World Conquest Zvezda Plot, Ep 5: Wasting tax payer’s money

This episode was a bit more typical and less exciting, being more akin to the usual anime comedies. It’s got the oh so generic trope where the heroine trips and causes the male lead to accidentally grope her breast; a scene where the male lead is forced to sneak into the girls locker room, and of course, the most cliche anime trope of all time, tentacle molestation. …But no really, joking aside the episode was more typical compared to the preceding installments of Zvezda Plot, with less themes to parse over and analyze.

I was hoping it’d follow suit with previous episodes and give us some background on Captain Robin and White Light, but it ended up being more about Asuta and Robin’s friendship and rivalry, which wasn’t all that insightful either. Asuta and Robin are friends at school, who without knowing it, are also enemies due to their “part-time” jobs. Then they both get molested by a tentacle monster, only for Asuta to end up dropping his suspicions of his friend being Robin. There’s not really much more to the episode than that, since we still don’t know much about why Robin is apart of White Light or what White Light even is, and there’s nothing too compelling about her and Asuta’s secret rivalry (it could be later on as the plot develops, but it’s not at the moment.)

The one hint we get is that Robin joined White Light because she wanted to change and become “a strong girl who can help people in trouble.” Okay, that alone still isn’t too compelling since that’s pretty typical for a lot of superhero origins. What’s might be potentially interesting though is the low self-esteem that’s evidently behind all that.

Robin managed to work her way up to being a Second Lieutenant within White Light and she gets above average grades in school, so she’s clearly a smart and capable person. But she also messes up big time on occasion, be it setting a pan on fire in Home Rec or accidentally having the Bad Guys grope you. Even if you’re hard-working and are arguably a well-rounded human being overall, major mistakes like that can cling to you and keep you down, so it’s understandable why Robin would think she needs to get stronger in spite of her accomplishments. And hey, letting the Bad Guys get away is pretty humiliating, especially when the higher-ups are rightfully lecturing to you about how you’re wasting tax payer’s money.

You have to wonder though why it is that White Light only hires younger teenagers. Sure, Zvezda Plot is a pretty silly show with a loli Hitler and all, but the members of Zvezda can at least be handwaved as them being made up of child geniuses and little kids with magical powers. White Light however is apparently just a government funded organization. Wouldn’t someone in their twenties be a more ideal age range for combatants? If you don’t want some snotty brats wasting tax payers money, maybe you shouldn’t be hiring snotty brats in the first place, right? Perhaps there’s some legitimate explanation for this, like young teenage girls are the only people who can wield whatever power White Light has at their disposal. Although at the moment it just seems like there’s not much more to them than just a bunch of kids wielding laser swords and wearing risque superhero costumes, so I’m more inclined to think it’s just Zvezda Plot being silly.

For that matter, it’s rather comical how Robin doesn’t realize that Asuta is the same person as Dva when it should be pretty obvious. Robin at least has that gaudy outfit for her secret identity, but with this episode literally the only thing concealing Asuta’s identity was his mask. Maybe it’s just a subtle parody on Zvezda Plot’s part about how superheroes tend to use only the slightest thing (like glasses or a small mask) to conceal their identity from others.