“It’d be nice if the enemy is kind enough to wait until we complete our transformation sequences.” -Elena Peoples
Summary: The episode starts with some sketchy business going between members of the Japanese military and (what I assume is) the private sector involving a fake scub burst. Meanwhile, back at Generation Bleu, Ao is seriously into wanting to train, but Elena and Fleur are more concerned with fanservice swimming and lazing about. Pied Piper gets called to investigate a “Scub Burst”, not realizing it’s an experiment by the Japanese using the damaged quartz of a scub burst that happened 70 years ago. A Secret shows up, and upon learning that their main mission isn’t saving people but retrieving the quartz from the (non-existent) Scub, Ao disobeys orders and goes off to fight it.
Since they’re fighting under water, it’s important that they watch how deep they go, lest they be crushed by the pressure. With some smart thinking, Ao is able to use the Trapar from Elena and Fleur’s IFOs to lure the Secret out, after which he is able to destroy it. The Nirvash and Ao run out of fuel and are almost squished to death by the weight of the water, but luckily the girls show up and save his bacon. Truth is also in the episode and it becomes clear that he’s been manipulating situations in various ways for quite some time now.
Impressions: Another Secret-of-the-Week episode, this time featuring a Secret that looked like one of those evil eels from The Little Mermaid. They threw a bit of a curve ball with the “Let’s have them fight underwater!” thing, but it was good to see something a bit different from the fly around in the air stuff of the last couple of episodes. I think I would like it if Elena and Fleur got to do some more fighting and not so much retreiving of Quartz and saving Ao every once in a while. Oh and hanging around in swim suits (with a cat tail and ears for some reason?)
Speaking of Quartz, finally we learned a little bit more about it! Still don’t know why exactly it’s important, but apparently Secrets like it about as much as a fat kid likes ice cream. Generation Bleu has been hoarding it in some secret location (probably in the basement, which is why they were so scared when Truth broke into their building) for some yet to be revealed purpose. They only want the good stuff though, not the damaged kind that had been reactivated. Only the best for Generation Bleu.
In further “Hey, something is wrong with history!” news, Gazelle, Han, and Pippo talk about a Scub Burst that happened in Tokyo 70 years ago after Japan lost the war (World War 2), which wiped the place off the map and made rebuilding the country even harder. That Burst was what left all the damaged Quartz from this episode. I’m just glad I ordered all of the original Eureka Seven (see Eva’s post here to learn more about that), so I can rewatch it and clear up some of this weird timeline stuff.
Truth solidified his role as someone you do not want to fuck with, otherwise he will flip your car over, with you inside it, so that it explodes in a fiery inferno and you become one very well done goose. It begs the question though; if Truth is off causing all this mayhem, where is she of the giant forehead? Naru is probably the type of hostage/kidnap victim that would very easily succumb to something like Stockholm Syndrome. She’s probably in Truth’s lair (you know he probably has a lair), baking a cake for him or something like that.
Final thought: Ao was sooooo not amused by Fleur and Elena lounging around in their bathing suits on the Nirvash. He clearly is not a normal 13 year old if only because at that age, what boy doesn’t like looking at cute girls in bathing suits?