Episode Title:
I'll Do My Best, Mustang!.
Episode Description:
As the head staff tries to discuss what to do for the plot of the thirteenth episode, they start to liken the protagonist's reason for flying to their own reasons for getting into the anime industry. They become interested by their motives for making anime and ask the rest of the staff for their own opinions, receiving various responses. Meanwhile, Midori, who has been given writing assignments by Maitake to improve her writing skills in lieu of directly teaching her, feels downhearted when an increasingly irritable Hiraoka implies that she can get her way just because she is a girl. She talks about it with Maitake, who assures her that his reasons for giving her the assignments were work-related. Later, after the production staff comes up with a scenario for Maitake to work on, Hiraoka gets into a heated argument with episode director Hironori Madoka, who feels the key animators provided by Hiraoka from Studio Taitanic have been of poor quality. After talking with Marukawa and calming down, Hiraoka apologizes for his actions to Madoka, who also apologizes. Afterwards, Hiraoka secretly expresses his dissatisfaction with current anime such as The Third Aerial Girls Squad, citing that no one would truly notice it as long as there are characters to observe and that the quality of key animation is no longer important. Ai overhears him and, feeling different from his perspective, pays a visit to a sick Ema, who advises her to remain confident in herself. The next day, Aoi assigns both Hiraoka and Tarō to oversee production on the twelfth episode. Meanwhile, Seiichi and Maitake use the previous day's fight as inspiration for how to improve a scenario for the thirteenth episode, asking Midori to write natural-sounding dialogue for a fight between two of the characters. While printing out a draft for the scenario, Midori confronts Hiraoka about his previous words to her.
