Oh man, you don’t know how many times I feel asleep during this week’s episode. But I think I owe it to a few folks to see this through to the end, so here’s the latest post.

— Daichi undergoes a test where we see how much energy he can output with his Livlaster. The folks on the Tenkaidou are disappointed to see Daichu only measure around 1.7 gigajoules. Teppei apparently didn’t do much better at 1.8 gigajoules. Why are these numbers important, you ask? “A minimum of 2.0 gigajoules is required to fire the boosted plasmagnum.” Plasmagnum. Plasmagnum. You can’t make this shit up.

— Meanwhile, Teppei is having a swim in the giant Tenkaidou pool. Why does this space station, which exists to watch for oncoming Kiltgang attacks, have a pool? Uh, why not? Yeah. The two operators we often see are also here to flirt with Teppei. Neato. Don’t hold your breath if you’re expecting this to lead anywhere, though.

— Everyone gets giant, uncomfortable-looking breasts! You too, lady! Especially because you’re old. But what are they doing here? Tsubaki heard that her daughter Akari and Hana were friends, so she just wants to have a quick talk with Hana. She then regrets that she she has only been a mother to Akari when it has been convenient for her. Hana, being the overly positive character that she is — I mean, ever since she stopped running away from Daichi — gives Akari’s mom words of encouragement, so they share a tender, mother-daughter embrace afterwards. The entire time I’m watching this, I’m thinking, “Gee, that’s nice, but uh… why don’t you just go and do the same with Akari?” I mean, when was the last time Tsubaki apologized to her daughter for the distance between them? And she goes and says those same words to Hana instead? That’s not fair.

The truth is, it’s too safe and easy to say these words to Hana. It lets Tsubaki feel all motherly, and at the same time, she doesn’t really have to put her feelings out there and risk Akari’s rejection. To put it bluntly, Tsubaki’s a wuss. Yeah, I’m going in hard on the lady, but I have no sympathy for her position. I know Tsubaki has certain, very important responsibilities onboard the Tenkaidou. Nevertheless, I find it hard to believe, however, that there isn’t even a single person around who is capable enough to take over Tsubaki’s position for at least a couple days just so the lady can spend some quality time with her own daughter. I’ve always heard the following: no matter how busy someone might be, if they really want to be with you, they’d make time to be with you. Perhaps that explains Tsubaki’s actions more than she would like to admit.

— Daichi meets the creepy-looking Professor Canis, one of the people responsible for the Kivotos Plan. Needless to say, he is a staunch supporter of the Ark Faction as well. You also know he’s evil precisely because he’s creepy-looking.

— Throughout the episode, our hero keeps insisting that he isn’t a hero. Well, it’s good not to be arrogant, but c’mon, you’re fighting to protect the planet from alien invaders. It’s okay to call yourself a hero.

— On the trip back to earth, our heroes find out they’ve been sabotaged. So instead, they crash land somewhere in the middle of Nowhere, Australia.

Considering how Tenkaidou also doubles as a place that houses thousands upon thousands of souls for the Kivotos Plan, I feel like the good guys should’ve seen this coming. Why wouldn’t you expect to run into extremists in one of their primary bases of operation? Westvillage adds that there are “[h]undreds of staff members… on the Tenkaidou.” Odd how we never see any of them.

— I hate these scenes so much. Sander is furiously typing away at his station as he screams, “The Flugel has crash-landed!” What the fuck are you typing? What is there to type?

— Boring exposition follows where Puck tells Amara and Moco that infinite energy output is theoretically possible if you can master the Livlasters. I mean, if you’re going to feed me exposition, you may as well explain your most outlandish statement. So how is it possible that the Livlasters can generate infinite energy? Go on. I’ve got all day. Unlike Mahouka‘s shitty explanations about magic that I give no shit about, I would just love to hear about the magic of infinite energy.

…

No? I thought not.

— Apparently, Kube has been a complete hornball as Kube, so his secretary is about to dump him any second now. Oh, that Puck… one taste of human sexuality, and he’s already turned into Tiger Woods.

— Pitz is freaking out, because Hana is about to be in danger. We then cut to the creepy-looking Professor Canis, who says, “Pluck the flower.” Nasty, dude. She’s a child!

— Aaaaaaaah, even in the middle of the desert, Teppei enjoys a nice bento lunch that his admirers aboard the Tenkaidou had made for him. What’s that round, purple thing, I wonder.

— Hana asks Daichi about his mom. I hope it turns out she’s his mom. That would be great.

— Eventually, unmanned drones show up to attack our three kids. Yeah, unmanned. Even so, Teppei tells Daichi to prepare the eventuality that they may have to kill someone one day. But let’s be real: nobody ever dies in this anime. Nobody. Even when the Kiltgang attacked, nobody died. The Kiltgang are also practically mortal just so we can see the good guys blow them up over and over. Teppei makes it sound like the story can turn dark at any moment, but after eighteen episodes, this tiger ain’t going to change its stripes. Captain Earth is what it is, and it’s not going to allow its characters — even the primary villains — to shed any blood on screen. People die, but always offscreen. No, I don’t want the show to be as over-the-top violent as, say, Akame ga Kill!, but surely, there’s a middle ground somewhere.

— Sure enough, Daichi runs into a “tough” choice: Teppei’s mecha gets one of its legs blown off, so he tells Daichi to take Hana and run. In any other story, this would actually be a tough choice. But in magical anime land where Daichi can just pull a super move right out of his ass, the choice is simple: you leave nobody behind. As such, Daichi grabs his gun, leaps into the air, and fires off two beams of energy like so:

I-i-i-infinite energy! Afterwards, he remarks that he had managed to hit 5.8 jigawatts in power. Neato.

— Officially, Daichi makes the decision to save Teppei because he doesn’t want to follow fate blindly, blah blah blah. I’m only including this for the sake of completion. Anyway, our heroes get out of yet another predicament for now, but the Ark Faction is still around to make shitty flower puns. We can’t have very many episodes left, so I can’t help but wonder how they’ll build to a finale from here.

— Yikes, this is apparently the blog’s 1000th post. It could’ve been special, man… it could’ve been special. But you ruined it, Captain Earth!