We got mock group battles this week!

(Spoilers in this review)

Every so often, the teams participate in these practice team battles in a desolate fifth-dimension area. During said battles, the teams use special weapons in order to avoid hurting each other. Altair Torte, the main characters’ team, is new to this so Tierra-sensei gives them a rundown via a presentation with paper sheets and illustrations.

And as expected, Altair Torte loses to Coconut Vega single-handedly. Our main characters just got demolished one-on-one. Amane, Io’s tsundere admirer from Procyon Pudding, comes and gives Io a bit of encouragement / admonishment.

After a bit of sloppy brainstorming, Yuumi comes up with the idea of using smoke to lure Biscuit Sirius out so Altair Torte can ambush them. Too bad Biscuit Sirius has wings and can just redirect the smoke / fly right to our main characters…

For their final battle against Procyon Pudding, the girls revealed a volleyball weapon that has to be touched by evey member of Altair Vega to become powered up. They manage to take out two members before two O’bli sneak into the practice area (thanks, sneaky science teacher). Io manages to distract the O’bli long enough for Procyon Pudding to bring out their actual weapons and clean up.

The end of the episode shows Amane acting like a true tsundere and the sneaky, sketchy science teacher smirking.

Thoughts on this episode:

• No mention of Tsubame’s amnesia in this episode! That’s a first.
• Altair Torte’s strategist, Yuumi, has a few screws loose. Of course using smoke won’t work against Biscuit Sirius…
• The volleyball team attack (Altair Storm) is so impractical. Opponents can just attack every member since they’re all focusing on the volleyball. It’s actually a miracle that two of Procyon Pudding’s members got taken out by it. I guess they were just too confused.
• Since Procyon Pudding won their team battle against Coconut Vega, doesn’t that mean Procyon Pudding is now the second strongest team?
• Tierra-sensei dresses up as a high school volleyball athlete this time… perhaps she’s worried about her age? It’s rather silly to see a teacher cosplay like this.
• Speaking of which, how did the sketchy science teacher know about the mock battles? Perhaps she has some inside knowledge.
• Mana basially confirms her lesbian crush on Io (and who can blame her?)
• Establishing that Io (and to a lesser extent, Tsubame) is the yuri pimp of this show is basically all that happened in this episode. Altair Torte remains the weakest team by a wide margin, the scientist continues to act suspicious, and Tsubame’s amnesia is still unresolved. Every episode thus far is essentially a breather episode. There’s no sense of tension since the O’bli are so easily defeated. Hoping that this changes soon.