Category: Finished Series: Adventure/Fantasy/Science Fiction

Short Synopsis: Fan Hulic and Miranda attack Alses’ mansion to rescue Lyra.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
And so this episode quite forcefully removes the last fear I had against this series: the fear that the cheesed up romance between Fan Hulic and Lyra would ruin the series. The creators first proved me wrong by making their reunion actually adorable, rather than annoying, and if that wasn’t enough already they then proceeded to actually kill her off from the show! So that’s what that sequence in the ED meant, where she is covered in thorns: it wasn’t to symbolize that she’s the eternal damsel in distress of this series, but rather that she never could live a really peaceful life.

This really was the episode to show that, even though everyone’s dressed in frilly clothes and drinks tea when going into battle, the creators mean business. Alses losing his eye is the perfect example of that, and I think that this really is the perfect closure for the first half of the series: it’s been quite dull at times, but nevertheless it knew exactly how to build up, and the real meat of the eries is about to start, with Fan Hulic finally hating Tytania enough to fight against them seriously.

I feel that Alses losing his eye is going to trigger a snowball of reactions within Tytania, which is going to really upset the balance they have created so far. Salish is going to have to deal with a deranged brother, Idris lost one of his lackeys, and Ariabart and Jouslain are also probably not going to sit still after these events.

Short Synopsis: Fan Hulic, Miranda and the others make preparations to safe Fan’s damsel in distress.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
Oh, don’t mind me. I’m just trying to catch up on as much as possible of what I missed the past week when I was away. ^^;

In any case, I’ve tried to ignore it, but after this episode I just have to speak up about the animation of this series. It’s just abysmal at times, and yet this series doesn’t belong in the categories of series with crappy art. What impresses me about this series is that even though this series has a very limited budget (most likely the result of Artland taking up two series this season, overcasting themselves with the addition to Count and Fairy), and yet it doesn’t try to cut corners: there are hardly any cut corners. There’s movement nearly everywhere, even though this is a series about people talking. I can spot hardly any still frames, and at times the chins of the characters actually move when they talk (rather than simply their lips moving up and down). It’s a common trait of the recent Artland series: they really aren’t the best, they don’t have the largest amounts of money in their pockets, but at least you can see that despite their shortcomings, they try to make up for it. It works pretty well, though unfortunately it does mean that a lot of faces are really distorted.

In any case, I really liked this episode, even though it was mostly building up. Perhaps it was the prospect that Fan Hulic is actually going to DO something. He may be a lazy bastard, but at least the guy knows what he needs to do when he really wants something. I also suspect that the Euria-traitor is simply going to be political bait again, once he gets defeated by Fan Hulic (I also suspect that that’s why Idris left catching Fan Hulic up to Alsas: he wants to be 100% certain that Hulic is going to lose, otherwise he’ll just lead the same fate as Ariabart and Zalish). I do wonder what the poor bastard was thinking when he volunteered himself to go and catch Hulic, although I guess that he figured that it was a worse disaster for him when he lost, compared to Idris.

I’m also curious: what’s up with Alsas and his “Hyuuren”? He really never seems to change this, despite hearing numerous times that it went wrong. It’s funny, in a strange way, especially since everyone and his dog has to correct him all the time.

Short Synopsis: Euria runs into problems due to inner conflicts.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
At this point, I’m about to take back all the bad things I’ve said about this series. Tytania has really been getting better and better with every episode. Everything finally makes sense: the characters in this series are meant to be very flawed: they’re meant to stay far away from Mary Sues and Gary Stus, the only downfall of these flawed characters is that they take a while to warm up to, rather than the perfect characters who often appeal immediately.

And really, every character has some sort of major weakness in this series: Idris is a lying bastard, Zalish loses his temper too easily, Alsas is incompetent and a mother’s boy, Jouslan lacks ambition, Ariabart lets everyone walk over him, Ajman never does anything for himself, Fan Hulic hasn’t done anything after his victory and suffers from lovesickness, Lydia is an annoying brat. Really, name any character, and there’s some sort of obvious flaw, only Miranda seems to be an exception to this rule. As stereotypes, these guys suck, but they become interesting once you get to know them, and they become fleshed out beyond the mere stereotypes.

I’m also impressed: the creators found a valid reason to keep Lydia in the story that actually makes so much sense: she never chases after Fan Hulic in the end, she just becomes bait for him after one of her comrades sold her out. Meanwhile, Hulic’s love is more like an obsession than a genuine crush: he can’t stop thinking about her, but whether it’s actually love… I don’t know yet. This episode also showed very much that Fan Hulic isn’t the only one who can outsmart Tytania, when Miranda outruns Zalish. It’s just that Tytania hasn’t given many people the chance to stand in a position similar to him, and his victory also received quite an amount of publicity, making Tytania’s defeat even worse.

Short Synopsis: Lydia goes on an adventure inside the Tytania Headquarters.
Highlights: Ajman… what the…?
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10 (Good)
Well, that was solved surprisingly easy, although Lydia now is officially inside Tytania. This was a very strange episode overall, especially for this series. You just wouldn’t expect the creators to just dedicate one entire episode to the escapades of a spoiled little girl. It did serve its purpose, though. The slow pacing of the series is finally beginning to pay off, and I’m beginning to warm up to the characters. It’s at least good that the characters are getting multi-dimensional and away from the stereotypes before the real action can start.

But really… Ajman was portrayed in a very disturbing way in this episode. He’s probably the most stereotypical member of the cast, but this episode portrayed him as some sort of obsessive old guy who has too much free time and likes to stalk little girls. Wtf?!

Oh, and it also seems that Lyra is about to return to the series again, and I really hope that she’s going to make a more positive impact than her first appearance. Ah well, at least I’m glad that the creators didn’t try to put in some silly love triangle or something.

There’s one thing I’m wondering, though. Is 26 episodes really the right amount of episodes for a series such as this one? I’ve read somewhere that Tytania is smaller than LoGH, but with this pace the second half is going to have to try and cram in a lot of development in order to put in a satisfying story. I think that 39 episodes for this series would have fit a series of this calibre better. Politics and short series never went together well.

Short Synopsis: Zalish is sent out to destroy the rebels.
Highlights: Finally Lydia gets something to do!
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7/10 (Enjoyable)
Well, so this series continues its path of solidly building up. This arc was really meant to show a bit of the side of the rebels other than Miranda, and how despite having lost the battle against Fan Hulic, the Tytania family is definitely something to watch out for. Zalish completely wiped out the pirates in this episode without any bit of effort. Fan Hulic meanwhile, seems to finally feel a bit like fighting again, so who knows where this series might take us.

I’m also glad to see that Lydia finally gets to do something, rather than hang around in a random garden. As a naive princess, she offers herself as a hostage to prevent Tytania from taking some vital resources that can be found on her planet, and basically labelling her country as bankrupt. The impact she’s going to make on these Tytania-guys must be quite severe, for her character to be such a major character in this series.

Short Synopsis: Fan Hulic and Miranda stop by another group of rebels opposing Tytania.
Highlights: That battle was more like it
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10 (Good)
When this episode promised to shift the focus back to Fan Hulic&co, I feared for a bit, but to my surprise it ended up pretty good. There was no Lyra, and the whole episode continued to contribute to the much-needed depth of the pirates. All in al, an episode well spent. Just as I hoped, the setting is slowly taking shape in this series, promising some good stuff for the future of this series.

In this episode, the rebels manage to destroy one of the many fortresses of Tytania. They’re of course very happy about what they’ve achieved, but something tells e that Tytana isn’t just going to sit and let the rebels do their thing. The leader of the rebels especially seems to be a bit too confident, so I don’t think he really thought of some sort of back-up plan in case things get screwed.

I also liked that it’s immediately clear what repercussions Tyrandia’s demise had: prises have suddenly risen, poverty increased, people started stealing and looting. So yeah, the guys from Tytania really are a bunch of bastards, even though apart from Idris, they aren’t portrayed as such. Speaking of which, this episode finally shows him not having his way, which I appreciate. I think he’s trying to get in Ariabart’s way out of a strange kind of rivalry.

One thing I’m missing in this series is character background, though. It may be that this has been subtly mentioned here and there and I didn’t pick that up because I’m watching raw, but there’s hardly anything known about the different characters’ pasts, which is a shame since we’re dealing with a cast full of adults. I mean, everyone has to have his or her own story, but so far we don’t get to see anything of that.

Short Synopsis: Turandia is screwed, since they practically declared war against Tytania in the previous episode.
Highlights: The very first space-battle in five episodes… was rather underwhelming…
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7/10 (Enjoyable)
I’m really getting curious about the second half of this series. I mean, so far the series has been much brighter than I originally suspected when I watched the first episodes, so what will this series be like once it really gets fired off? The fact remains that the director and original writer once came up with Legend of Galactic Heroes, so they should be able to deliver something worthwhile. But then again, Ryoko’s Case Files was also written by the writer of LOGH, and I dropped that one after only two episodes…

In any case, this episode was solid, nothing more, nothing less. Idris gets a sneaky plan to have Ariabart fight again against Turandia, because a loss would mean a definite degradation of his, and one less annoyance to be bothered about. Ariabart, however, blows the enemy forces away with a very simple tactic. The battle really was the least interesting part of this episode. I mean, it was over before you knew it. In fact, it’s hard to call it a fight, and it just felt like another political action that happened to involve a bunch of spaceships.

In any case, Tytania is one of the few series this Autumn season that I’m watching and not yet sold on in some way or another, but that was sort-of to be expected. With all the build-up that’s required for the setting, I’m not going to expect anything amazing for this series during its first half. What it needs to pay attention to is just flesh out the setting and characters, so that it can have a second half that makes up for the first half.