AKB0048 Next Stage Ep 5: Undercover Operation

While the elected members are to perform, the 77th Generation goes undercover to gather intelligence on what’s going within the D.G.T.O military base on Baltistar where high ranking officials and powerful people are visiting.

Hi guys, I’ll be filling in for Vantage this week!
Impression:
While this episode was partially about the investigation, there was a huge focus on Mikoto trying to cope with her loss and being overwhelmed by her negatively.
I will be honest with you guys. Makoto is one of the characters I disliked… err well not dislike (that’s a bit too strong), but felt indifferent towards her character since the first season because I just don’t like negative characters period. I find that they annoying and very exhausting to listen to. However this episode, Makoto was able to have a little bit of character growth, and somehow made her pessimistic personality into something… well positive. In this case it became her courage. She’s afraid, damn terrified of what she had to do, but even though she can’t help but belittle herself and she can’t help but be scared, but she became a brave person. You have to be brave to walk into something that you can’t help but only see the worse case scenarios. It takes a lot of courage to face that. So Makoto for the second time was able to be ‘useful’ (the first time was suggesting to sneak through the ventilation) among her teammates by help them complete the mission by striking the emergency control lever at the bottom of the reaction with the help of Higashino and as result she and her Kiara became incredibly radiant.  I found it very symbolic how she was required to bungee-jump into the core, as we previous seen during their variety shows that she couldn’t do it.
I have to say that Makoto looks absolutely gorgeous with her hair down! I hope she’ll keep it down longer. It makes her look very mature.   I think it would be very symbolic for her to have her hair down from the point on because think of it this way: Her hair is pulled back into a pony-tail, and metaphorically speaking say she is very uptight, but when her hair comes down as it did today, she has loosen up and is free from her emotions and becomes courageous. I’m probably reading into this too much.
It was sweet to see that Higashino is closet fan and how really helped out Makoto when she belittling herself for being useless as well as helping the girls when they were cornered. But most importantly he was able to help Makoto by telling her how he voted for her four times for the General Elections and that he was a fan of hers. It was that reminder she desperately needed that she does have fans who love her and that it isn’t about the number of votes that they get.
It was disgusting to learn that the D.G.T.O had a private, illegal casino devoted to betting on AKB0048’s concerts and essentially- the girls’ lives. Even worse to see that Chieri’s father deliberately made it easy for them to discover so that they can run a bunch of tests to collect data.

With the Zodiac group collecting for data behind the apex of life, the Kiara’s glow makes me worry about what kind of plans they have in store. What do they plan to use it for, and what kind of negative impact will it leave on both the Kiara’s and our beloved AKB0048 members?