Some time ago I decided to spoil a bit of Infinite Stratos here on forums. Many people claim that IS is worthless/stupid/idiotic
as a whole, while the light novels themselves aren't that bad. It's quite the opposite - they're pretty good (but the anime is still crap).
SPOILER WARNING!
Yes, in case you didn't notice shouting
SPOILERS in the thread name. I will be spoiling. It's your last chance to back away slowly from here, in case you haven't watched the anime and/or you actually want to read the novels on your own, which is really worth it.
For now, I'll concentrate on what happens after the anime ends, which is volumes 4-7.
As most of you know, IS Academy's summer camp ended with personal machine users fighting a berserk IS,
Silverio Gospel. Despite what was told in anime,
Silver Gospel (which is its actual name) wasn't an unmanned drone - it had an American pilot Natasha Fairs, who actually
expressed her thanks for saving her life.
Volume 4 cover and a usual Infinite Stratos art, this time featuring
Byakushiki Setsura.
Chapter 1
Soon after the events in volume 3, actual summer has started. Firstly, Rin invites Ichika to Waterworld. Soon after that, he meets Cecilia, who just came back from England with her personal maid,
Chelsea, a quite amazing person, unfortunately only episodic. After chatting for a while, and noticing a worsening in Cecilia's mood, Ichika offers her the ticket he 'received' from Rin. Since Ichika omitted the part where he can't go, Cecilia happily took the ticket. Neither of them was happy to see the other, as you have probably guessed. They decided to
make use of the tickets though and took part in a contest. Being IS cadets, most of the contestants had little chance against them, however the outcome was, well, disastrous.
Chapter 2 is my personal favourite.
On the very same day, Charlotte is slowly getting tired of Laura's sleeping naked and nightmares threatening her room-mate's life (well, mostly sleeping naked), so they go shopping for clothes for our cute German cadet. Leaving quite an impression on store clerks, everyone had fun choosing clothes (
mostly for Laura). After a while (and a taste of Charlotte's wild imagination), they were eating lunch at a nearby restaurant, when it turned out that the manager from a nearby maid cafe was looking for very temporary workers. Dressed as a butler and a maid, Charlotte and Laura started working there (being a great success), when the store got attacked. Despite being a cute pair of cute girls, we can't forget that both of them
received military training. With a bit of destruction, the store was saved from the robbers.
But wait, that's not all to the chapter. After saving the day, some more shopping and eating crepes at the park, they went back to the Academy to try out
their new pyjamas, when Ichika suddenly entered. While Charlotte was flustered, Laura kept her composure and tried to stay intimidating, but it was absolutely impossible in her current outfit.
Chapter 3 was adapted within the latest OVA, the second half.
Houki returns to her home shrine because of Obon festival and her miko duties there. She starts preparing to the divine dance, and after that Ichika appeared, clearly confusing
diligently working Houki. They spend some time going around the stalls, when Gotanda Ran shows up. Ichika decides to
spend time together, much to girls' dismay. After some time Ran had to leave with her brother, which left Ichika and Houki alone. On a viewing spot, Houki decided to
confess her love, but her timing was a bit off, since it was drowned out by fireworks.
Chapter 4 is also a part of the OVA. To be more precise, the first part.
Charlotte paid Ichika a visit at home. As expected, she was going back and forth between delight and extreme nervousness. She didn't have much time to cherish being ahead of other girls, because soon after Cecilia also visited Ichika's home and brought some cake. Usually Ichika's propositions are rather unfortunate to girls, but this time they were delighted with an idea of
sharing.
However, it shouldn't be too surprising if I told you that the rest came over too. As usual, Ichika in response to his complaints got offensive stance from Houki and Rin, a kind of apology from Cecilia and Charlotte... and Laura's usual reaction, as if it was obvious she came to visit her bride. Not having much to do (and not wanting to leave his house), they decide to play some games first (a bit...
intriguing games), and after that (and Chifuyu's short visit, which reminded girls about her advantage) - to cook dinner. Some girls were
more successful,
some less, but they had fun anyway (well, not so much when it came to eating...).
But let's not forget about Chifuyu! It turns out she went out to
drink with always cute Yamada-sensei, apparently dealing with some problems. However, who would have guessed she's worried about her
I won't give Ichika to you?
And that concludes volume 4. It's a very general summary, so quite a lot was omitted. Pictures included are from the light novels, scanned and hosted by
Baka-Tsuki. You should go there to read the novels yourself and show the translators your appreciation. In volume 5 Ichika meets yet another girl, a Russia Representative, capable of... Well, I shouldn't spoil too much. All you need to know is that she's simply amazing, and some nice action starts in volume 5.
Also, you should at least check out illustrations for
previous three volumes. They're worth it.
I would appreciate any reasonable opinions, as well as pointing out any mistakes in this block of text. If there's need for that, I can summarize volume 5, but I hope you'll start reading the novels by yourselves before that.
