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Impressions:

Okay, Innocent Venus is now considered ‘good’ in my books. It started off being boring, then bad, boring, crap, interesting, average, exciting, average and finally, good! (Okay, I made that up, but you get it when I’m trying to show that the series had a very rocky start). Even when the series was interesting or exciting, they were just single aspects that didn’t add up to make the overall episode good, but now it has. Not only were these two episodes full of ground-shaking, blood-gushing action, the storyline has also become so incredibly intriguing that I actually want to see the next episode right now! That’s never happened before with this series. I had always been fine finishing the episode(s), sometimes even reluctant to watch it, but now I really want to see how things will turn out. Better yet, the previous ‘good guy’, Jin, who I didn’t like because he was to fatherly, has officially become a ‘bad guy’, and the previous ass-kicking ’sidekick’, Jo, has now become the real ‘good guy’. What a fascinating turn of events…

I’m glad Jo is now the protagonist. I was always to uninterested in the show to look too deeply into it that I never thought he could become the good guy in Jin’s place, and I didn’t see how he didn’t die in episode 8. I had also thought that him dying wouldn’t have been a big deal, and someone like Shiba could take the position of the good guy. However, Shiba still remains a side character and Jo has become Sana’s protector. Actually, he find out that Jo had always been Sana’s protector, at least partially, as he was the one who saved her while rescuing her from the plane. Sana’s sudden acceptance of these shocking betrayals when she learns that it was Jo who saved her is a bit unnatural, but I can only assume it’s because the show doesn’t have enough time to bother with little emotions and things like that. Hopefully the storyline becomes more interesting from here and a few extra twists are thrown in for fun. (Heh, I had been under the impression the series was 24 episodes long; must’ve read it wrong when browsing ANN).

As for the mystery and truth behind Sana, I wonder if the answers revealed in episode 8 are all there is to her. She is meant to bear the children who’s nerves are implemented into the Phantoms to allow the pilots to synch with them and control them. I’m not too sure on the details as I can’t really remember much from the past few episodes but hopefully things will clear up in the last two episodes. What does the ‘Unlimiter Device’ do again? I know it was sort of explained earlier in the series but my mind is blank. It was also the cause of Riki’s madness, but Jo was able to convert the overwhelming mental strain to his advantage and use it to synchronise with the Phantom so highly that his movements were superhuman. That moment was probably the coolest – Jo raging against everyone and doing a fantastic job of it too. I wonder if the Phantoms’ abilities are limited to their construction or if the pilot can push them past their mechanical limits to make them move and react far faster than possible. Well, looking forward to answers coming up…

Plot Outline:

Episode 9

- Shiba and his group break into the Phantom lab and gas the room where Sana is being kept
- They rescue Jo and Sana
- Renii/Lenny, who stayed behind but became intoxicated with the gas, is also taken back
- Jo undergoes surgery for his stab wound
- The surgery is successful and his condition becomes stable
- The Isshin is attacked by a vast fleet

- When things start looking bad, Shiba calls for abandon ship
- Jo manages to save himself and Sana from the sinking ship and meet up with the other crew members
- Shiba and Renii distract the enemy before fleeing in their ships and meeting up with the others
- Shiba and Renii seemed to have made up for some past fight

Episode 10

- Jin becomes the second-in-command of the Phantom troops or whatever they’re called
- The other Phantoms pilots are obviously pissed about this but obey him nonetheless
- Shiba agrees to take control of Satsuma’s fleet

- Jin orders for a search to find Shiba’s dead body
- The search yields no results, which is what Jin suspected
- Sana wishes to see Jin one more time so he can tell her the truth about herself
- Shiba allows Jo and Sana to go and retrieve Jo and appoints Hijin to guard them
- Jo infiltrates the Phantom base but gets trapped by the other Phantom members
- Jo manages to get inside a Phantom to fight, but it was a trap as the unlimiter device had been installed in it
- Jin activates the device, but instead of driving Jo insane, it makes his synch rate go higher
- Jo is able to defeat the other Phantoms with ease and drags Jin back to where Sana and Hijin are
- They tell Jin to reveal the truth, and it looks like he is about to, but…

Preview:

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