Recap: The Argos Test team prepares for their first combat trials with Yuuya assigned to test a new long range weapon. While awaiting deployment in the U.S.S.R., they experience the anger and resentment of the pilots on the front lines.

Jel’s Thoughts: Hey, stuff actually happened! Total Eclipse continues to plow ahead in the most straightforward, predictable manner possible, but at least I feel like we’re moving again. On the battle front we’ll finally get back to combat that means something, and on the romance front Yui and Cryska, for whatever reason, continue to warm up to Yuuya. Still, it’s hard to get too excited when the plot pretty much writes itself. I mean did anyone REALLY think Cryska and Inia were in danger in their scene? It was almost laughable how obvious a Knight In Shining Armor setup that was, kind of like the whole Stranded On a Tropical Island thing we just went through.

Since I keep calling the show out for being predictable, and to be honest I don’t have much more to say about this episode, perhaps it would be fun if we played a little game of Oddsmaker to try and guess how the upcoming battle will go. Here’s what I got:

• 3:4 Something goes wrong with the experimental test weapon
• 1:2 …putting Yuuya in a circumstance where it looks like he’s dead, but he’s not
• 1:4 …as a result of him trying to rescue Cryska who’s brain starts shutting down again
• 1:6 …as a result of her “comrades” not coming to her aid and saying horrible things to her
• 1:10 …and with Yuuya presumed dead Yui breaks her vow to never cry again
• 1:25 …prior to which one expendable team member dies
• 1:50 …prior to which more than one team member dies
• 1:100 …but then they are all rescued by new model TSFs that the uncooperative U.S.S.R. was hiding
• 1:10,000 …the new TSFs look like Unicorns with rainbow striped horns
• 1:1 …which I would find highly entertaining

So there you have it folks, place your bets! How many of those items do you think will happen? What do YOU think will happen? Joking aside I hope none of it is that easy to predict, but if it does happen, remember you heard it here first!