Finally got back to this.

We join our heroes on the way to the competition in Tokyo. In a flashback, we learn that the creator of the game gladly gave them to code to use the game's control system with their robot, and with a little help from the electronics shop owner, they were ready to go in a week.

Their first Robo-One match is against a previous winner, and fortunately, Kai's ability to analyze the enemy's moves really pays off, and he flattens him handily.

Mercifully, we are spared the one thing I hate in anime, the interminable fighting tournament, filled with spectators analyzing the action, and the contestants salvaging a win out of a loss by rampant rules lawyering. Instead, we get a montage, leading quickly to the finale.

The finale is against a suspiciously familiar person, dressed in a Char Ensemble :-) calling himself Mr. Pleiades. Kai instantly recognizes him behind the mask as their classmate Hidaka Subaru. This instantly puts his showmanship off balance, and he denies it. Kai even points out that Subaru is the Japanese name for the Pleiades.

The match is a tough one, with the club's robot getting knocked down twice vs. once for M-45. What doesn't help is that Kai is apparently subject to the same kind of micro seizures as Aki, and we get momentary flashbacks to something horrible that must have happened to him as a kid on some ship. It nearly costs him the match, but he is able to pull off one last move. The toy has a mode where it sits down and wheels in the butt propel it forward, thus carrying both robots out of the ring. We're left for the moment with the impression that this might have won it for them, but no, it actually counts as the third fall for their bot, so they lose.

At the highshool, the vice principal gives them a day to clear their belongings out of the clubhouse, but Kai has one ace up his sleeve. He's managed to summon Subaru to the office, and hands him a cardboard copy of the mask, well, more like "forces on him" rather than "hands". Basically at that moment, he blackmails Subaru into joining the club (something Aki has been unable to do for the past year), and thus, the Robotics club DID win the Robo-One competition. Rules Lawyering saves the day!

There are some other elements. Aki's older sister is revealed to have been the Robo-One champion 9 years earlier. She's apparently not talking to anyone in the family, and she's working for some guy in a possibly sinister corporation (is there any other kind in Anime?) that is taking an unusual interest in the competition and our heroes.

And some celebrity girl named Frau Koujirou is on the plane with them as they return to their home island of Tanegashima, and a small handful of the press is there to quiz her about her arrival. The credits make it clear that she's going to be part of the club.

Posted by: Mauser at 11:41 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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