Several times now I’ve had to slow down and re-read sections of this one, because of either vocabulary overload or a grammatical dogpile that blocked understanding of a scene.

That is, after Arkamatsu (elderly Catian Earth-culture scholar with a special interest in crime, illicitly exploring Earth with the help of his old-fashioned assistoroid Igor) rescues Black Amarylis (teenage goth-loli secret agent with a cybernetic heart that gives her bursts of super-speed) from other spies, he requests her assistance in robbing a bank. Suddenly, they’re joined by “veteran bank robber” Annie (who looks precisely like the richest girl in the world wearing a domino mask, down to the cat-ear headband), whose partner (a child-sized figure wearing a paper bag over its head) rescues them all from an incredibly lethal attack by spies wielding Metalstorm launchers. Annie then leads them to a secure hideout (Ichika’s home and studio) to relax and plot their crime, gleefully incorporating late arrival Sara, who had finally stopped panicking when she realized that she could track down her wayward mistress by getting another assistoroid to locate Heihon.

The teenage cyborg goth-loli secret agent is the most normal person in the room.