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Plot movement is a good thing, generally speaking.
If there’s an upside to the fact that Toaru Hikuushi e no Koiuta is dealing with a ridiculous amount of plot in 12 episodes, it’s that by necessity if nothing else it doesn’t dilly-dally much. The process isn’t always smooth but the direction is unilaterally forward, and we don’t see cliffhangers annoyingly milked week upon week. There’s a cost to be paid in terms of subtlety and character development, but it does keep things from getting stale. Last week was the battle – this week is the aftermath. Check.
War is hell, and its victims have every cause to feel grief at the tragedies at brings. But unless it’s exceptionally well-written, watching people grieve isn’s especially enjoyable either. I’m on record that the execution of the last couple of episodes was good enough to make me feel something as they were unfolding despite the sometimes cavernous holes in the logic behind the events transpiring. Still, there are limits – and stuff like the cliche nature of Mitty’s demise and the headdesk nature of last week’s battle logistics undercuts my patience for watching everyone be depressed about them. This is one of those cases where I’m glad things moved quickly – even as is, I think those scenes went on a little too long. I was hoping we’d see some accountability applied to Isla’s leadership based on how badly they screwed up and the cost paid as a result, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.
If you were hoping for a deepening of the connection between this series and The Princess and the Pilot, that didn’t happen either – at least for one more week. We have a passing mention of the letter the mysterious pilot left behind and the dilemma it presents, but that’s all for now. Instead the focus is on the aforementioned grieving for the fallen, and even more on a far more personal kind of grief for Karl. He and Claire/Nina certainly have an active week in anime relationship terms. First, they meet late at night by the memorial to their dead classmates and exchange their first (presumably) kiss – not a bad one by anime standards. Then Nina drops a bomb on him that hits even closer to home than the ones the Sky Clan dropped a few days earlier.
It seems that Karl hadn’t even considered the possibility that Claire was Nina Viento, and interestingly, Nina had only a suspicion that Kal-el was Karl La Hire. Should he have known? It’s easy to say he was hit by the idiot main character stick, but I don’t really see any reason why he should necessarily have connected the two girls. Though she seems to be almost entirely blameless for what happened five years earlier, it’s clear Claire feels this presents an insurmountable barrier between she and Karl, and makes that clear in no uncertain terms – right after returning his declaration of love. It’s a pretty classic star-crossed love story (this novelist seems to be specialize in those).
Karl reacts about like you’d expect – he retreats into his room and refuses to work or eat. I don’t really blame him – having the girl who took your first kiss tell you she’s your hated enemy that you’ve sworn to kill right after you confess your love is a traumatic moment. Again, though, watching him sulk – even if justifiably – gets old pretty quickly. Not even Ariel , newly out of the hospital can shake him loose – not even with the news that she (like Claire) says she’s never going to fly again. In her case it appears to be a result of the injuries she suffered, which in a way gladdens me because after having been shot by a heavy machine gun that’s the very least that should happen.
It’s Ignacio who does break the logjam – forcefully, by punching Karl in the belly and bodily carrying him outside with a “Pardon me while I borrow this idiot.” Ignacio finally enters the plot meaningfully – it took a while, but he’s making it count. Clearly he’s doing this for Nina, seeing how much Karl means to her. It seems the two young men, now without their partners, are destined to become a piloting team (that was probably inevitable). And it seems that Isla is, by necessity, going to take the pragmatic step of forming a marriage of convenience with Lavamme in order to take on the Sky Clan. They may be outclassed both technologically and strategically in this war, but at least they seem willing to admit it.
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Roger
March 4, 2014 at 8:05 amLet the pain begin.
one thing that bugs me though was how easily Ariel was able to figure out that Nina was Claire under all that costume, considering that that was probably the first time she saw Nina up close. add to that that her classmates didn't notice the resemblance even up close.
whemleh
March 4, 2014 at 1:17 pmWell, the costume is really just make-up and a wig (and breast-pads…). I know anime usually calls that a perfect disguise but realistically anyone would see through it if they paid attention. Given what Ariel knows about Karl's past, she's the only one likely to not be caught up in awe of Nina and notice that she looks like Claire.
Roger
March 4, 2014 at 2:18 pmyeah i get that (even the breast pads 😉 ). but what bugs is how quickly she deduced that it was indeed claire. there was no hint of hesitation on her part that it might be someone who just looks like claire. not that it actually takes away from what i got from the scene, but i just find that a bit jarring.
Helen
March 4, 2014 at 3:15 pmAs a cosplayer I will say that sometimes it's really easy to recognize people under a ton of make-up+wigs+push-up bras and sometimes it's not, I've not recognized people I've seen every week for years until they started talking to me and I've also recognized people I've never personally met just from seeing their images across the web. So while I thought it was a little odd that Airi completely recognized her and the rest of her classmates, who had had the same amount of interaction, didn't have a clue I think whemleh is right and it was because she was trying to work out what got Kal-el into his funk and noticed something she otherwise wouldn't have.
Kaname
March 4, 2014 at 11:12 amSomeone mention the possibility of Nina awakening again to her powers due to love. Of course that would mean someone is going to die…
whemleh
March 4, 2014 at 1:29 pmMan, Ignacio became such a gent in this episode. That part where he had Ariel push him was super cool of him. Plus the idiot theft was very necessary. He even had time to fit in leaning stoically against a tree.
maverickmann84
March 4, 2014 at 11:51 pmSometimes this show reminds me of Valvrave. Obviously not as over the top, but with this operatic sense of tragedy that it feels like they're trying to shove on the viewer. But with so much plot shoved in there I find I don't care as much as I'd like to, or thought I might after watching the first few eps. It really needed a longer format to tell the whole story, and while I still find it enjoyable, I agree with you Enzo that it's hard to watch all these scenes about death and grieving when it isn't done perfectly. And the last couple of weeks. while entertaining enough I guess, haven't been good enough for me to have the same level of emotion they're trying to make the viewer have.
Roger
March 5, 2014 at 3:29 amagreed. it even isn't operatic, but more like soap operatic.
a lot of the events in the past few episodes are obviously done for the melodrama, but without the proper buildup, you really won't feel all those feelings they want to feel. plus, all the headscratch-worthy actions a lot of the characters makes just takes too much away from the tone of the story.
maverickmann84
March 5, 2014 at 3:51 amHaha soap operatic…nice!
Yeah it's this weird mix of being entertained, but still being annoyed at the formulaic parts, the as you said head scratching moments, and not caring as much as they clearly want me to. If this was 2 cours and the final ep of the first was Kal finding out who Claire is, the appearance of the "unknown" plane, and the end of the first big battle it would be perfectly paced and set up for a nice cour 2. Just cut out some of the unnecessary scenes (the entire "arimen ep" comes to mind) and spend more time naturally building up emotion for each character and I could see this show being great. I'd love to see anime series set up like US TV series where the goal is numerous seasons as long as ratings are good. But the reliance on BD/DVD sales makes them more akin to long movies. Which works well for some series, but really hurts so many others.