It puts you back in a cab with two guys who bicker like roommates while the universe outside gets weirder, and it looks like nothing else on your shelf. Takeshi Koike's linework is the whole argument here: hard black shadows, warped anatomy, faces that snap between deadpan slack and total distortion, the exact hand that would later detonate into Redline. Katsuhito Ishii's comic timing carries over too, Trava the ace pilot and Shinkai the mechanic still trading nothing-conversations while a mech waits for someone to actually use it. This is a pitch reel, a Studio 4°C swing at continuing the story that left Mikuru and her missing memories hanging after the 2002 run. It exists because somebody wanted more and had to prove it in animation instead of a meeting. Nobody bought it. Watch it anyway and mourn properly.

Episode 2 Pilot is a single special made as a pilot film for a possible sequel to TRAVA: FIST PLANET. The original story centers on ace pilot Trava and his mechanic friend Shinkai. While heading out to mark a remote planet, they take on Mikuru, a girl who has lost her memory, and the planet turns out to be more than it appears. An action comedy with mecha and science fiction elements, the pilot offers a short look at where that story might go next.