After seeing someone off on a shuttle (I've already seen the credits so I'm not making any comments here), Hiver informs our heroines about a certain incident involving Hi-G. Flashback to 25 years ago, the planet in question is Azulantia (and I know that name came up somewhere in the material or novels for Kiddy Grade). The Calliope is there at the front line and the Siegerum* is there recording events with its camera balls. The planet is under fierce attack. Eclipse is piloting the Calliope while Éclair and Lumière are on Donnerschlag. Even Armbrust, normally the observer gets involved (as in the pilot), leaving Pfeilspitze to pilot the ship; when Éclair comes under attack by defenses inside the orbital shaft he assists her with the machine gun built into his case, however himself comes under attack but is rescued by Eclipse. Éclair and Lumière (who is in orbit with a broken Donnerschlag) unleash their full abilities in concert, creating a massive field that envelops the planet, freezing it and the surrounding space in time. Pfeilspitze and a dying Armbrust are reunited in what looks to be a derelict building floating in space.
It is now official that Hiver is Pfeilspitze and Sommer is Armbrust - he even flashes his mole. I'm not following the conversation about Geacht'er at all. I think they're saying that Trixie and Troisienne were the key to unlocking the planet. Looks like we're going to be seeing Mistral now, he's in dock and the trio are going on a mission accompanied by A-ou (so much for being restricted to base). He's bringing the snacks. Mistral looks pretty much like it did in the pilot, and not much like Rafale. "アスクールってば子供見たい！" - look who's talking Di-air, you should try having a conversation that doesn't involve repeating everyone else because you haven't a clue what they're talking about. They're also taking Ganador. Geacht'er is somewhere nearby watching (you gotta love their security) and Ascoeur has a funny turn and A-ou senses something. They make it off planet and into warp with no problems.
Important conversation regarding Éclair and Lumière that I am again not really following. I like the Mistral's warp out effect. There's the planet in its bubble, surrounded by a debris field. OK, does Ascoeur actually have a pilot's license? Who in their right mind gave it to her? A-ou senses something and orders her to stop. There's a river of wreaths floating in space and a small station floating nearby which they dock with. Typhon is trying to teach Ganador to あかんべい、with little success. He needs to learn some new party tricks, fast. A-ou departs on Ganador leaving them behind. Wakamoto Norio approaches in a shuttle and my what a familiar beard he has.. he's brought a wreath with him which he sends off to join the others, presumably 25 of them now. He identifies them as new GTO ES-Members and Q-feuille is quick to point out that they are only trainees to avoid getting in trouble, but he puts them at ease and introduces himself as Che (シュウ - anyone who watched the last episode of original series should hopefully be thinking of a little baby right now). It's not clear if Éclair shortened the new Chevalier's name or whether it is just a nickname. And yes, this does mean that Wakamoto is voicing two characters in this scene.
Flashback time - the younger Che is again voiced by Hiroaki Miura and is calling eclair Kaa-san despite him looking at least as old as her at this point. I'm guessing this is the last time he saw her so he'd be 25 years old. "Handies in Di-air" time again as she tries to cheer him up. It looks like the whole point of this trip was just to get them to meet in fact.
Next episode: Vacation² (バカンス² Bakansu Bakansu) - the mandatory swimsuit episode (which Kiddy Grade never actually had). Looks like they finally remembered to draw Ascoeur's tattoo for only the second time in the whole series.
Storyboard duties fall to Isamu Imakake, Takahiro Majima as unit director and Noriko Ogura as animation supervisor. Not much to be said about any of them.
* Armbrust and Pfeilspitze's ship, the シーグラム is romanized as Siegerum in Kiddy Grade Conclusion and is supposed to be the German for 攻城槌 (lit. Siege Hammer), but isn't - it is closer to English, i.e. "siege ram" (presumably meaning battering ram, which in German is Rammbock or Sturmbock; the closet I can get to in German is "siegramm" or "victory ram", which doesn't match the Japanese translation).
Links:
KIDDY GiRL-AND #12 -- Recycled Voices (Tenka Seiha)
Kiddy Girl-And (s1e1)
I don't understand why they didn't keep Gou Aoba as Sommer since he is actualy Armbrust. But lukily they kept Kaori Mizuhashi as Hiver. I hoped they would have brought Éclair and Lumière back.
Kiddy Grade was last anime Gou Aoba ever worked on, his agency page is dead and his personal website is closed, so I assume he was simply unavailable.
I like this anime
It seems that Azlantea was also mentioned very briefly in the flashbacks during episode 22 of the original series as well (When Chevalier is going down the escalator sidewalk thing). I finally managed to get around to watching a fansub of this episode, thus I came here to read your blog entry about it. By coincidence I'm rewatching the original series and just happened to be on that episode today. After all this kiddy girl stuff fresh in my head, the planet's name clicked. Funny how that works out.
I was really hoping to get into some Eclair and Lumiere action but... beach episode... which I hope will be fansubbed very very soon.
I came across the name when looking at one of the Continuity Files the other day, I think it was a major part of the plot of the Pr. novels, so it is a pity they were never translated.