AMAIM Warrior at the Borderline Episode 22: You Can’t Handle the Truth

So yeah, I based the title of this post on a famous quote based on the movie is pretty much the title of this episode. I am very original like that, but I can’t let this one chance get away from me.

Anyway, how are you doing Irina? I’m going to be a bit transparent in that I am writing this post about two hours or so before I go to bed on Monday. Basically because Monday is the busiest day of the week for me where I work all day, come home and stay for a couple hours, before I head out to community band. I enjoy being busy, but I have been discovering on Sundays that I just enjoy laying around and doing nothing.

I feel like I am finally discovering what that is like along with not pushing myself too far for even things that I enjoy doing. Taking a small step back from blogging by having a bit of a reduction was a good decision. I get to stay in the blogosphere and have a lot of fun, but also have more time for myself where I don’t have to do as much as I used to. I’m rambling a bit, but how was your Monday and weekend, Irina?

My weekend was great. I have always known that I enjoy being lazy so I have a heads up on you! I feel so accomplished! Jk.

Mondays are pretty busy for me too although I only have work. But Monday is one of the days I go into work so there’s that extra 2.5 hours of commute. And I need to clear what has accumulated over the weekend as well as get a good overview of the department for the coming week so i usually end up working and extra hour or two so when you add it all together, the workday is about 4 hours longer on Monday unless there’s a lot of work and it gets even longer.

I know there are people who work these types of hours every day. But as we’ve established, I’m sort of on the lazy side so it’s a bit demanding for me.

No matter what happened during our week, at least we aren’t on the run for our lives. 

Well that put it into perspective!

This is a horrible transition, but it’s the one that came to my head so I am just rolling with it right now. Mainly because that is what happens in this episode. It feels like a lot of things happened regardless of that perhaps? Maybe? At least they have occurred to Brad Watt who is very positive in his own mind recently despite not really doing anything? Then again, him doing nothing somehow got him the Ghost and its technology, so who am I to argue?

He just talked to our German Gobert guy who somehow has ways to find out where Amou and Alexei were on the run in three hours? It feels like to me that there should be a lot more tension in this situation. Is that the other commander for the North American Coalition was cornering Brad and Alexei and it would be Brad’s turn to come up soon? I did feel a little bit of that, but the story did lay out that Shion would be there soon enough to say the day form Amou and Alexei who were on foot. Plus all the political ramifications were put into the two escaping. Hmm…

It’s always though to create real tension when the main character is on the line, especially this late in the story. We know that Amou’s life is not in real danger right now. And he just got over his trauma so they wouldn’t tack on another particularly horrible event… 

I figured that Alexei and Amou were fairly safe at least until they joined up with the team. At wich point they could have sacrificed Alexei for some good ol drama. I’m glad they didn’t, the character is baffling to me and for now that’s still interesting. I also think he’s the best (only) foil for Amou and his presence adds a bit of depth to the other characters through contrast. These characters can use depth.

So I do agree with you that there wasn’t much tension all things considered, but I hadn’t really realized it until you brought it up. It just didn’t occur to me that the situation was supposed to be more tense. 

To jump around a bit toward Alexi and Amou being stuck in the wilderness and on the run for a bit, I wish we got to see more of them just together in the middle of nowhere. That small bit of Amou just gathering lots of Berries and Alexi just having Venison was really funny to me. I mean, how did Alexei even catch a deer without a gun? I want to know more about that then a thirty second scene. Could be some really good character stuff that explores more about Alexei or something. But this was ok. The episode itself had something different in mind then people being stuck in the wilderness for a bit and I agree with the decisions this episode made.

I mean, it’s hard to have some more light hearted moments when giant robots are stomping after you and firing gigantic missiles and tear gas at you. There was some tension in that moment, despite everything once again, because Amou and Alexei really could have been captured or squashed by the gigantic robot. That in itself is pretty frightening no matter how you place that or know that saving is coming. Giant robots are scary and AMAIM is very good at reminding us of that in this episode

I was just going to say that. Amou and Alexei’s happy camping hour was weirdly appealing, I wish they had stretch it out more. Now I’m very happy we didn’t see any deer killing and I have no interest in finding out how it was done, but I wouldn’t have minded seeing them putting together some type of shelter for the night, navigating by the stars in the sky and the side moss grows on trees. Boy scout stuff. I think it’s such a weird break in the political intrigue storyline they are building up that it works.

And I appreciate that they brought up the assistants again. Even though it was a  bit of an afterthought, they didn’t just write them off.

As for the giant robots, the scene with Amou running away while a huge metal hand is closing in behind him was well done. The image was just so vivid and the composition was great. It was one of the better visuals of this show.

I also like that Shion came in to save the day in a really cool looking upgrade. Especially firing missile like that while flying. Or connecting her Japanese tradition into her mecha by expanding the Naginata that she uses to fight with. To geek out a bit, the one thing that I find interesting with the missiles is that it is very much like the usual Macross Missile Massacre because that is definitely the thing Macross is known best for *cough*, but the cool maneuvering in the air, the Itano Circus, wasn’t present at all? That is such a strange thing for a modern mecha series to do.

Seriously, look up Itano Circus on youtube and you will see how prevalent it is in so many modern mecha series. I suppose that the North America Coalition  and AMAIM in generally is much more grounded compared to other mecha series because their forces are literally on the ground, but I just find it a bit strange to me. It really is such a retro style that allows these mecha to have extra weight and I just really enjoy that fact. The clear tech gap between AMAIMS and everything else, even though it’s slowly catching up, is very interesting. Ok, geeking out done. For now!

AMAIM’s mecha are very grounded aren’t they? They do have some impressive jumps here and there but usually those look clunky and like they could really only do it once and then have to spend a long time setting up again. I have to say, among the mecha shows I have watched, these are the robots with some of the best sense of weight.

AMAIM’s mecha feel heavy. They wouldn’t be doing acrobatics or surfing. They don’t have any organic components that could lighten them up. They feel clunky, difficult to maneuver and inelegant. They really do feel like heavy machinery and not fine tuned, almost magical extensions of the pilot. And I do like that. 

I would watch a mecha series that has no fighting in it. Entirely for the construction side. You see the early versions that are too clumsy to do much more than knock stuff over. Basically just less efficient wrecking balls. Maybe the operating system has to be overhauled because it crashes like all the time and they need to restart the entire Mecha 5 times in a row. Like a whole episode is the characters restarting a huge mecha because it freezes or starts repeating one small action non stop and the team can’t figure out why and they just get more and more frustrated. I’m going to stop writing an imaginary anime now.. Sorry about that.


Ok, I’ve been avoiding my least favorite of this episode for a long time, the end, because I just don’t have anything to say about it. I wish the emotional hinge at the end of the episode with the death of Misaka was his name? Masaki? The one guy that somehow pointlessly saved the life of Alexi’s sister in a way that was just strange? I don’t even remember or barely remember who the guy is enough to get affected by it as much as this show wants me too? Am I just too cold?

I remember him. He was one of the first engineers we met. He was the on guy that was always smiling and was kind of sensitive compared to the others. I think it was a pretty good choice in sacrifice. Although I did think they were going to kill off the girl. I figured that would have given them the option to add a lot of conflict in the alliance if Alexei had blamed them for not protecting her well enough but no, they went for the more traditional kick the puppy route. 

I’m not saying this is a smart narrative move but I dn’t mind it.

I say this because to me, the final of this show is probably going to be based around the conclusion of this episode. Especially since Shion, Amou, and even Gashin are hurt by it. The tragedy of death in war. Possibly even cement the alliance because our Japanese rebels and the four other sides even more possible. Still, I’m not really sold on this as much as I could be on this small hinge. Once again, am I being cold?

Oh I don’t know about the finale being based on it. I think this was just the standard, remember kids, war is awful and serious business, people get hurt interludes. Every war show has to have one of the good guys die, I think it’s in the rulebook and this was just the guy. 
I guess I just didn’t take it very seriously.

So this episode was mostly good for me. Besides the ending that I am not a fan of, it is pretty solid and well constructed for the most part. This show definitely knows where it is going or at least thinks it knows where it’s going which I will not argue with. The lack of character depth is hurting the show a bit for me?

What about you, Irina? How did you feel about this episode? Any thoughts on where you think the show will be going from now on as it leads towards the end?

I’m still just confused about Brad’s motivations here. Heck, I’m confused about which side he’s on, let alone why he would be on that side. And that confusion is really getting in the way of me appreciating the central plot at this point. I hope we get a better idea of what’s going on with him soon. Or maybe I just need to figure it out for myself.