I completely forgot that I hadn’t done a post about this episode yet.  Guess that’s what happens when you watch two series that air on the same day.

We begin the episode with Pina fending off a bandit attack at Italica.

A nice chunk of the first part of this episode is dedicated to a flashback from Pina’s childhood and the creation of her Order of the Rose.

It started out with just Pina and her friends playing around, but it seems Pina took it seriously and had her girls trained for real.  Years later, they became a formal order and were used for… honor guard duty.  I mean, let’s be fair: the empire isn’t going to go and waste their entire stock of hot chicks in armor.  That’s a rare commodity.

Itami’s group spots the smoke coming from Italica and… goes toward it.  Because they were planning on going there anyway, so fuck it; no smoke’s gonna stop MY shopping day!  Pina sees a mage, an elf, and RORY FUCKING MERCURY step out of one of the jeeps and figures she’s screwed if she makes enemies of them, so she tries to win them over.  She opens a gate and accidentally knocks out Itami.  Not a good start.

Oh, we also finally have confirmation of Pina’s full name.

Pina introduces the JSDF to Miu, the figurehead leader of Italica, and assigns them to aid in the city’s defense… by placing them on the south wall as bait.  Turns out the bandits don’t fall for her novice tactics and attack a different side, easily taking over the wall and opening a gate.

We close out the episode with Itami basically telling us that the ball’s in Pina’s court, as he apparently won’t have his men to support her without her specific orders.

Pretty good episode, but pretty slow pacing yet again.  The series has gotten a LOT better with the violence; there weren’t any noticeable discretion shots as several people on both sides were seen getting killed onscreen.  It’s a nice first step, and I don’t think we’ll get any further than that.  We definitely weren’t getting any of the torture, rape and implied necrophilia of the manga… and that’s probably for the better.

Definitely looking forward to the next episode and hoping we get us some Ride of the Valkyries.  But man, this pacing…  I mean, it’s not plot pacing that bothers me.  It’s just that something about this series consistently makes it feel as if half the episode goes by without anything happening, even if I can objectively look back and say important things did happen.  It just FEELS that way for some reason, and I can’t help but feel that it doesn’t have to.