天下制覇

Which would be welcome if 2.0 didn't kind of suck too.

Impressions:

I think my favorite part of this episode was the ending where Sousuke stabbed half a knife into the guy's neck, then declared that it wasn't really a serious stab and the dude was in no danger, but he was so much of a professional that he could make it a serious stab if he wanted to. You know, instead of just holding a knife to the throat. Because why do the obvious and sensical when you can make up complete nonsense, do complete nonsense, and then spend a paragraph explaining how awesome that makes you. Thursday and Friday have that in common. It would be far from the only incident of it in the episode too. That was basically the only way this one seems to know to show how 'cool' Sousuke is, whether it's technobabble as everyone oohs and awes over his knowledge of trivialities, or his ability to harmlessly stick 3 inches of sharp steel into a neck.

The other two new characters aren't going to win any awards either. Red is just the new spunky needs-no-man-who-then-spends-the-entire-episode-helpless-and-having-to-be-rescued-including-from-being-raped-of-course-not-like-six-minutes-after-the-director-was-using-her-as-cheesecake, and the guy apparently exists solely to gape, gawk, and be the excuse for various people to declare 'important' (ie not important) factoids about the current situation. Nothing is too trivial that it can't be explained to him, whether it's how dangerous the city is (from multiple people!) post mugging, or how a mech simply moving places incalculable strain on the pilot. And yes, it's still the same kludgy rock-em-sock-em CGI robot combat, but now, since they're supposed to be run-down and crappy, it's even more clumsy looking.