Recap: Kai and Frau work to stop the hacker who’s caused the robots in Tokyo to go berserk.

Gee’s Thoughts: I have no idea what the story structure of the original VN is, but it appears that we’ve reached the climax of Frau’s character arc, as she and Kai work together in an attempt to stop the rampaging robots before the police arrive and she’s blamed for the crime. In an utterly contrived series of events, it turns out the only way to stop the hacker is to beat a CPU program at Kill Ballad. What a twist! Only Kai can save us now!

In all seriousness, while the premise itself is utterly stupid, it’s an opportunity to see Kai genuinely care for another person and try his hardest to help. In the end, Kai forces his body into its biological bullet-time mode to stop the cheating program. Now I won’t lie, I find this all to be really quite dumb, but I suppose they had to frame the story in a manner that would make Kai’s increasingly narrow set of talents an actual asset.

However, this episode was a great one for Frau, as we get to learn more about her motivations and past. If any character has really gotten shafted by her backstory, it’s Frau, and you really do feel sorry for her after seeing the shit she’s had to deal with. By the end of the episode, she’s become a fullfledged member of the Robotics Club. And goddamn is the final scene adorable.

My question now is where the series is going to go from here. Ironically enough, out of all the characters, Akiho herself has fallen to the sidelines, which I particularly displeased about. Frau, Subaru, and Jun have all gotten their respective character arcs, but oddly enough, Akiho has gotten no focus at all throughout the entire series. This makes me believe that either the rest of the series will see a shift back to her, or alternatively, since Japanese anime studios can’t write decent stories for shit, she’s going to end up being a contrived plot point later down the road. I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but it seems awfully terrible of Kai to spend so much time helping out the likes of Jun and Frau, going through rather absurd lengths for their sake while at the same time, still treating Akiho as an annoyance not worth his time. For a guy who’s supposed to be one of her best friends, he’s a really shitty one. It reeks of harem anime bullshit and I seriously hope from here on out, Robotics;Notes and Kai both shape up.