Well, I will give the show this – it did not do what I expected it to do here. With a title of “Tateyama Castle Swimsuit Skirmish!” you might be expecting a typical beach episode where we get some lame excuse to show off the girls in their bikins which will look nice but ultimately just make a select group of fan artists (and their fans) very happy or provide an alternate figure if the show takes off enough to get statuette merch. Simple, right? It’s pretty much just an obligatory thing that into every show a little beach episode must fall.
What we got from Warlords of Sigrdrifa
was much stranger, a sudden dive into a surreal “what the hell am I
even watching?” sequence that’s almost sure to be the show’s Big
Lipped Alligator Moment.
Basically, after a flash forward to the
girls flying into battle in their swimsuits we get a “how we got
here” with a largely unsuccessful battle against some Pillars with
a strange ability, in which Azu is forced to make an emergency
landing and passes out. The Girls gather where Azu is being taken
care of when she wakes up, and Azu manages to figure out what the
gimmick of the enemy is and how to beat them. There’s a problem,
though: the Pillars have at least partially reactivated and their
area of attack cuts the Valkyries off from the hangers where their
planes are. If they try to run for it over land, they’ll be sniffed
out and killed on foot.
Enter the strangeness: A trio of men (I
believe from the base) who talk in unison in a weird and bombastic
way appear and offer a solution by which they can get the Valkyries
home. They change instantly into Fundoshi, clap their butt cheeks,
and bellow about the ocean while making over the top poses. They
repeat this several times, but despite their obvious lack of sanity
their plan has merit as it will bypass the danger zones by water and
underground. So naturally that’s what they do, putting the girls in
swimsuits and acquiring like twenty more identical guys (and one
pretty boy, complete with bishie sparkles) along the way. The cave,
though is full of hazards, and the Pretty Boy falls to his doom at
the first. And the second, after someone questions how he’s back
having just fallen. And the third. You get the idea.
With much butt-clapping, synchronized
talking, and moments of Pretty Boy falling to what should be his
death only to reappear at once, they eventually emerge, the girls
appearing in the base swimming pool, leaving the surreal cave trek
that took up much of the episode behind. They make one last dash
across the blacktop, with the Pillars alerted by Claudia sneezing.
They get a brief save by a mysterious aircraft, get to theirs, and
fly into battle in their swimsuits.
After defeating the pillar with Azu’s
strat, they land and, wondering what the other plane was, find out
that it’s a new Valkyrie who has come to the base. Why is she here
now? What does her presence portend for the plot? Not in this
episode!
Describing it honestly doesn’t do the surreal weirdness of this episode justice. You feel like you stumbled into the wrong show. Hell, you feel like you stumbled into the wrong universe. The entire episode feels like someone watched the DDR episode of Evangelion, thought about it, and said “You know what? We can make this stranger, more awkward, and even less fitting with the surrounding material!”
That said, the DDR episode at least
built up the relationship between Shinji and Asuka, while this… is
just about half an hour of crazy nonsense. I don’t really think
there’s any reason this episode is or should be particularly
important to anyone’s arc. True, we introduce the new character at
the very end, but that’s neither here nor there. We don’t learn
anything about our four leads throughout the episode, so I could see
just skipping this… but if you go ahead and watch you’re sure as
hell not going to forget it without some industrial strength brain
bleach.
See you next episode where, hopefully,
things will make a little more sense.