Recap

The Capital Army reveals its new mobile suit, the transforming Elf Bull. Piloted by the mysterious Mask that is totally not Luin, they once again attempt to rescue Bellri and take the fight to the pirates. And once again, Bellri decides for some reason that he’s gonna fight with the pirates despite having been ostensibly kidnapped by them. I think it’s because he feels guilty about killing Cahill? I honestly can’t even tell at this point.

Gee’s Thoughts

Like every week, I’m not exactly sure how to approach G-Reco. On one hand, it introduces a couple more excellent mecha designs and decently entertaining 2D animated robot fight. On the other, it continues to be so incomprehensible at times that I end up having to look up factoids about the latest episode every week, just to confirm that I’m following the plot correctly. It seems that at this point, the pirates aren’t worried about hiding that they’re an Amerian-supported cell anymore and are making a break for it now that the Capital Army knows where they live. While I get that Bellri still feels kinda bad about killing Cahill and is actually planning to escape, I’m still a little mystified by how happily and willing he is to take to the skies and fight people who are ostensibly there to rescue him. I’m also mystified by how willing the pirates are to hand their special prototype suit to a guy they literally kidnapped a week ago. At this point though, I think I’ve accepted that G-Reco characters are never going to truly make sense.

From the mecha standpoint, the newly introduced Elf Bull and Hecate are great looking suits. The Elf Bull is kind of an entirely unique unit in inspiration. Sure it takes from other notable transforming suits in the Gundam franchise, but between the finger lasers and the distinct silhouette, it’s got a great design. It clearly looks like something that can transform, hence the less humanoid shape, but it’s got some genuinely fun gimmicks. Conversely, the Hecate is basically this universe’s Dom, but it still looks great. That axe bayonet on the minigun man. It’s the kinda thing that makes a guy consider buying the gunpla of it for the weapon alone. If there’s something G-Reco has done an excellent job with, it’s the stellar mecha designs. All of the ones they’ve introduced so far feel like genuinely fresh takes on old ideas or are new concepts altogether.

Anyway, now that G-Reco’s plot is beginning to mobilize, maybe things will become more straightforward. Bellri and Noredo’s talk of a future escape has me interested, if merely because so far, neither has indicated the interest in it at all. I’m still half expecting Bellri to change his mind at the last second.