Watching the first of these OAVs reminded me just how much I enjoyed Stratos 4. I already wrote a quick explanation in my previous entry, so I won’t go into that again. While this episode was really just setting everything up for what’s to come in the OAVs, it was still quite enjoyable simply because it was more of the same.
I’m not sure if this is a surprise or not (probably not) but they’ve kept the same OP tune. Melocure’s ‘1st Priority’ is pretty distinctive, and I’m glad they kept it because there’s not going to be any more music coming from them, ever. 
The episode starts out on one of the comet blaster stations (#8) where they are testing out a new unmanned comet blaster, which is the system that was talked about a bit towards the end of the last OAV. Kazuma is there, and has a sort-of argument with the current director of the station. I expect that she’s going to be an important character a little bit later on in the story. There is a comment made that ‘computers can’t make mistakes’ which I’m sure is going to come back and bite her.
I was a little bit worried once the episode itself started out. We return to Shimojijima. Sayaka is reading a letter from the two boys, Tsubasa and Sora, who have left the base to become test pilots (which you should remember if you’ve seen the previous OAV). This was setting off warning bells for me. I was thinking they’d decided to cut out a lot of the original cast. Everyone seems to be missing the four girls, who have gone off to become Comet Blasters, implying they might not be in the series. This suspicion was further reinforced when the three new trainee girls were introduced. Especially when one of them announces ‘we’ll be the main characters from now on!’.
The three new girls don’t really seem as interesting at face value. They may develop nicely, but at this point I was getting a Limeiro Ryuukitan X kind of vibe from it - “we used up our good ideas for the first one, these are all we had left”.
We have Kiriko Aoki, who seems to be the loud one from this group. She’s got it into her head that she’s the ‘main character’ which will probably end up in wacky hijinks. That’s a good thing. Her seiyuu is Kaori Mizuhashi who Futakoi fans will recognise as Sara.
The second of the three new girls is Mirei Tachibana. She seems a bit uptight, probably going to drop dramabombs later on. Akeno Watanabe is another familiar voice. While she hasn’t done a huge amount, she has a couple of pretty distinctive roles under her belt, namely Robin (Witch Hunter Robin) and Chachamaru (Negima).
Finally, we have Mana Ninomiya. She seems to me to be the only one of the three who has the right sort of character to fit in with the original four. I don’t know why, but I liked her the most out of the three. Her seiyuu is Haruhi Terada who hasn’t really done any major roles outside of Fatty-fat Emi Isuzu in Tenjo Tenge.
Thankfully, the writing team was fucking with us. Just after the new girls get introduced, an aircraft touches down and Mikaze, Shizuha, Karin and Ayamo pile out looking sheepish. Seems they were all rejected from the Comet Blaster program, which is surprising (they had recommendations from two of the existing team) and the suspicion put forward is that it’s to do with some sort of political wrangling within the organisation. I can’t quite remember what the set up was with this whole thing, but from what I recall the Comet Blaster stuff was a private corporation operating under government sanction. Anyway, I was extremely relieved that they’re not pulling a Limeiro on us, and the original cast are still around.
The eyecatch is very… eyecatching… as usual. 
The girls head off to the old hangar to sulk with Sako, as usual. Now, when they left this hangar last time, they had the Stratos 4, an aircraft they’d all built together. It’s gone, taken from the Shimojijima base by headquarters, who were confiscating it because it had been flown into the upper atmosphere without permission. Cut to the new test pilot duo, who see the Stratos 4 touch down at their own base. It seems that the director of the test division had requested it, and he talks to Sora and Tsubasa about it. It seems that the secret about the meteors (from the TV series) is still not public.
The girls are sitting with Sako, talking about how they failed. Karin says that she thinks it’s her fault, because she’s different and because the people at HQ are afraid of her. Shizuha and Mikaze disagree, Mikaze pointing out that if there was any reason that they’d be dropped, it was probably her antics. Ayamo then points out that if that were the case, then only Mikaze would have failed. They conclude that they clearly didn’t have the skill to pass.
Kazuma arrives at that point. It seems that with the unmanned comet blaster going so well, he was surplus to requirements and has been sent back home. Hopefully this is the end of them basically retconning the conclusion of the first OAV. Kazuma explains the reference to sugarcane he made back at the beginning of the episode here. The sugarcane on the island is destroyed regularly by typhoons that blow through, the tall sugarcane getting cut down. But once the typhoon is gone, it starts growing upwards again. Pretty simple analogy, really. He announces that the girls are to be employed as full-time pilots for the base. I’m assuming that this means that they might be involved with teaching the new girls, which could result in some amusing antics. The girls are all fired up and they run off. Sako is just about to go off himself when he notices that the previous lot of girls have been replaced by the new ones. It seems that Sako’s hangar is the place to be for moping.
Sayaka and Reynold are watching a news report on the unmanned comet blaster, and Sakaya is upset that it’s different to what Rin and her husband had been striving for. Reynold agrees, but points out that historically, this is what happens - ideas are not always put to the purpose they were intended for.
The episode ends with a ‘welcoming’ party, with the new trio complaining about having to wait the tables and drunken Sako and Sayaka antics. Honestly, it’s like the series never finished. The ED theme is a Ritsuko Okazaki track, clearly posthumous, which begs the question of how far in advance they’d planned this. Was Stratos 4 originally planned as a 26-episode series and cut back to 13 episodes?
This episode was really all about retconning the conclusion of the first two OAVs so they could better continue it. Thankfully they had good explanations for all the back-stepping they’ve done. I’m still not sure about the inclusion of the three new girls, but since this episode didn’t really give them much time I expect they’ll have an opportunity to shine later on. Not a huge amount happens this episode, but it looks like the next one will have some high-altitude action, which is after all the point of this series. Looking forward to it.
There are more cute characters