.

After meeting the Princess and waiting for her to change into human guise, Colin compliments their new visitors and mentions Prince. Speaking of Prince, Craft comes into realization about Prince’s knowledge of the Princess Saki’s arrival. Fortunately for them, Prince is far away collecting herbs and comments on not getting in the way of mating. Sado continues his alien lesson saying that the Macbac is an all female race who’s Queen seeks a mate in another alien race. But upon learning about the race, Craft becomes against the Princess’ arrival and seeks to find a way to make her leave. Apparently, the Macbac’s mate through a virus in the Queen, loses its ability to reproduce and becomes an airborne virus that covers the entire planet; affecting all males.

Oh shit moment

If women ruled the world?

Meanwhile Mikihisa and Satomi, the couple from the beginning, arrive in their hotel room and Satomi is surprised at the sharing of one bed. Craft’s group arrives at the hotel and it’s established that the Princess is speaking their alien language still. Craft makes many attempts to dissuade the Princess’ view on humans. Drinking tea in the lounge, Craft rants to Sado and Colin about his frustrations. In the background, Satomi and Mikihisa gets off the elevator and Satomi is leaving because of Mikihisa’s advancements. The group leaves the hotel while Mikihisa goes back inside alone. As the Princess and Mikihisa pass by, they have their electrifying love at first sight with Craft in the middle to try to translate. The group takes the conversation inside and Craft tries to give misleading translations to make the two not like each other. The girls walk off and has Colin to take Mikihisa away.

As Craft thinks he won, Colin is knocked down by the girls, leaving Mikihisa and the Princess to run away. A chase goes on and the couple makes their to the top of the mountain after some romantic moments. But they are intercepted by Craft who found out some surprising news. Mikihisa is a girl?! Upon learning that, Princess Saki decides to leave Earth. Craft expresses no remorse but triumph at the Princess’ leave until entering the hotel room and finding Prince!

He is a SHE!?!

Of course, Prince knew all along about the Macbac visit because Craft made the mistake of booking the hotel using the house phone which is bugged. Prince also points out that they shouldn’t trust the Princess’ leave and we find that Colin was bugged by the Princess. Falling in love with a female is no problem if you can change the gender and it seems to be an easy alien method.

Durrrr

Prince: “Teeheehee“

Meanwhile, Mikihisa receives a note. After much frustration of Prince pointing out things that Craft missed, Craft goes after Mikihisa but finds the room empty with a burnt note. Prince remakes the note so that Craft and his men can go to the meeting point but is too late because Mikihisa already got abducted. The Princess performs some probing on Mikihisa and later Mikihisa awakes alone in her bedroom.

I’m gonna keeeel you, I’m gonna keeel you mofo~!!

Across Mikihisa’s apartment, Colin and Craft have been peeping on Mikihisa who has not changed into a male yet. Meanwhile Prince is lounging and waiting for Sado to serve a New Years meal. Apparently Mikihisa has no memories of the past few days and it will take some time for the gender change to take effect. Prince and his men follow Mikihisa around and Craft goes crazy to the point of kidnapping Mikihisa to try to give her a vaccine. But before they can cure Mikihisa, Prince tells them to run a test on their vaccine which turns out that Mikihisa has a anti-vaccine in her.

The group returns Mikihisa to where they stopped her and continue their surveillance. Prince comes up with a solution to their problem and Craft goes for it no matter what method. Such a bad decision for Craft to trust Prince, but after hearing the method, they have no other choice. Meanwhile, the Princess is going through sleep-learning to learn about Earth and its language.

Maybe killing Mikihisa would be easier then Prince’s method?

A few months later, Princess Saki and a now male Mikihisa cross paths and have yet another love at first site. As the two walk away together, we see Prince and his men watching. Craft is unhappy with their method of cloning Mikihisa and putting a anti-virus in the clone to destroy the evil viruses in the Princess. As well, they made it so the real Mikihisa would not fall in love with the Princess and modified his/her memories. But alas, Craft could not come up with a better plan but of course Prince had another method but warns he chose the one that would weigh least on Craft’s conscience. Prince explains the method to Craft…

Yes, I shouldn’t have asked. The end.

Now begins another arc, a creepy fat rich man has acquired an alien mermaid and upon lying to her, he is stabbed through the head. Three guys are waiting outside discussing what to do with the mermaid and the leader mentions that they’ll stuff and sell her when they’re done. The woman exits the mansion to meet the men and they leave to their next job.

We are back with the Color Rangers again. It’s announced in class that Shimizu (Blue) is going to move to America because of his fathers job. Everyone is surprised and Momochi (White) starts arguing with Shimizu who plays things off cool and mentions that he’s leaving the next day.

On his way home, Shimizu lets out his frustrations and hears some noises nearby. Upon finding the source of the noise, Shimizu sees a wounded woman and goes for help but she stops him, identifying herself as an alien. Of course this doesn’t bother Shimizu because his sensei is an alien and the mermaid explains that if he lied, her tongue would have stabbed him. Shimizu remembers Momochi can heal but he also got into a fight with his friends. The mermaid pushes Shimizu to go apologize to his friends and has a flashback of her home. After Shimizu leaves, the mermaid walks away. Shimizu runs to find his friends and apologizes to them. Everyone but Mayuzumi (Black) and Yokota (Yellow) accept his apology. Shimizu explains about the woman and the group runs off to help.

The boys find the woman to be gone and end up arguing again about not forgiving Shimizu until Akagawa (Red) yells at them. The boys then split up looking for the woman and hear gunshot noise near a sewage entrance. The boys transform and enter the sewage. In the sewage, the woman is unconscious and the three guys from before are with her. The leader who shot the woman, says that they can’t stuff her unless she transforms to her real form and a hand extends out to heal her. The Color Rangers have arrived and the woman wakes up healed.

The woman explains that the three guys are poachers who make money selling off other living creatures and came upon her species which consisted of only five. To survive, the woman said she would get a certain amount of customers for the poachers if they let the other four mermaids go. The poacher leader goes on talking, drops his weapon, saying that the shot was an accident and they will return her home. Somehow this isn’t a lie and the woman walks towards the poachers but Akagawa fires at one of the men. The boys go on the attack and the poacher leader reveals his true form.

The boys defeat the poachers and even with some unexpected help. Mayuzumi reveals that the poachers used some device that made it seem like their lies were truth. The woman asks about the other four mermaids and the poacher (unable to lie) tells that they were sold and are probably dead. The woman takes the gun from Shimizu and kills the men.

On the beach, the boys watch as the woman buries her locket and comforts her that she isn’t alone. The woman leaves into the ocean and Shimizu vents his frustration of not wanting to leave for America which he isn’t now since one of the leaders of his father’s company was killed.

Extras:

Where’s Craft?

Sexay lady

No hesitation in taking out your own teammates. FOR THE SAKE OF OUR RACE!

. . . wtf?

Rated PG-13

End Thoughts: Oh my how wonderful it is to have two full episodes of Craft. Even though Craft was sort of an ass throughout the Macbac arc, he was quite humorous in doing so. As well, a whole episode without Prince was a little refreshing. But to think, Prince saying how he won’t interfere with mating, is something odd. But anyway, the whole idea of a female only planet ruled by a queen who mates with other races and chooses Earth as its next target is interesting enough. But poor Craft has the responsibility to protect Earth from the Princess’ true purpose. As well, finding out that Mikihisa is a female was very funny. Unexpected and yet, HE IS A SHE! Trap~

Prince’s return in the following episode was right on time and it meant that Craft’s troubles were not gone just yet. Turning Mikihisa into a male for the sake of love, oh the gender issues presented into this anime turned a complex issue into a funny one. As well, Prince’s solution to the problem versus Craft’s “just kill the woman” solution was quite funny. Watching the guys listen to Prince’s solution sounds like it was really that bad but I think it was just fine.

As for episode ten, it was such a dramatic one. The re-appearance of the Color Rangers wasn’t that bad, I welcomed it compared to having 3 episodes of the Macbac arc. The whole story of the mermaid was indeed sad and somehow the Color Rangers got mixed in to it. The poachers evil intentions was so well shown and obvious that seeing the mermaid blinded to their expressions was just not going to happen while the Color Rangers were there. Seeing the boys in action was funny and with the sensei in the shadows watching over them. One thing that was shocking in this episode was when the mermaid took the gun from Shimizu and killed the poachers. Such violence in this anime and in front of the kids; was unexpected. However, the poachers deserved it and later seeing the mermaid’s pain of losing her family was expressed so well and with the boys comfort, it just completed the whole scene. Kudos to this anime and I look forward to the next episode because Yukitaka, oh how I’ve missed you!!

Preview: A bus containing Yukitaka and his baseball team disappears. It’s up to the Dogurians to find out what happened.