(L) Soukou no Strain (Strain: Strategic Armored Infantry)

[DoReMiFaSo]

Originally Posted by StanAce

Spoiler for Ep3:

Just watched episode 3 raw. They FINALLY got rid of the bitch, though I found it kind of strategically retarded for the TUMORs to carry her GAMBEE away before self-destructing. After all, by doing so, they can't do any damage to the space carrier itself.
Sara managed to somehow sync with a MIMIC that wasn't hers and gets to pilot an uber Strain right at the end of the episode. How convenient. Anyways, need to get ep4 to find out how their space carrier (or whatever you want to call it) averts annihilation.

Spoiler for ep3:

I think Isabella may still be alive. They only show the explosion. They didn't show her body. So, it's still possible that she's not dead yet. Actually, I don't want her to die yet. I want to see her reaction when she sees Sara in a Strain.

And I agree. They need to explain how Sara can use the Emily doll to interface with the strain.

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by DoReMiFaSo

Spoiler for ep3:

I think Isabella may still be alive. They only show the explosion. They didn't show her body. So, it's still possible that she's not dead yet. Actually, I don't want her to die yet. I want to see her reaction when she sees Sara in a Strain.

And I agree. They need to explain how Sara can use the Emily doll to interface with the strain.

Thats my response to her "suppose death"

As for Sara and Emily, they will explain it.

Spoiler:

the 2 kid mechanics were clearly suprise by both the emily mimic being compatible to the Strain and Sara. I can't imagine them leaving a explantion out.

Preview

Spoiler:

question is does Loli realize who Sara is and how did she find out.

[DoReMiFaSo]

Originally Posted by Xellos-_^

Preview

Spoiler:

question is does Loli realize who Sara is and how did she find out.

Spoiler for Preview Speculation:

I don't think Lotti notices who Sara is. It's a bit too soon for that. I guess Lotti is accusing Sara for "getting in the way" when Sara is saving her from Ralph or something.

[ccardoso]

The strange thing is that this Ralph seems to like killing young students, I wonder why...

[Deathkillz]

Originally Posted by DoReMiFaSo

Spoiler for ep3:

I think Isabella may still be alive. They only show the explosion. They didn't show her body. So, it's still possible that she's not dead yet. Actually, I don't want her to die yet. I want to see her reaction when she sees Sara in a Strain.

And I agree. They need to explain how Sara can use the Emily doll to interface with the strain.

Spoiler:

then we see her comming back with half a machanical body piloting a strain

oki ep3...

Spoiler:

its still a blast! the drama is definatly still present and i like the "dead" sign on sara when clearly her eyes were wide open the attack on the ship was unexpected...ralph just owns everyone >.<
Isabella blows up...and i hope she stays that way...the series is too short for someone like her to come back imo...
and sara gets a badass strain...its all happening soo fast but im enjoying it ^_^

[zalas]

A pretty interesting episode, though I was hoping we'd see

Spoiler for episode 3:

some shots of Lottie fighting Ralph. The manga is currently at the same cliffhanger as the anime, it seems.

Spoiler for episode 4 preview:

It looks like Lottie's reason for hating Ralph will finally be revealed in episode 4, and I guess maybe that's why there's a shot of Lottie being angry with Sara. My guess as to the outcome of the battle: Lottie will engage Ralph because

Spoiler for manga:

her brother was one of the casualties in the Grabera Academy attack

but of course she is no match for him. Sara comes in to save Lottie, but somehow the fight neither ends in Ralph's death nor Sara/Lottie's death. Afterwards, Lottie gets angry at Sara for either 1) getting in her way of revenge 2) being Ralph's brother or 3) letting Ralph go when she could've killed Ralph.

Originally Posted by ccardoso

The strange thing is that this Ralph seems to like killing young students, I wonder why...

Because he's a pedophile... (j/k)
Well, I'm guessing either that this time he's trying to get to EMLY or maybe he wants to test Sara to see if she's worthy of being converted. Note that he's had a few chances to kill her now but didn't take advantage of them.</conspiracy theory>

Originally Posted by DoReMiFaSo

Spoiler for ep3:

I think Isabella may still be alive. They only show the explosion. They didn't show her body. So, it's still possible that she's not dead yet. Actually, I don't want her to die yet. I want to see her reaction when she sees Sara in a Strain.

And I agree. They need to explain how Sara can use the Emily doll to interface with the strain.

Spoiler:

Perhaps they'll convert her to the Deague, seeing as how you can regenerate limbs and such in this day and age.</wacky theory>

[Sonhex]

Originally Posted by ccardoso

The strange thing is that this Ralph seems to like killing young students, I wonder why...

Effective battle strategy I'd say. He knows the Union has precious few worthy Reasoners and that each one is of huge value. Take them out, you cripple the Union's strength and demoralise the trainees.

BTW for those looking for a blog Star Crossed has picked up Strain.

[JediNight]

Spoiler for Episode 3:

I think a lot of the speculation here is correct. You see an explosion, but judging by the type of role that Isabella is for in the series, I fully expect her to be captured by the Deague and come back with Ralph -- promised of course that if she helps that she can kill Sara ... or maybe just brainwashed or something.

Lotti being angry in Ep4 preview is most likely from Sara getting in her way when she was fighting Ralph, even though she was probably close to being killed. I can already hear her words in Ep4 "お前は何で邪魔をするの？！” ^_^;;

I too think that the Emily project or whatever was some experiment for creating extra MIMICs or maybe just better pilots. Either way Ralph had to have been involved to know of the location. One does have to wonder why you couldn't just take 2-3 cultures to begin with instead of only 1.

With the Deague: I find it strange that they would ONLY attack with unmanned drones. On the flipside, it's rather foolish of the Union to fight people vs drones if it allows the Deague people themselves to never be touched. My speculation is that since they've been at war so long, it could just be that all of the original Deague people have died, and this is sorta a Matrix/Terminator thing going on where the drones are just producing themselves for their original mission, despite everyone being dead. (That one episode of Star Trek Voyager comes to mind as well -- or the fact that the Director worked on Vandread which deals with similar unmanned drone stuff)

[EragonJeriel]

You would think that the person this MIMIC is bound to is the only one who can fly it, but episode 1 showed Seira, who just borrowed the Strain of one person, without any problems at all. How did she manage to make it work?

I realise it only when this guy over at the blogs stated it ! So MIMICS can actually be replaced, with their technology they should easily have hundreds of spare mimics.this is confusing.
At least we get to see sara pwn some ass in her strain soon

[Sonhex]

Originally Posted by EragonJeriel

I realise it only when this guy over at the blogs stated it ! So MIMICS can actually be replaced, with their technology they should easily have hundreds of spare mimics.this is confusing.
At least we get to see sara pwn some ass in her strain soon

No. The MIMIC cannot be replaced. That is the whole point.

Look really closely - Sara carries her MIMIC from her own STRAIN at 16:45 and then see it placed on her belt at 20:00. Ergo she uses it to activate the stricken STRAIN at the lab.

[EragonJeriel]

HMm i do see her carrying something and that looks like a pack on her belt. if its as u say, does that means she cant use emily's ?

[Nightengale]

EMILY is obviously special for whatever reason we'll find out by the last 4 episodes or so, so Sara being able to use is a moot point.

Even IF we assume that MIMIC data for Reasoners can somehow be stored in an external back-up system in the case of Strains/MIMIC getting damaged with the pilot intact, Sara's data would still be destroyed during Ralph's raid at the Academy, since naturally that's the most viable place to store the data, if there is any to begin with.

I haven't got the chance to watch Episode 3, but has Caris made an appearance yet?

[kari-no-sugata]

MIMICs still haven't been explained much yet. The impression I get from ep-3 is that they operate with a telepathic connection to the pilot - maybe someone found out how to make such a thing possible, but it only works between identical brains, as it were.

If so, this gives a few possibilities for Emily. One is that she can build up a link with anyone in theory - but maybe this is very rare in practice. Another is she can build up a link with those closely related - given that the Werec family has produced many excellent Reasoners (ref: ep1), maybe some cells were donated.

Though Melchizek said he made Emily, he might just mean the doll - not the MIMIC core.

Anyway, I suspect the other Emily (with Ralph) is somewhat similar - research into better MIMIC technology.

[Guido]

Watched episode three, the same day that it aired.

This is another well executed episode. I can continue to grow more attached and sympathetic towards Sara due to all the abuse and sabotage she has to endure from the other girls at the station; Isabella practically pulls out a smirk of triumph when Sara cannot get her BANGEE to work and thus getting called off from deploying for combat.

Fortunately, Sara has now Emily who she can confide her frail feelings and not to be worried from getting betrayed again.

The parallels to A Little Princess kept on becoming more similar, and I think it works to establish and helps us to understand Sara's tension at being scorned, belittled, and forced to deal with herself in loneliness.
Unlike the Sara from the novel, at least there's no a Miss Minchin character in Soukou no Strain that would throw a hell of a time to Sara; Isabella filled that role.

Additionally, this third episode bears few of a resemblance with episode three of Gunbuster (the first series). The trainees are engaging on their very first sortie ever against the Deague but are quickly subdued and overwhelmed (not to forget wasted) right after Ralph Werec makes his presence notorious, and one can feel again their futile struggle to make it alive but is hopeless to them.

Spoiler:

I'm just more than pleased with the manner on how this episode ended because builds both suspense and expectations on how much Sara's has changed, and thus the change will be reflected on both her skills and compatibility between Emily and the STRAIN once we see her engage in battle on the next episode.

However, judging by the preview, I believe the battle will be short, and Sara won't be reaching a poignant confrontation against Ralph, at least for that episode.
Certainly, they will engage, but like others posted she'll grow concern for Lotti's safety rather than confronting her brother, and thus incurring on the latter's wrath once Ralph retreats.

What any reasons I'm coming up for Ralph appearance to engage the fleet it might be because he was again searching for something....

Spoiler:

At the last scene of episode two the human Emily utters her name.

Ralph knew where to find Emily, hidden on a pool pod inside a hidden chamber at Graberia Academy.

My conclusion is that he's now after the MIMIC Emily and found her. He did not destroy the main ship right away when he could like the other ships but has the TUMORS instead to dig and bomb piece by piece the ship.

One more thing I'm looking forward in episode four will be Ralph himself. No details and explanations have ever been given as to why his shift of loyalties as of yet.
The preview displays a possibility that he's going to have a speaking role, and a possible interaction with the human Emily.

In the first episode he starts as the gentle, devoted brother but becomes his sister's traitor; for episode two Sara has a flashback of him to understand what happened to him to change on such radical ways, but lights are not seen from him either; now in episode three he appears again in another of his onslaught crusades to cripple the Union, yet we're not given answers.

[multani2842]

Spoiler for Strange ?::

Did we not have an Emily (the human one) holding the doll one ?:

But it's the MIMIC who wears a red dress so ... .
Thanks to that here are my speculation: the doll Emily was once the MIMIC of the reasoner Emily. But somehow she managed to became her own Mimic so the doll Emily was useless and finally throw away.
But Mimic Emily had keep a strong bond to her "master" and wants to reunite with her. So when Sara whish to meet her brother, they share the "same" goal and are able to synchronize.
Well it's just a supposition

Spoiler for and now an enigma::

From the episode n°4, who is being saved ?

[Sonhex]

Originally Posted by multani2842

...

Spoiler for and now an enigma::

From the episode n°4, who is being saved ?

Spoiler:

My money is on Sara saving Ralph from Lotti. Hence why Lotti is angry at Sara.

Pure speculation, but I don't think, deep down, Sara wants Ralph dead - she wants to understand why he did what he did. At the end of the day Ralph is still her brother.

Either that or Emily intervenes somehow...

[zalas]

Originally Posted by JediNight

Spoiler for Episode 3:

With the Deague: I find it strange that they would ONLY attack with unmanned drones. On the flipside, it's rather foolish of the Union to fight people vs drones if it allows the Deague people themselves to never be touched. My speculation is that since they've been at war so long, it could just be that all of the original Deague people have died, and this is sorta a Matrix/Terminator thing going on where the drones are just producing themselves for their original mission, despite everyone being dead. (That one episode of Star Trek Voyager comes to mind as well -- or the fact that the Director worked on Vandread which deals with similar unmanned drone stuff)

Well, it was mentioned that the Deague focus on "quantity over quality" whereas the Union focuses on "quality over quantity." I'm guessing that the Deague do not have the ability to use Mercurion and thus why they didn't have Strains until Ralph went over with one. Since they don't have Mercurion, they make up for it by mass producing as many attacking units as possible. It wouldn't make sense for them to put people into them when they can automate the process. Besides, their casualties would be huge if they had to put people into the TUMORs.

[Deathkillz]

Originally Posted by Sonhex

Spoiler:

My money is on Sara saving Ralph from Lotti. Hence why Lotti is angry at Sara.

Pure speculation, but I don't think, deep down, Sara wants Ralph dead - she wants to understand why he did what he did. At the end of the day Ralph is still her brother.

Either that or Emily intervenes somehow...

well...

Spoiler:

ill say its the other way round...if ralph is the so called kick ass guy that hes being mad out to be...or it could also be them attacking together? lol not much to go on with just that pic tbh >.<

[Sonhex]

Originally Posted by Deathkillz

well...

Spoiler:

ill say its the other way round...if ralph is the so called kick ass guy that hes being mad out to be...or it could also be them attacking together? lol not much to go on with just that pic tbh >.<

No, the preview doesn't give much away either, but...

Spoiler:

...I can imagine only something like that would make Lotti get physical with Sara. Considering how partizan Lotti is she'd welcome a powerful Reasoner unless there is something about the red STRAIN that makes Lotti angry...

[JediNight]

Originally Posted by zalas

Well, it was mentioned that the Deague focus on "quantity over quality" whereas the Union focuses on "quality over quantity." I'm guessing that the Deague do not have the ability to use Mercurion and thus why they didn't have Strains until Ralph went over with one. Since they don't have Mercurion, they make up for it by mass producing as many attacking units as possible. It wouldn't make sense for them to put people into them when they can automate the process. Besides, their casualties would be huge if they had to put people into the TUMORs.

My point was just that in such a situation, you are incurring human casualties vs. the enemy just needing to build more drones. AKA the enemy could ostensibly conduct war in a "ho-hum" manner where they don't really have to worry about dying themselves. Your population would start being whittled down and theirs would be unphased.