1 The Princess specifically expressed surprise at them having both an elf and a mage. She mentioned that the two of them together could be exceedingly powerful...

True magecraft and spirit magic can make for a nasty combination.

Then Rory got out and Princes Pina died a little inside.  

2

Italica was one of the nations who sent out their military at the Emperor's call and got it annihilated in the second battle with the JSDF. The Count (the ruler) was one of the dead. The current ruler is 11 years old; she's the youngest daughter of three left behind, but her sisters had been married off.

Not quite.  The count died before the Empire launched its' invasion through the gate (Note that the conversation confirms the Empire committed to an invasion through the gate before they had scouted out what might lie on the other side.).  The families that the older sisters married into were struggling for influence and guardianship of the youngest sister during her minority.

I also would not say that the knightly order commanded by Princess Pina is a toy or not particularly useful.  They were trained by an experienced officer (Grey, who is with the princess.).  That biggest problem they have is actual combat experience as well as for Pina, actual combat experience in combat.  That is obvious problem that you simply can not train your way out of, although you can train to handle it better.

Itami is interesting because while he was the subject of humor several times, his otaku nature is notable in the episode for being completely absent.  He is a capable and canny commanding officer when he wants to be - the trick is making him want to be most of the time (Although, a good but lazy officer might arguably be best at commanding in difficult situations.).  Note that aside from intervening with the recon group, he has already made arrangements for support, which the gunship in the preview and Episode 6's title of 'Ride of the Valkyries' is a complete give-away. 

3 Have they changed the word they use for Itami's rank?  They've promoted him to captain in dialog, but what he's wearing on his collar hasn't changed, AFAICT.

4

Wow...Two typos in one sentence.

That biggest problem they have is actual combat experience as well as for Pina, actual combat experience in combat. 

...Should read:

That biggest problem they have is lack of actual combat experience as well as for Pina, lack of command experience in actual combat. 

5

Have they changed the word they use for Itami's rank? They've promoted him to captain in dialog, but what he's wearing on his collar hasn't changed, AFAICT.

The word they've been using is "taichou" 隊長, which means "commanding officer". It's like "skipper" in the Navy; it doesn't imply any rank. It's an acceptable way to refer to your ranking officer, no matter who he is.

6 Pina's a good person at heart, one of the seemingly relative few in the upper crust of the Empire (that surely added to her gender and mother to sideline her in Imperial politics).  I suspect that she has the best chance in the not-a-harem-war, either as Empress or by being married off to cement a treaty.

As for the next episode, I guess I don't have to spoiler it, because they've already given it away--the air cav commander is quite a character.  CMoAs abound!

7

Re Taichou the problem the translator is having is that in English there's no Army term equivalent to "Skipper" in the Navy. In the US Army and the British Army and all English speaking forces derived from those traditions, soldiers refer to officers by actual rank plus sometimes their name. The translator could be using "lieutenant", Itagami's actual rank, but for some reason has decided to go with "captain", which is two ranks higher.

Equivalent naval terms in Japanese are senchou (a ship's captain) and kanchou (captain of a warship). Marika's crew uses "kanchou" for her in Mouretsu Pirates because the Bentenmaru is heavily armed, even though it isn't formally part of any military service.

8 In the US Navy both the captains of my ship (over the years) held the rank of commander, but were always addressed as Captain. I think it's something similar here.
Princess Pina is acknowledged by the emperor, so she is part of the royal family, and 10th in line to the throne, so she has no realistic shot at as things stand.
Looking forward to next episode, seeing Rory the Reaper do her thing. I just hope Kurabayashi meets expectations. I was rather disappointed in how the anime redesigned her character.

9

I was intrigued by the exchange between Leili and Itami about his improved grasp of trans-Gate language.  He offhandedly attributes it to being hit in the head when the Princess flung the door open.  However, just after that, as he regained consciousness, Rory leaned over him very closely, staring into his eyes.  Makes me wonder if she did something to his mind at that moment.

Pure speculation on my part, but I've seen similar actions in other works turn out to mean something.

And, of course, now I've got that awful song from the 70's stuck in my head....

10

I suppose a better translation would be "commander," but that could create confusion with the Navy rank, and also carries specific connotations of authority in English.  "Captain" probably answers the mail best of all.

I think Itami's only one promotion from the actual grade of captain--he's been promoted again since the first episode.  When they commissioned him, he had one star in his rank insignia, and now he's got two.

11

I have to admit: I just read the manga up through ep 37. There's no hint at all that Rory did anything strange to him, and the whole question of how he picked up the language never comes up.

The good news: This isn't going to do the Gasaraki Tango. That whole business ended up being settled with a sequence that was almost comedic.

The bad news: for a long time Itami fades into the background. There's a lot going on and Itami isn't involved in very much of it. But there's a new arc starting in maybe chapter 38 and Itami will be in the middle of it.

The best scene? Tuka shouting at a member of the Diet, "Are you an idiot?"

12

There's no hint at all that Rory did anything strange to him, and the whole question of how he picked up the language never comes up.

As I said, it was speculation.  We've seen Lelei use overt magic, and heard implications about Tuka's abilities.  That Rory effortlessly carries that silly pole-arm and fights so well indicates that she may not use magic, but is magic, befitting her as-yet undefined 'demi-god' status.

Speaking of whom:  everyone seems to know who she is.  I've seen nothing in the backgrounds to indicate that trans-Gate has printing presses, so are there Emloy temples that have her image in them throughout the Empire?  In talking with Grey, Pena seemed to indicate that the Empire has its own orthodox religion; perhaps it is pantheistic, with Emloy one god amongst several?

13 Genetic memory? People who can't instantly identify one of Emroy's oracles don't live to pass on their genes...

Pina came up with a plan. Wasn't a terrible plan, as they go, considering that before Itami and the gang showed up, they were already in pretty dire straits. However, to work, the plan required the enemy to cooperate... and they didn't, of course.

A plan that might have worked would have been to use Itami's team as a central reserve, but to be fair, she's got no idea just how good the JSDF soldiers are, she can't be sure that they're friendly forces, and she doesn't trust Rory any further than Pina can throw Rory's axe. And further, if she grew up in court as an illegitimate daughter, she's probably used to thinking in terms of being in a poltical snakepit - if she holds Itami back, he can just let her get chewed up by the bandits, and if he can win, he holds the town. Pina's decision wasn't wise from the viewpoint of the viewer, but it wasn't out of character at all. Assuming that other people will react to a situation in the same way you would is a fault of many real-world leaders as well.

What's really interesting is that Itami knows that Pina's screwing up by the numbers, but doesn't insist on changing the plan. Of course he's in a completely different tactical situation - he can hold the gate until morning against the entire enemy force, withdraw just about any time he might want to, and has overwhelming reinforcements on the way. So even if he shuts up and soldiers, his force isn't particularly threatened. But to get his way, he'd have to push her out of command, and there's one thing his troop can't do... and that's hold the town. Split them up to cover everything and they can get defeated in detail. Hold them together and they'll hold their position, but the rest of the town gets chewed up and spit out without other troops to hold it. If he's really trying to protect the town, he has to have the other defenders defending it, even if that means they're not protecting it well.

(And it was a good gamble - the bandits might not have attacked at night at all, or they might have come in with only a few people and not broken through, or they might have come in at the gate he was covering. Heads he wins, tails he still doesn't lose...)

It'll be interesting to see how they bail out of this one. Rory's the wild card here. We know that she's powerful enough that a dozen men are absolutely no threat to her; can she take a hundred? Or enough to hold the gate, at any rate? More to the point, she's a threat that the men attacking would immediately understand... and, quite possibly, constitutes a fate worse than death. We don't know how much of her speech from ep 3 is intimidation, but if we take her talk about hating lies at face value, and put it together with that, then there might be spiritual consequences that go beyond just dying.

14 As to Rory, it isn't anything so complex. This comes out in the manga. She's 961 years old, and has been an apostle since she was about 12. Once she became an apostle she stopped aging. She's also unkillable; she states that even if she was chopped in half, then if the body parts were placed next to each other they'd fuse and she'd heal. She also serves the God of War, who doesn't condemn killing (obviously) but does condemn killing in a wrong cause. So she's spent nearly the last millenium wandering around the countryside in the garb of a priestess of Emroy (i.e. that black and red thing she's wearing) getting involved in fights and slaughtering people. It's hardly any wonder that Pina knows who she is and recognizes her, even if Pina had never seen her before. It's also hardly any wonder that PIna was terrified.

15

Regarding Rory's notability (And I actually have no idea why this part of Gate need to be spoiler-proofed, since it was mentioned in Episode 5 and shown before.):

Pina mentioned that she has seen Rory once at a national religious ceremony before.  We do have proof that Rory has traveled around the lands enough that even children from rural villages (Like from Coda.) know who she is by sight.

It occurred to me that the recon group and Rory alone might be enough to stop the bandits cold, if the bandits had any sense - but some of the bandits seemed to be controlled by bloodlust more than anything else.

Anyone else noticed that one of the major roads Italica is on is named 'Appia'?

16 Sorry, the genetic memory line was along the way of a joke. ;p

Rory's powerful, she's unaging, she's... unkillable to a certain degree. But there's still probably some kind of limit of what she's capable of; likely she couldn't charge Arnus Hill and take the gate alone. (And of course, having sussed out the moderately-benign motives of the troops there, it's probable she wouldn't want to.) Can she stop a small local army cold on her own? Presumably we will find out.

17 The Empire is strongly reminiscent of Rome, what with having a Senate and an Emperor, plus the kind of clothing they wear on formal occasions. Naming that road "Appia" certainly wasn't an accident.

18

...some of the bandits seemed to be controlled by bloodlust more than anything else.

I don't think that's what it was. I think it was desperation. They have no where else to go, no other way of surviving. They can't go back to the Empire; the emperor would order them all executed. No one else would hire them because no one else would trust them. There aren't any other towns nearby besides this one they might plunder, that would yield enough plunder to survive.

They win here or they die. If they don't win, all they have is a choice of deaths. A clean quick death in combat is better than a slow painful death by starvation or disease..

19

I have to say, I'm impressed with Itami's grasp of the politics he finds himself in.  It's rare to find a junior officer who can grasp the bigger picture, and Itami seems to be one of those.

He's realized that the vast gulf between the JSDF and local forces is discounted, and is using this as an opportunity to show an Empire leader how overmatched she is while nominally "on her side."  Giving them a reason for détente will save a lot of money; artillery shells are expensive.

I wonder if the reason the bandits didn't attack the south gate is because the JSDF forces silhouetted themselves when those three scouts were checking things out.  If some of the bandits were survivors of the daylight attack, they may have recognized them guarding that gate and decided to seek success on one of the other gates.

Of course, if they knew that the JSDF was assisting in the town's defense, they probably would have decided discretion is the better part of valor.  Maybe they thought the gate with few guards and no lookout fires was an obvious trap and declined the gambit.

20 There are a couple of big reveals about Itami coming up.

21 The allied armies tried a night attack on Arnus - it's unlikely they saw the JSDF forces in sufficient detail to have been able to recognize them later. They may, however, have heard about the men in green and seen green on the wall. Likewise, they probably did spot the incoming convoy, and may have put two and two together from that. Surely they had the roads under observation if they had the town under siege already.

22

The night attack was the second attack by the allied armies.  The first was made in daylight, and its failure is what drove the lord (his name escapes me) to try a night attack.

23

The night attack was the second attack by the allied armies.

The allied armies staged three attacks in total.  The last attack was the night attack, when King Duran tried the wiser course of action, only to discover the JSDF was prepared for that as well.