Would it be giving GAINAX too much credit to suggest that the lighting in this scene is symbolic of Nia’s bringing light into Simon’s darkness? Either way, I thought it was a nice touch, since this part was pretty much the turning point.

Largely thanks to Nia’s encouragement, Simon finally gets over his grief and lack of self-confidence and kicks some ass. Nia herself was developed a little more here, with the whole “Daddy abandoned me? :(” thing being elaborated on.

The old man saving Nia instead of Simon popping in at just the right time was certainly unexpected. It was probably better than the 100% predictable “Simon pops in at the last possible moment to save the day,” but something about the sequence just felt out-of-place and choppy.

I thought the part in the screenshot above was pretty interesting, showing an almost religious development in the way these characters think of Kamina–they’ve become willing to abandon all rationality and walk into an obvious trap because “it’s what Kamina would do.” It’s a nice contrast against Simon’s eventual self-actualization.

So the Helix King is over a thousand years old. I wonder how long it will be until we find out how he managed to wipe out most of human civilization from the planet surface.

It was a pretty straightforward episode, and there really isn’t much else to say about it. The storyline can go all sorts of ways from here, and personally I’m looking forward to more.

“Sorry… this might sound embarrassing, but I’d prefer it if you waited until after they’ve grown a bit bigger.”