Take everything you thought you knew about this series and then turn it sideways. This episode set the stage for a huge revelation which will be in the next episode.
Everyone is on the freeway it seems, zipping back to Tokyo as fast as they can drive. Kasumi and Asuha are in the lead on their motorcycle, picking off the Unknown as they race down the road. However they are seperated when a laser attack from one Unknown creature snaps the piece holding the passenger compartment to the motorcycle, and Kasumi is left alone in the middle of the road thanks to an unobservant Asuha.
Behind them on the highway are Aoi and Hotaru in their Jeep. Hotaru continues to use her World power to slay all the Unknown flying around them, and she looks almost as powerful as Maihime in the heat of battle.
There’s a flashback and we get a peek at Hotaru’s backstory. When she awoken from cold sleep she’d lost her memory thanks to an error while she was unconscious. She was recruited to do behind-the-scenes defense work for the three major cities, until she was assigned to assassinate Maihime. A second flashback later shows that Hotaru and Maihime did fight against each other, with Hotaru winning, but the confrontation sparked Hotaru’s memory and she recognized Maihime. Maihime forgives Hotaru for taking so long to find her again and keep her promise of reuniting with her after the war (which wasn’t her fault because of her memory loss, really), so Hotaru makes a second promise, but it’s muted for the viewer.
In the present Hotaru and Aoi find Kasumi, and almost leave him behind except for Aoi swinging him into the Jeep at the last moment.
At Headquarters Airi has finally arrived, and she immediately rushes to begin sealing off the hole in the barrier over Tokyo. Maihime has to battle against all the humanoid-looking Unknown in the meantime, which is made more difficult by the big Boss Unknown showing up. Oh shit. X_x
Kasumi convinces Aoi and Hotaru to stop en route to Tokyo; he has a plan that will get Hotaru there faster than driving. Basically Kasumi uses his sniper gun to break up and seperate chunks of the highway, and Asuha shoots ice bullets at the Unknown to freeze but not kill them, and together the two of them build a bridge for Hotaru to cross directly to Tokyo.
Back on the battlefield, Maihime has been touched by the Unknown’s offensive ability which is either capping or draining her strength. Whereas she used to be able to kill the humanoid Unknown in one hit, now her attacks are barely doing any damage. She is running out of energy and the Unknown queen is still undamaged. Will Hotaru make it to Maihime’s side in time?
The answer is yes (although given Canaria’s death so early in the series, for a few minutes I really wasn’t sure!). Finally at the last possible moment, when the Unknown have Maihime physically in their clutches, shots ring out and the crowd of Unknown surrounding Maihime is destroyed. The chip on Maihime’s neck has been damaged though.
Hotaru goes into overdrive and uses her three strike World abilities to eradicate the masses of Unknown flying around the tower she and Maihime are on. Airi finally manages to get the barrier reactivated and as it starts to close, the Unknown begin their retreat.
However something is wrong. At Headquarters, they can no longer get any information on Maihime’s stats, now that her chip is not functioning correctly. But aside from providing basic vitals on a person, it also has another function, one which has ceased to work…
As Kasumi and Aoi watch helplessly, Hotaru lays the killing blow on the last Unknown while Maihime lies limp in her embrace. She mouths something to Kasumi (which he sees from watching through his scope); though the word is not said aloud, and I can’t lipread Japanese to save my life, I’m guessing that it’s a Japanese word for “fake”. I am not sure if Aoi and Kasumi still have the chips on their necks, but Maihime and Hotaru definitely don’t have theirs anymore.
My thoughts: GUYS GUYS SHIT GETS REAL NEXT EPISODE!! Now, finally, secrets are starting to be revealed. We see a big one mentioned in the preview for next week’s episode, and oh man I’m so excited because I think we might learn more about Airi and Gutoku too.
I wonder why the Unknown focused their attacks mainly on Tokyo, and not the other two cities or Umihotaru?
I like that Qualidea Code has evolved from focusing mostly on Ichiya and Canaria to the other representatives. I wouldn’t have guessed at the beginning of the season that this was where the show was going to go, but it’s such a sideways twist that I love it and wish more shows would use a similar tactic. It’s making me want to go retroactively adjust my score to Hundred, which I initally gave a perfect score but am now finding it paling in comparison to Qualidea Code.
NEXTEPISODEPLZKTHXBAI
Having watched episode 8 (since it was released today for Crunchyroll Premium members), I think your prediction was a major understatement.
I’ve got a very strong hunch as to what’s going on, especially with events in the following episode, but I started to get suspicious back in episode 3 where they talked about sending students ‘inside’. What really caught my attention was how they were sending that one injured student ‘inside’ to be with his parents…except that all of the students were in cold sleep for decades. How exactly are their parents still around?
On top of that, we have never once seen one of the students actually die. For example, Canaria was there and then she was not there, with a chunk of the ground missing. The students who were taken out in the previous episode had some Unknown thing land on top of them, so again, we didn’t see them die. Not even a blood splatter or some indication that they actually died.
And that’s not even counting the revelations made in episode 8. Something is definitely very wrong here.
i think you’re probably right and I’m looking forward to seeing how accurate your prediction is. 8D