Welcome everyone, to the halfway point of the season and another episode of Kaina and the Great Snow Sea! This is a bit of a slower week, even with Kaina’s pacing, and perhaps one of the chlllest rescue missions I’ve ever witnessed. But was it bad? Lets dive in and find out!
Starting off, like I said above, this was a bit of a slow week even by Kaina standards. That isn’t automatically a bad thing of course, if the content is interesting then what’s the problem, right? And there was definitely plenty of interesting stuff, as we saw Ririha’s rescue and our first up-close glimpse of Valghia. Toss in a few more small character moments, such as Ririha quietly whispering her thanks in the crate or her father thinking her dead and asking for her forgiveness, and you have a fine episode. Its just that, personally, I was hoping for something a bit more… impactful? Some kind of meeting between Kaina and the Admiral, or some other confrontation of sides. Something to set them against each other on a personal level beyond the Admiral just being a stereotypical sadistic bad-guy. So it wasn’t bad, just didn’t fully scratch that itch.
Getting into the actual rescue, I will say that I’m happy with how this turned out. For all that we didn’t get that confrontation I was looking for, I enjoyed how… imperfect it was. How Kaina and Yaona didn’t really have an escape plan and wound up stuck on the boat, how they almost got caught and, most importantly, how the weather played an important factor. For the first time on Kaina, we see characters comment on it being cold. Which it should! They live on a sea of snow damnit! I’m glad that played a part in the lacks guards and in the Admiral’s choice of execution. It probably should have shown up before now if I’m being honest, what with walking through it to get here. But better late then never I say, and it made the rescue that much more believable since they weren’t big damn heroes.
Furthermore, this focus on the Valghian soldiers gave us a chance to see cracks begin to form in their cohesion. We get further evidence that Amelothee, the bad-ass female knight, really doesn’t approve of all this. Sure, she’s more then willing to face someone head to head in honorable combat. Then it’s just 2 people fighting for what they believe in, no tricks or deception. But here we see her both disgusted by the Admiral’s choice of execution and respectful of Ririha’s dedication to her people. It’s just more evidence that she’s going to end up joining Kaina if you ask me. You don’t introduce a blatantly evil higher ranked villain right after your honorable one for no reason. Especially not if she ends up prioritizing Valghian lives and survival over the Admiral’s clear bloodshed.
As for Valghia itself, we finally get to see it up close and it was nothing like I expected. I thought it would be much more metallic, fabricated through some kind of technological advancement. Something to match Amelothee’s arm and armor. Instead it looks like a giant rickety island that could fall apart at any moment, showing us just how precarious their situation is despite being “The bad guys”. Getting back to the boat, to me it’s clear that they cannibalized their tree to build it rather then die a slow death as their water ran out. A fair response, as we’ve yet to see anyone really build into or use their tree in such a way outside of the Canopy. Most seem to build on top of it, like an island, rather than using it like wood. I’m really curious what kind of significance that has though.
For Kaina at least, I expect this to be a trip. Not only is their “ship” made out of a Canopy Tree, it’s also the single largest man-made structure he’s ever seen. Up until now that honor belonged to Atland, but even that was just a series of buildings built on roots. Valghia meanwhile looks legitimately massive, dwarfing everything else we’ve seen so far. I’m really curious to see his reaction to all of that. Additionally, I’m looking forward to this chance to humanize the Valghians a bit. Now that we are on their “boat” this is our chance to see their struggles, to learn why they are doing all of this. Surely they can’t all be comically evil cartoon villains like the Admiral, right? Maybe even he is a bit more restrained back home, possibly even hailed as a hero! I can’t wait to find out.
Finally, there’s the question of how they will escape. Clearly they can’t just take one of the Valghian ships, they have no idea how to pilot it and I doubt they have enough people even if they did. In fact I expect that they won’t escape at all, instead hitching a ride until Valghia arrives at Atland, where they will then sabotage it from the inside. This would not only help Valghia win the war and secure Kaina’s role as the Sage, it would also make a lot of sense seeing as they have no idea where they are on the Snow Sea. So if that happens, the question then becomes how long Kaina is going to spend on said boat. Personally? I’m expecting at least one full episode, maybe two. Only time will tell though.
So yeah, all in all while this is definitely on the slower end for Kaina, it was still a decently solid episode. Lots of character building and a good excuse to get our leads out and exploring a bit more. Hopefully now that we are on Valghia proper, and that Ririha is back in the squad, we can pick up the pace a bit. It’s not that I think Kaina’s pace was bad before of course, it’s just that we only have 5 episodes left in the season and I really don’t want it to end on a cliffhanger. Even if there is more story to tell, I would like some kind of conclusive ending. Something I can feel satisfied by. Hopefully Kaina is able to pull that off.
