I can’t really see conquering the world when they’re fighting for just sections of cities at a time. And the EDF I think always defended while RaRa attack which never made sense to me. I mean, they have mechs too, why not go on counter strike and reclaim territory and for some reason they couldn’t, it felt like a one sided war. The protecting of scientific discoveries from being fought over is admirable, but no one will know that unless you say it and not use them to conquer cities and blow parts of them up.
They are battling for chunks of territory at a time, not just cities. Check Sanada’s map in the ep where he’s trying to decide on what to do when the kids come in late at night.
You’re forgetting why the EDF was always on the back foot, sheer power and tech level. The EDF had only 3 earth made knock offs of the robot tech, developed from an incomplete copy of the core unit data Sanada stole from one of the crash sites. Compared to Rara who had all original mecha in various sizes and designs, with a huge number of them.
In comes Kazuki who’s boosting his power a couple hundred percent in Hartzenen, and even more offensive in Zinv, and suddenly they shifted the balance of power and started winning regularly. Before that every battle was tooth and nail.
That’s why when Kazuki went back to his world, the EDF was totally overthrown and forced to escape in the warship.
It didn’t help that the UN gave up on the EDF and embraced Rara, so they lost any official sponsorship to continue the war.
You can see the EDF made progress in the section where Kazuki and D are defeating robots one after the other. Ken comes on later when Kazuki is with the Rara’s and says they’ve been pushed back to where they were 3 months prior.
In addition, the EDF was made of of scholars and untrained personnel. Only one guy, Officer Shibata, had actual combat experience. Yayoi took over as a robot instructor after she couldn’t be a pilot anymore. Though the Rara Army wasn’t much better, it’s cited that they got most of their grunts from want-ads. EDF pilots besides Mitsuki, Yayoi, and D weren’t much to speak of – the one that filled in for Kazuki while he was at Rara HQ was a total flop and was crying to mommy.
Akane’s backing was I guess to win for the peace from Rara’s conquest. Akane is all about rules and probably felt all the tech should have been under the UN’s control. Easy to forget the women behind the leaders.
Akane was the Inspector liaison between the EDF and UN as a sanctioned private army under Article 39 of the UN charter. Basically stating that in times of distress, the Military Council can appoint a recommendation to the UN to restore peace. In this case that the EDF be given resources, land, and authority to fight the aggressor Rara Army on behalf of the world.
Akane is there to keep Commander Sanada in check, report back to the UN. Which is how Ayuko got the UN report on Kazuki in a roundabout way. Akane, going by her comments during the Kazuko incident, also didn’t personally approve of Rara. Saying he was an ugly old coot that shouldn’t be the representative of the human race.
The questionable thing, is why did Akane stick around at the EDF after it was abandoned by the UN? Instead of being branded as traitors, she should have jumped ship. Could be that it was part of the deal that everyone involved with the EDF was targeted… but we don’t know that. Could be she stuck around due to some sense of attachment, but that’s conjecture.
It’s also worth noting that the Ken’s EDF full title is Earth Defense Force Far East HQ. So there may have been other EDF bases that got wiped out before it got to the Japan branch. We simply aren’t given more info there.
