Recap: After some introductions with Team Doberman, our heroes go on a mission to destroy a Wulgaru base.

Iro’s Thoughts:
Practicing with their new senpais back on Earth, Team Rabbits is back to being a bunch of failures. Thankfully, Team Doberman is a bunch of goofy bros instead of an ultra serious squad of experts. In fact, they have their own silly nickname: the Bummer Three. It makes both the audience and our heroes feel at ease with the new characters, instead of wary that they’ll upstage Team Rabbits. It also increases the chances they’ll get horrendously murdered later on, but what can ya do.

Randy in particular seems to be acting as a big brother for Izuru, lecturing him on what it really means to be a hero: of course, being a pretty boy and gettin’ all the ladies! Also teamwork and trust, I guess. This somehow manages to segue into the tired and almost-always moronic anime gag where everyone accidentally watches porn, but MJP even makes this joke hilarious instead of stupid. It’s like living in a bizarro world when I’m watching this show – I marvel every time at how this show manages to step right up to the line of cliches that I hate, and make them funny and endearing instead.

We round off the episode with an excellent action sequence (I’ve never been too keen on CG mecha, but MJP is selling me pretty well on it) as our heroes infiltrate a Wulgaru base and use the power of TEAMWORK to repair their bomb and blow the base to hell. For the first time since the first episode, we see our heroes fully succeed and take their first steps towards being a cohesive unit of badass pilots. It’s a great fist-pump moment to end the episode on, and I’m looking forward to next week.

Lifesong’s Thoughts:
Pro wrestling? Thank you for the best laugh I’ve had in some time Tamaki. I love the characterization in this episode. The joke with the porn tape shows up that for all of Tamaki’s fascination with boys she is actually pretty clueless. I can hear someone screaming out that she is the innocent anime girl so of course she doesn’t know anything about sex. I like the way personality is established even if her character really isn’t that deep.

Toshikazu must be suffering from stomach ulcers or something. His decision to stay outside was clearly based off his survival instincts and not just a desire to protect Tamaki. The actual fight inside the base was a bit silly. I can forgive the random lasers and unlimited missiles since we got some more characterization out of this scene. Ataru clearly knows his bombs, and despite Kei’s cold personality she is quick to cover for Ataru in a pinch.

The biggest question I have right now is where this anime is going with the whole hero thing. I suspect Team Doberman will get killed and our characters will have some sobering experience about the cruelty of war. I am just not sure where the whole hero thing will fit in. Will Izuru learn that being a hero means something different than he thinks? Or maybe his survival instincts are greater than himself? I can’t wait to find out.