One must be wondering why I used the plural form of “shoujo” in the title. Quite frankly, I think the story revolves around more than just airheaded Akiha, and that she is not the only Sorakake Girl. This episode certainly seemed to prove that. Skipping both the OP and ED, we dive right into the action that finishes this particular Sunrise series.

Right at the start, Kazane outlines her plan to knock out Leopard’s Proxima Crown and outline the strategy that will be undertaken by all levels under her charge to take down Leopard.

For the loli lovers, here is a nice shot of Sakura and her beloved Yupi-tan, who is also assisting in the outline of the plan. He mentions there is no real possible way to detach the Proxima Crown from Leopard at this point.

Back on the abandoned asteroid or outpost, we see the gathering of most of the major and minor characters, on-screen and off.

Akiha looking, for once, serious. That still does not win her any points in my book. Fail main character is fail.

Not possible that I will let the last episode slip by without any more shots of my beloved Takane.

Shishidou Kagura now turns her attention to her own mission – defeating and bringing Nami back to her senses before Nami uses any more of her powers and in turn destroying herself. The unfortunate part about this entire episode? Nami remains alive. Sunrise you fags. Not letting anyone die in this show eh?

What is with the wolf howl by Nami at this point? Srsly, WTF? As if hanging upside down like Spiderman was not enough.

Their main objective – the Leopard colony, now controlled by Leopard’s dark side, best known as the Prince of Darkness. I am just going to call him Dark Leopard from now on. Also, wallpaper material.

Nerval gets back command of his own colony ship by using a modified form of his Nerval Exclusive Control, in a box. He requires Imoko’s help to contact Benkei and Xanthippe, and in return, he promises not to harm Akiha.

Benkei and Xanthippe are hanging in space being repaired when they are contacted by Nerval.

Tsutsuji and Shigure are, in the meantime, having a lovely chat. Shigure is asking Tsutsuji to return to the Student Council, to which she flatly refuses. And when Shigure blows her a kiss, she instantly whips out her whip (pun intended) and smashes the virtual screen in embarrassment. She also whips Benkei who appears behind her with a pot of soup.

With the attack against him in full force, Dark Leopard musters all his energy to face them.

Leopard is still trapped anxiously inside Dark Leopard’s heart, though he can see whatever Dark Leopard can see. Fukuyama Jun had to switch between Leopard, Dark Leopard (who is more calm and like Lelouch) and Fon in this eipsode. A good piece of work by him.

Kagura faces off against Nami. They could have put this instead in the OP animation. What a letdown. Then again Nami is emo all the time, and this fight was no different.

Akiha, Honoka and EXISTENCE successfully penetrate into Leopard’s interior, but just when they want to try and enter the brain room using what Akiha normally aims at when Leopard engages Soul Shout, he engages a sort of protective barrier normally used in hyperspace jumps to prevent them from reaching his room.

Learning of the bomb being sent to take out Proxima Crown, Dark Leopard shifts the ship’s position and aims his cannon at Kirkwood instead, throwing everyone into a frenzy.

Help comes from an unlikely quarter as Xanthippe suddenly warps in and throws out her tail whip first, catching Leopard’s cannon and moving him out of aim. Benkei and Nerval also warp in one by one, with Nerval blocking Leopard’s way and proclaiming that any further damage will not be tolerated.

In response, Leopard extends all his swords and zaps all of them with bright green laser goodness. Got to love the bling-blings. Oh, and this shot is fuzzy because the whole thing was in motion. Animation remained top-notch throughout the series and the last episode was no exception.

More bling-bling.

Everyone affiliated with the Brain Colony project directly seems to enjoy calling Navi people, especially Imoko, “baked potato”. Awesome.

Half-time shot. I must admit, out of all the brain colony ship designs in Sorakake, Nerval’s final form has got to be the best and most beautifully rendered.

Epic-sized battle between the colony giants continue, with Xanthippe grabbing a hold of one of Leopard’s swords, but gets zapped back in return.

However Dark Leopard soon loses his power as Benkei (and maybe the others) cover up the 7 artificial suns that provide Leopard with the energy he needs.

Flustered, Dark Leopard flies right to Benkei, swords extended. Tsutsuji instantly overrides Benkei’s control and plunges the ship straight into Leopard’s sword, going crazy at this point, complete with shining bikini full of power.

Despite the sword stuck inside Benkei, Tsutsuji charges forward, and the chainsaw connects and cuts off Proxima Crown.

Kannagi, in the meantime, asked by Kazane who has opened a connection to Nerval (and asks for his cooperation), brings Imoko from Nerval to Akiha’s side in battle within Leopard.

Tearful reunion for the two.

Fon has passed Imoko some complex instructions regarding Akiha’s use of QT or something. Basically she can tear a hole in the fabric of space and create a hyperspace warp to go wherever she wants to, though the use of it seems to be temporary. Whatever it is, it requires the current hyperspace barrier set up by Dark Leopard, and Akiha tears a hole through it to move right to Leopard’s heart, with EXISTENCE, Honoka and Itsuki beside her.

Hyperspace, shown for the first time since the series started, in Sorakake.

YES! SNAP THAT BITCH’S MAHOU SHOUJO WEYPUN!

Back to the kitchen woman, and make me a sandwich.

And inside Leopard’s heart, Dark Leopard finally shows himself, gigantic against the smaller forms of Akiha and gang.

Seeing that all hope was gone, Honoka and Itsuki urge Akiha to order EXISTENCE to attack Leopard, which she does. EXISTENCE, combined with Honoka, commences their attack as shown here.

Inside, Leopard of course gets zapped too, and he starts to panick beyond all measure now that he is near death.

As expected, the panic temporarily forces him in control of his own body and he shouts out to Akiha to stop.

Akiha instantly shouts for Honoka to stop, and Dark Leopard immediately warps everyone except Akiha out into normal space, outside of the colony ship.

Dark Leopard once again prepares to fire his cannon, this time at the abandoned outpost, stating that Akiha should stay there and watch. But Akiha and Imoko shout for Leopard to wake instead, and when that fails…MAHOU SHOUJO TIME!

HENSHIN! Seriously, where the hell did that heart sign on her face come from all of a sudden?

I have seen this pose before. I know I have. I just cannot remember where.

The kick lands squarely into Dark Leopard’s eye, and Akiha shatters the eye apart, coming face-to-face with Leopard himself.

Leopard x Akiha doujins complete with docking and “I HAVE CONTROL” coming your way July 2009.

Regaining control of his own body, Leopard realizes Akiha is nowhere to be found, but immediately finds Dark Leopard.

Nerval then comes up beside Leopard’s colony ship, with Fon onboard. No inkling was given as to what he was up to, though Fon asked if he was alright with it. Nerval then takes over Leopard’s systems temporarily with Nerval Exclusive Control, sucking in Dark Leopard in the process and transferring his consciousness to Nerval’s previous human body instead. Dark Leopard then gets dropped after some trash talking, falling into a void.

Nerval then asks Leopard to shoot at him without hesitation, now that the Prince of Darkness is within his colony ship. Destroy both him and the sins that had been committed, Nerval demands.

Dark Leopard enjoys freefall.

Nerval is actually a Decepticon in disguise!

Leopard, without much hesitation, takes aim at Nerval. He says something in Engrish here, like “YOU’RE CONTENT” or “NO CONTENT”. Whatever it was, it still made me laugh hard at Nerval’s reaction.

Priceless. I need the sub for this nao.

And Nerval’s colony ship explodes, taking Dark Leopard with it. Nerval transfers to a copy of his brain colony (he has that ability after all) onboard the ship Fon escapes in (Sakura’s).

And as with any new toy, Sakura plays with Nerval’s brain colony…using a pickaxe, WTF? Nerval admits his mistakes will not go away, but he also asks for a thought for both Benkei and Xanthippe. Uncharacteristic. Nerval, in the end, was never really the big bad guy; the Dark Leopard of 50 years ago was.

Nina gets owned by both Kazane and Elle, being asked for help in rebuilding Kirkwood after the whole thing.

And it turns out Nami did escape after all, in a pod. She is spotted by Tsutsuji. In the meantime, Leopard asks everyone, including Benkei and Xanthippe, for help in searching for Akiha, who is missing.

And the frenzied search starts…

Fon insists at this time that both Kagura and Honoka be treated less they really lose their lives, and Kagura replies that it is fine, as she had already lived quite the life. Honoka then spots Akiha.

It turns out Akiha was warped out the same way the others were, except she was thrown far out, though Imoko is with her. Seriously, how do you survive in space sitting on a QT-arms without any protection except the QT suit, and eating manmaru yaki at that? WTF?

Screw you Sunrise. Spoil a beautiful screenshot of a well-done spiral galaxy with freaking ending credits. By the way, for Akiha to see the galaxy up this close, she was thrown really far out. We are 2 million light-years away from Andromeda Galaxy, the nearest neighbor galaxy to our Milky Way.

The brain colonies also gather at the reunion at the end of the show.

And Leopard is blushing and giving excuses, stating that he just happened to jump into the neighborhood, and was not there to save Akiha.

And the Boumin combination are at their strongest when in danger of losing their jobs with good ol’ Nina Stratoski, who is almost choked to death and worse when she finally agrees to let them stay.

SURPRISE! HATSUNE MIKU GETS A CAMEO!

Nami is saved by Tsutsuji and Benkei, though she says nothing. She actually looks better in this shot. As usual Benkei has no idea of the analogies and metaphors Tsutsuji pours at him, but taking a look at Nami, Tsutsuji turns around and says, “It just means Benkei, that we should create our own paths for ourselves.” A cool quote.

 

Impressions

And that ends it! Sora wo Kakeru Shoujo turned out, after the initial lulz, to be an entertaining watch indeed. In fact, for its animation, good cast and other good aspects, I gave it an 8/10 on both MAL and ANN. I will probably be giving a full review sometime soon, and quite frankly, the ending was quite good for a show of its type. Not as rushed as one thought it would be, not as bad off as one might expect.

Related posts:

1. Sorakake 25 – Black & White
2. Sorakake 19 – Delicious Possibilities, Bad Singing
3. Sorakake 22 – Bumps & Encounters
4. Sorakake 13 – Swimsuit Dominatrix
5. Sorakake 16 – Jovian Jostle