Gunparade March Episode 09 - A Day In The Life - You Are The One Who Makes My Heart Pound

Y'know, there are few things I look forward to more than seeing the end of this show finally come around.

I realize of course that this is a thing I say, but make no mistake: I would much rather continue to watch Dog Days than suffer this acrimonious pile of festering puerility. WHICH IS A LOT OF WORDS THAT DESCRIBE HOW MUCH I DISLIKE THIS SHOW.

I'm not starting to lose my mind yet at all. Nope. I'm perfectly okay. Perfectly... fine.

I can have ice cream if I watch this, right? Ice cream seems like a fitting reward for needing to sit through this.

Every time I watch this intro, a part of me dies inside a little bit more. There's a gentle sobbing in my chest, the sort that reminds one of a starving child. That's what this show does to me. I just have to grin and bear it though. For while it is terrible, it is not, in fact, everlasting. It will end. So there is a sweet release.

So once it finally is over, what do we get? The title slide. Which promises nothing more than to be full of all the DOKI DOKIS. THIS ONE IS ALL ABOUT LUURVE. Probably.

... wait, this guy has a personality? I thought a name was
stretching the budget a bit much. Now he's getting
a focus episode?

He sits there narrating his inner monologue while writing something about how he cares about all the other people. Then that black haired dude gets him tea and is like 'take a break brah' and we get to hear about HIM as well.

I have so many questions right now.

I guess this guy signed up because he wanted to and... that's everything we need to know about him since we switch over to some other guys who basically have no personality?

I am truly beginning to question the point of this episode.
And by extension the entire series.

It seems to me to be kind of a bold move to be introducing characters who have been in your show since episode one nine episodes into the show. In fact one may wonder why perhaps you did not introduce them sooner? I mean they certainly weren't important enough to warrant names before this, so why the focus now? Have you just suddenly run out of ideas and need to pad for time?

OH COME THE F**K ON!!!!

Three minutes into the show, and we are introduced to the FIFTH character in a row. No real context, just "this is their name and this is kind of what they do". WHAT. IS THE POINT. OF THIS. WHAT DOES ANY OF THIS HAVE TO DO WITH THE WHOLE WAR WITH ALIENS AND SHIT. YOU DID NOT THINK THIS WAS IMPORTANT BEFORE SO WHY BRING IT UP NOW?

There is no 'may'. This is DEFINITELY sounding weird.

Yep. You just lost me. If I pretended to care before, I really
don't care any more about whatever it is you were trying to say.

She likes to paint herself as some sort of female gorilla that's in charge.

... flattering.

GEE I NEVER NOTICED THIS DURING THE ENTIRE
SHOW'S RUN TIME AT ALL.

For whatever reason she sits around and leans back and narrates to us what it's like to work with oil and chemicals that are bad for your skin, we see one of the other mechanic girls is like "YO I KNOW YOU ARE SITTING AROUND DOING NOTHING BUT LET'S SIT AROUND DOING NOTHING SOMEWHERE ELSE!" and she decides why not? Then she introduces that character who I really don't give a damn about because she's not all that interesting to begin with, and I realize we're going to see every single character in the show like this. At least this one gets a flashback to when the two of them first met, which is more than ANYBODY ELSE HAS GOTTEN SO FAR.

That said, the flashback jingle is the absolute worst. It might as well be some sort of a Scooby Doo noise for when they're running long distances because it's pretty damned spectacular in its shittiness.

Anyways, after the 'new girl' is asked about her people skills she is asked why she likes machines so much.

This is so hilariously sad and also very easy to take out of context.

Returning to the real world someone is surprised to see th-

Uh why are your arms linked?

But then it's time for my favorite character to finally make her token appearance and to collect her paycheck. Tanabe. My love.

And yet she will outlive all of you by being the only person
I bother to remember in this entire show.

Cue the flashback jingle again, and we see that the first time she was supposed to show up she was late. The phone rings and we learn that she is late because, I dunno, she spends an hour apologizing on the phone before slamming her face on the public phone and then tells her new boss that the train she was on was in an accident?

I have so. Many. Questions.

I want you to look at that image. I mean really look at it a bit. You're telling me that a car was able to stop a train. And that, somehow, nobody was hurt seriously in stopping said train. Furthermore, you are telling me that this TRAIN was able to STOP QUICKLY ENOUGH to prevent COMPLETELY CRUSHING THE FOLKS INSIDE THAT CAR.

Y'know what? Just no. I can't spend any more time on this or else my brain my start imploding in on itself.

Oh wait, hang on, it's a GAS CAR and now it is LEAKING and PEOPLE ARE PANICKING.

And then it explodes and Tanabe winds up in the hospital.

Back to reality! Wait never mind we decided to change scenes.

OH GOOD.

I was half expecting them to introduce the cat but they decided to focus on the not-so-blind guy. Why does he always wear shades exactly? All they tell us about him is that he is old and actually in the military.

GEE. I NEVER WOULD HAVE FIGURED THAT OUT ON MY OWN. THANKS CHARACTER FOCUS EPISODE.

Then we find out about that other teacher. Who... is a teacher, what a shock.

Also, she likes to ignore all of the table space around her
and instead focus on pulling a piece of paper out of a stack
of books the hard way for some reason.

But enough about her let's focus on some of the pilots! The boys obviously because they matter.

Wait nevermind, they just get named and that's all.

On to some of the girls. Who aren't Tanabe so I don't care. And frankly it's not like we are learning anything new here. Nonomi is also mentioned but who cares she's a little girl and frankly they don't seem to care much so why should I? It's time to mention one of our heavy hitters. The main character of the show.

You can tell how important he is to the plot by how much
more exposition he's been given compared to EVERYONE ELSE.

They mention that his mind has been elsewhere lately and then we look over at Shibamura the OTHER MAIN CHARACTER and both 'leader' people are like "THERE IS A PROBLEM WITH THESE TWO". Switch to two characters totally not talking about something else.

I am not joking when I say these are some of the worst cuts
I have ever seen in a show ever, short only of Mars of Destruction.

But then our hero walks off and is like 'can't believe I thought you could help me anyways' and it's like 'dude you didn't even ask him anything or even tell him what you wanted to ask him about so what the crap?'

Confirming Shia LeBouf to play this role.

So after being told to 'gain experience' dude goes running off to talk to the other guy because I'm sure that will go over well. He asks if he can come into his own room while his bunkmate is busying himself with making model Gundams or whatever, and pesters him with some questions that aren't the questions that he wanted to ask. So... what are you doing?

I am very clearly making model Gundams I mean we've lived
together HOW LONG DUDE?!

Then bro starts talking about shit he likes. I guess he likes gardening or whatever? But who cares? He wasn't even asked first of all and second of all YOU HAVE LIVED TOGETHER HOW LONG? I MEAN WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON.

NO SHIT.

At this point, dude starts going off the rails, both bewildering and terrifying his bunkie as the main character is all "OH THIS IS HOW I TALK ABOUT MYSELF MAN THAT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE!"

Poor kid didn't even have time to realize he was being used as a stand-in for a girl to be asked out on a date or whatever.

Yep. I feel ya Duo Maxwell. I am just as terrified as you are.

After being told that he is 'an irreplaceable best friend' the kid is left alone, wondering if he was, perhaps, just hit on by his roommate.

Bro runs past the girl's dorm where girls are talking about kissing or whatever while standing about naked, as women tend to do for no reason. I guess they're showering or whatever? I can't hear what they're saying over how NAKED EVERYONE IS.

I guess they're talking about the Hayami/Shibamura thing which is ENTIRELY WHAT THE WHOLE EPISODE IS BASED AROUND. Which makes you question WHY THEY BOTHERED INTRODUCING ALMOST THE ENTIRE REST OF THE CAST FIRST IF THIS IS REALLY WHERE THEY WERE GOING THE ENTIRE TIME.

Also, why does the way he looks at that cat make me so
uncomfortable?

And now we switch back over to where the girls are just relaxing in a bath together and telling Nonomi about what a 'gold digger' is. But the real comedy shows up when Shibamura shows up and Nonomi is ready to put all of that accumulated knowledge of hers to good use.

I actually can't even be mad at this. And I don't want to be.

So as Hayami is running back he hears the girl screaming at the top of her lungs at the other girls for teaching a child such incredibly rude things and also she doesn't even like the guy like that anyways what is wrong with everyone for thinking that anyways I mean come on she totally hasn't been crushing on him since day one because he looked like her senpai AT ALL.

He hears her talking about everything that is wrong with him and that she wouldn't touch him if he were the last man on Earth.

Which means he gets to walk back to bed super slow and sad while his roommates are like 'uhhh okay?'

Now she's in her room looking at that photo they STILL won't show us the face of and we head into a very belated commercial break.

After the break, we find out that... some people are talking about 'those two'.

More dialogue that totally shouldn't be taken out of context.

So these two are getting together because they're worried about the 'test scores' during the training. Seems those two have been doing pretty terrible lately for some reason. She thinks they ought to be an item. He thinks that's distracting them from the whole thing. He talks about how you don't need love on the battlefield, and she's like 'is there a line between friendship and love?' And he shoots her down super hard and is like "FRIENDZONE BITCH!"

But they decide they're going to solve this issue their own way because, uh, that's what they do I guess?

CUE THE DRAMATIC MUSIC. GIRL WALKS UP TO THE ROOFTOP. TALKS TO THAT OTHER GIRL. WHILE DUDE TALKS TO MAINBRO. ABOUT UH, MAINTAINING A PROFESSIONAL RELATIONSHIP AND UH, IMPORTANT THINGS LIKE THAT?

His takeaway is "if I'm an awesome pilot she will love me" and resolves to do that.

Meanwhile, Shibamura goes to have her little conference and demands to know what is up. The answer is... somewhat unexpected?

Uhhhhhh....

Don't worry. It'll get more uncomfortable.

Errrr.....

Then Shibamura is like "OKAY BAD TOUCH" and struggles to get free of this clearly insane woman. Who looks out at the pool and who talks about... some... other girl who thought 'this was dirty'? I AM EVEN MORE CONFUSED THAN I WAS BEFORE. She goes on to talk about what I can only presume is her telling Shibamura that she needs to be honest with herself and go for it, but to be fair, it's filled with so much bullshit I can't even tell if that's actually what she is trying to say here. Here, I'm going to do something I rarely do, and present to you, verbatim, what is being said (but not in the Dub because I'm not some kind of monster):

"She's a fool. It's not dirty at all... Are you afraid you'll regret it? You know, sometimes there are things you can't regret. Why don't you listen to your heart?"

She could literally be talking about a million different things here. They're just stringing words together to make sentences with no real meaning in the hopes that it will somehow allow the other person to piece together some personal meaning from it, when in reality this doesn't really provide any actual sort of advice at all for their situation? Then she walks off and we switch back over to main hero who is leaving, and sees Shibamura walking around, so he decides to chat her up.

He's all wanting to talk to her for a minute and they just sort of stand around awkwardly for a bit? After stammering quite a bit and she's pretty sure he's about to confess his undying love or whatever for him, he's like "uh, let's do good tomorrow right?" So she kicks him in the shin and storms off because that's about how these things go.

Cue terrible animations of books being thrown and heads hitting pillows. Cue more miserable people and that stupid peppy goddamn song. Also training is terrible the next day because they're getting worse. Turns out THESE FOLKS GIVE TERRIBLE ADVICE AND IT IS SHOWING. ONE WONDERS HOW THEY WERE ABLE TO MAINTAIN A MILITARY COMMAND FOR AS LONG AS THEY HAVE WITH HOW TERRIBLE THEY ARE WITH MANAGING PEOPLE. AND BY PEOPLE I MEAN HORMONE-DRIVEN TEENS.

So now other people are getting stressed out by the whole thing.

Kind of like how this show should just stick with the whole
alien invasion thing and stop focusing on this?

All of the girls talk about how hopeless this whole thing is, and so the redhead is like "LET'S DO A THING AND BET" and... okay. I guess they're figuring out who is going to make the first move? Tanabe has it nailed though. What does she choose? Hell if I know but now Shibamura is walking around by herself and she sees a little girl sitting by herself, and decides to ask why she's watching all those other kids with their parents.

She says its a secret but it's really not. She tries to comfort the little girl and is all 'let's go home' and so they do walk back hand in hand, and Nonomi wanted to know why she was outside for once.

Then they come across mainbro and there's some awkward silence but Nonomi is like "TAKE MY GODDAMNED HAND AND LET US WALK HOME TOGETHER OR ELSE."

YOU WILL LIKE THIS OR I WILL DEVOUR YOUR SOUL.

They seem to finally be getting along because of a little girl and they lift her up and suddenly everyone is happy and the leader folks are almost literally like 'and then everything was happy the end'.

And then the episode finally ended.

I'm at a loss for words here. Watching this episode has made me question some things. Like... is this show legitimately worse than Mars of Destruction?

And y'know, I'm starting to struggle with the idea that it may very well be.

My god.