Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Ars Nova

[Kraco]

In the past we saw how Gunzou didn't have a worry in the world when walking around on land or accepting dubious invitations. After this episode it's clear that as long as he's with Iona, nothing short of another mental model or a nuke could likely hurt him. So, Gunzou did know but, few of the other humans had any knowledge, only a hunch, perhaps.

For some reason Iona is made less human than the other mental models. Her face is always very expressionless, far more so than Haruna's, for example, and her behavior is hardly better. Who knows why, especially since she's the one with most time spent with humans.

Haruna is still my favourite.

[shinta|hikari]

I blame poor character design. Iona was adorable in the manga.

Strangely though, I have always thought that Haruna was a loli. Her dynamite bod in the anime was surprising, but excellent nevertheless.

[Buffalobiian]

Even though Iona is siding with the humans, she's still retaining her Fog mentality of following orders. The only thing different about her is that someone changed her order from "Obey the Fog" to "Obey Gunzou". The other mental models all have their own little personality quirks, Fog-loyalty or not. Kirishima in particular seems to have her spunk from the get go. Aside from the submarine mental models, all the other ones seem somewhat capable of having fun.

[Kraco]

Oh, having a glance at older posts I was reminded of Bill's good point earlier: What will happen to Makie without her arsenal of pills. I certainly hope the story won't simply forget that little detail, haha. I'd assume some of them are far less necessary than others and some might even be there for the sake of security: Like some purposefully missing enzyme; so that lacking it would kill Makie in a week or something. However, most should probably serve a role to stabilise her body. Since all of her brethren didn't survive for medical reasons, it would make sense she's only hanging there barely. However, this is hardly the kind of show that would see her die, I believe. Haruna would be so sad if she did...

[Buffalobiian]

I just came up with the hax, but quite possible answer: Nanomachines cure all!

[shinta|hikari]

Yeah, they would.

[Kraco]

Episode 7 - HS







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Yeah, they did.

I suppose it was indeed the only explanation existing for Takao's prompt defeat, but it's still quite interesting Gunzou's private navy had another mental model on their side. It's also quite necessary to make their history of victories more believable. Gunzou keeps getting better as a main character for this sort of show. He shows no regret whatsoever when deciding to abandon the base, even though it must feel like the only place they could call a home and must have played a big part in supporting their operations. Yet he's far from cold. He's also big enough not to harbour ill will toward the enemies, treating them always respectfully, including not being soft during battles. I reckon his decision to let Takao decide for herself was quite crafty and in line with his tactical genius.

Regardless, he should have his hands full trying to avoid Kongou's retribution. I wonder if he's planned a role for Takao in surviving that. The other mental models won't be of awesome help considering they are shipless. I'd like to see him employ multiple ships in battles, though, not always Iona alone.

[lelouch]

I watched the first 15 minutes of this series. Couldn't get through any more without shooting myself.

[shinta|hikari]

Shoot yourself then.

[Buffalobiian]

Iona and her slamming torpedoes into everyone. :3 (Now equipped with Vibration warheads!)

[Kraco]

Episode 8 - HS




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As expected, Kongou wasn't so easily won over. Although I'd find it hard to believe Gunzou would have been counting on that so solidly. Maybe he planned to get something else out of this as well, aside from the jackpot of Kongou & Maya getting "contaminated", but at the very least it seems like this allowed/forced Haruna & Kirishima to realise they are already different from the Fog stock. Who knows if those two are good for much more than deflecting a few rounds before they are out of juice, but even that could matter considering how much the odds are against them.

One interesting thing is Takao, though. It's possible Iona could sneak past the siege, being a submarine, but no such luck for Takao. So, we ought to see a nice naval battle where Gunzou will need to devise tactics beyond a single ship (on his side). Naturally Hyuuga can help as well as long as they are near the island. To keep things realistic some kind of diversion might be appropriate.

[David75]

Kongou thought that leaving her core on her ship would protect her from getting spoiled by those human feelings.
Well, she was wrong.
She did feel the warmth of a true tea, she did smile at Maya playing, she did take a bite of the BBQ.

She was careful and all, but the seeds are there already. The only thing is to know wether they'll grow fast enough.

Now, we still do not know what the fog is.
We do not know why they evolved to mental models.
And these mental models crave for some humanity, their party time closed space, Haruna's crave for words and phrases etc... strange. As is they had a routine/subprocess specifically designed for them to side with humans provided they can teach them how to feel human.

[Kraco]

Kongou thought that leaving her core on her ship would protect her from getting spoiled by those human feelings.
Well, she was wrong.
She did feel the warmth of a true tea, she did smile at Maya playing, she did take a bite of the BBQ.

She was careful and all, but the seeds are there already. The only thing is to know wether they'll grow fast enough.

If we are talking about that much, they might have been there even before she landed on the island. Maya was already more human like (or a human kid like) than Iona, that's for sure. Takao and Hyuuga are certainly surprisingly human, and it seems like they became like that simply from being beaten by Gunzou in naval battles! It didn't take tea or BBQ parties, that's for sure. In fact both Haruna and Kirishima seem more human than Iona. Actually, even Kongou does...

Well, anyway, I also think Kongou has been underestimating the danger, or potential, since the weakness is so severe it's more like a feature, not a weakness. In the first place, had she still been pure Fog, she wouldn't even have accepted the invitation, she would have simply attacked immediately. All the human like meetings with other mental models and studying humanity changed her, without actually meeting any humans.

[Kraco]

Episode 9 - HS






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When Gunzou was still standing on the beach it already started to look like he wouldn't be pulling off any really fancy tactics this time. And indeed he proceeded relying more on his gambler's side than master tactician's. I suppose it paid off, in a manner of speaking, but to be realistic the odds were far too much against him. It was just his lonely sub, Takao, and crippled Hyuuga against a whole fleet of fully supplied Fog ships. Kind of interesting he still decided not to use Iona's supergravity cannon for anything. When you are badly outmatched, it's risky to try to keep an ace up your sleeve just in case and not put it on the table; after all, you might lose before you had the chance to play it.

One noteworthy thing here was how Gunzou had no interest in trying to sink enemy ships. Perhaps it would have been arrogant, but in the end submarines, especially, are all about attack. At least he naturally had the decency to risk his own life most of all in his high gamble. It's rather interesting that never visited Kongou's mind, despite Kongou preaching the Fog ships and mental models are nothing but expendable weapons with no other priority but to follow orders, no matter the cost. She clearly didn't expect Gunzou to be able of the same.

[David75]

In a way what you wrote made me think Gunzou does not show lots of human feelings. Or at least I do not remember well if they ever did show him expressing his feelings.
Regarding strategies and tactics, he was still able to decide the precise timing when he should reallocate all processing to super-speed calculations.

[Buffalobiian]

It's a little weird how processing power is used in this show in regards to not being able to fire the supergravity cannon 2 times without resting. It's as if processing is required to recover from it somehow.

As for human feelings, Iona advanced the most (or at least, showed it the most compared to previous episodes). Before she was just all "I'm your ship", but she reveals that she gets something out of it.

Still loving Takao, but MVP today goes to Hyuuga.

[Kraco]

I wonder if Iona has seemed less emotional than quite a few other mental models because the others have had much more preprogrammed emotions. Looking at Maya, for example, while she's a pure, uncontaminated Fog ship, she's still running all over the place heedlessly. Apparently Iona was a blank slate in the beginning (as we actually saw), so all of her emotions would be naturally developed over time. But then again, it looks like submarines are somewhat stiff in general.

[Kraco]

Episode 10 - HS





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Poor Takao. Right when I was hoping this show would expand to larger scale naval warfare. But I guess they wanted this to remain a single submarine vs the world story. I suppose Takao will still remain in one form or another, but likely not in the second hottest mental model form (after Haruna). Practically speaking this might make their journey to North America much easier since it'd be difficult to sneak across the ocean on a heavy cruiser. The new submarine looks like it will kick major ass, at the very least. Certainly it should, after such a sacrifice.

I will miss Takao if she doesn't retain interactivity.

[Buffalobiian]

Takao = Best Girl. :'(

The Iona look-alikes need to die. I would ask Iona to make room for Takao as well, but that doesn't seem possible. Surely someone could spare a few nanomachines to animate Takao in some kind of avatar though? I wonder what that would be..

[shinta|hikari]

They just need to win and gain control of nanomaterial production, then produce as many lolis mental model bodies as they want.