Argevollen Episode 22
What They Say:
The National Federation of Ingelmia has declared war on the United Kingdom of Arandas in its conquest of expanding its borders. Susumu Tokimune is a new pilot for the Arandas army and during a mission he encounters an armored vehicle containing a robot called Argevollen as well as a young girl named Jamie Hazaford. After saving Jamie’s life, Susumu becomes the pilot for the Argevollen and uses it to battle against the Ingelmian forces.
The Review:
Content(warning as portions of this review may contain spoilers):
With some major shake ups last week, it’s finally time for the show to head into it’s climax. The last time Cayenne’s rebellion stole the show, and gave a clearer idea of where his endgame is and this week it’s Samonji’s turn. It’s not as much of a spectacle unfortunately but it does provide some clearer headway into the finale.
Things startoff with everyone’s reactions to the rebellion and the reactions themselves are pretty varied among the gang in Unit 8 since some agree with Cayanne’s ideals and some don’t. They don’t get too much time to dwell on it though, as Samonji plans to take the Perphevollens on a surprise attack against the Inglemian forces and Unit 8 is sent out to run interference. It turns out to be a trap though as Samonji lured the Argevollen and the Inglemian’s Strum Betas together in order to take control of them himself and takes his newfound army to settle things once and for all. In the meantime, Unit 8 is given the order to fall back but they make the decision to go against orders and chase after him.
Despite the race against the clock in terms of episodes remaining, this episode doesn’t move much faster than the last couple but the content still mostly works. Cayanne’s plans get to play out a little more and even if you’re not rooting for him, it’s kind of funny to see him mock the higher-ups when they say that ending the war is the “will of the people” since such a term is vague and doesn’t actually speak for everyone. Of course it doesn’t look like they’re going to go down without a fight, though whatever their plans are is looking to be saved for next time.
More interestingly though is the focus on Samonji since he sort of faded into the background in the last episode. Everyone in the group has mixed feelings about having to battle him and even though the show’s made the complications of their relationship pretty clear, it’s especially hard on Susumu . Sadly there’s not much of an actual fight since they initially end up helping him fend off Inglemia but it’s good to see how far he’ll go when he threatens to kill Susumu when he won’t give up the Argevollen without a fight. It’s pretty clear that he still wants to protect him in the end, but he’s now willing to force that protection onto him. A little of the effect from that is killed by the fact that Samonji’s hijacking goes relatively bloodless since it’s a bit of a stretch to assume the enemy soldiers would give up their mechs without some resistance, though it’s possible that just happened off-screen. It works for the most part since he obviously would have killed them if he had to but not showing that feels a little cheap.
What does work really well from it though is that Susumu doesn’t want to be saved since piloting it was his decision and one he had to struggle for, even though he knew the consequences.For a while now, it’s been a bit hard to buy into how willing he’s been to use something that’s he knows could kill him, but it feels more believable here since it works as a testament for what he’s gone through over the course of the show. The others aren’t willing to give up without either and it’s nice to see them come together to stop Samonji which shows just how much he means to all of them. With all that mapped out it looks like the finale will center around that chase though it’s hard to say exactly where it’ll lead.
In Summary:
Argevollen continues to chug along at the same weird pace as always but just like always it delivers on some solid stuff. The confrontation with Samonji isn’t quite as explosive as it probably could have been but it does show how far he’s willing to go in taking on everything himself, and it’s good to see the others aren’t willing to just leave it all to him. Two episodes remain till the end and with what’s been set up here, hopefully things can end on a strong note.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll, Hulu
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