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GATE
Episode 16

by Theron Martin,

How would you rate episode 16 of
GATE (TV 2) ?
Community score: 4.3

Encounters with dragons are the epitome of what it means to adventure in a fantasy setting. Despite that, animated renditions of dragons are all-too-often disappointing; either the animation is not up to par or the heroes are too easily or simply able to exploit their weaknesses, and often both. This series, however, does not disappoint in that regard. The Fire Dragon displayed its toughness back in episode 3, and its status as a veritable flying tank has been confirmed since then. In this episode we also see that, unlike many classic dragons, the Fire Dragon is actually a nimble flier, too. As one pilot observes, it can hover like a helicopter and turn like a biplane (and the animation of the way it turns is pretty sharp), and as Itami and crew discover, if not distracted it can react swiftly enough to dodge an RPG or Lelei's magical shots. Even Rory finds it hard to hurt, and it clearly is smart enough to have learned from past encounters. No, this dragon is not going to go down easy.

The encounter that Itami and crew have with the Fire Dragon, and his efforts to get Tuka to confront the reality of her father's death by confronting the Fire Dragon, are actually only a small part of the episode, though. As has been the case all season so far, so much else happens that the episode is once again packed wall-to-wall, to the point that the writing sometimes rushes things along; extending the running time by half again probably wouldn't have hurt, and even an extra 3-4 minutes might have helped. As is, events definitely move along at a brisk pace.

Last episode we learned that Tyuule was planning something dastardly involving Pina and Noriko, and here we see exactly what she had in mind: she uses a procured noble seal to arrange for it to look like Pina had ordered Noriko's death. Her dupe for the plan is Delilah, the warrior bunny from Italica who opens the episode literally singing about the glory of life in Alnus and was revealed last season to be a spy. What complicates matters further is that Delilah apparently does not know that she is actually working for Tyuule, whom she once owed fealty to as the queen of the warrior bunnies but now regards as a traitor (presumably because she became Zorzal's slave in order to safeguard her people) and has sworn to kill. Delilah is none too happy about the order, but she is committed – and boy, does she look different in her warrior get-up! Noriko actually isn't objectionable to dying, as she has learned that her whole family is MIA as a result of the Ginza incident, but while Delilah tries to figure out how to do it as painlessly as possible Yanagida interrupts, resulting in a battle which leaves both badly wounded. Tyuule apparently didn't bank on modern forensics, though, or that the JSDF are no fools, as they are quickly able to trace the kill order back to someone near Zorzal. They do, however, think that Zorzal or his allies are responsible, so the infiltration of his household is ordered, which becomes easy when Zorzal unwittingly recruits an undercover JSDF cook for some kind of task.

Yanagida was up to his own tricks before his fateful encounter with Delilah, too. He was carrying out his own side of the scheme to justify Itami's pursuit of the Fire Dragon, and to his dismay he finds his commanders all too willing to not only buy flimsy excuses for Itami's actions but also use them as justification to prepare to fight the Fire Dragon directly in the interest of “protecting a Japanese citizen;” he apparently wasn't privy to that meeting back in episode 12 where the commanders all talked about how they would take out the dragon and so woefully underestimated how badly they wanted to do it themselves. (And really, if you think about it, what career soldier wouldn't get hyped about the prospect of taking out the ultimate fantasy predator?) The other key to the scheme is becoming an ally to the king of the land that the Fire Dragon is roaming through – in other words, the eyepatch-wearing patient Itami was talking to last episode – and so not only picking up oil mining rights (which justifies the action politically) but also covering their butts by getting permission to cross the border. All very nice and neat, and Yanagida's approach to the negotiations is quite amusing. That leads to a couple of recon jets testing out the Fire Dragon's flying combat prowess.

Whew! What a load of action! Thanks to a potent musical score, the Delilah/Yanagida fight zings with tension and danger every bit as much as the first stage of the Fire Dragon fight does, which helps compensate for some corner-cutting animation; while it is hard to listen to the “warrior bunny” references without snickering (although that could be an issue of translation choices), Delilah is no joke in warrior mode. The jet action against the Fire Dragon provides its own thrill too, especially because of the way the dragon maneuvers. The best animation effort, though, was saved for the Fire Dragon fight, which will carry over to next episode.

With so much going on and interacting so neatly, the faults are few. Aside from occasions where the episode rushes, the only other significant flaw is a continuing clumsiness at executing the end of the episode. Otherwise the series is currently at the top of its game, with many interesting possibilities open for what could happen next.

Rating: A-

GATE is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.


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