Welcome everyone, to the penultimate episode of Kaina and the Great Snow Sea! This week sees some questionable decisions, both in universe and out. What am I talking about? Well lets jump right in and talk about them.
Right off the bat, I have to ask… did the people of Kaina not know you could… melt… snow? Into water? Is that going to be how the Sage made as much water as he wanted? He just knew how to put a pot over some fire? I really hope that isn’t what just happened this week, because that would be a massive disappointment if so. Not only does it directly undermine the main conflict of the world, IE resource scarcity, it makes every character in the show seem like a moron. Especially when they have steam baths/saunas, which they presumably use… Snow… for. At least I hope they aren’t using their precious water resource for that. Suffice to say, if Kaina doesn’t give us a justification for what happened and what this means next episode, I will be massively disappointed.
Another thing that bothered me was the Ascender. Now I get that this is the legendary sea beast that was mentioned waaaay back in Kaina’s run. And that’s fine! I wouldn’t mind if a sea serpent or something showed up and wrecked both sides shop. What bothers me is the Deus Ex Machina of Light being that legend, showing up specifically to save Atland, then doing absolutely nothing in this super magical fashion. Like… nothing about Kaina up until now has been particularly fantastical. At least not in the magical sense. Every cool thing we’ve seen, from Amelothee’s arm to Kaina’s lazer, even to the Builder, have all been rooted in technology. Because of this, Light ends up feeling really out of place. It’s like an Avatar the Last Airbender moment except without the entire season of spiritual and bending buildup.
What I would have preferred, and what we may still get next week, is for this to be a Kaina problem. The guy already has the laser, the only thing that can probably hurt the Builder. He’s also the closest to understanding literally anything about it. Let this be his moment! He can rise up into that role of the Sage in front of 2 entire nations! You don’t need the Ascender for that. None of this giant snow monster turning to water shit. Just a smart kid and an insane Admiral who’s clearly losing his head because of the headpiece. Sidenote while I’m here by the way, what the hell is the Builder walking on? Roots? That he can’t see? Are its feet Snowfoiled or something? We know how deep this ocean is, that thing should not be able to walk. Anyways, nitpicks aside, lets move on.
Finally I want to talk about perhaps the best part of the episode, Orinoga and Amelothee. I love these two’s relationship. It’s really just a respect thing, neither seem to have any real animosity for the other outside defending their countries, and she clearly wants him to survive and join her. On top of that, they are the only ones to consistently get like… real animation in their movements. Their fights are always the most ambitious parts of any episode. And while they don’t always work, there were some nitpicks with the camera going a bit wild here in my opinion, they are still the best looking part of the episode outside the backgrounds.
But yeah, all in all this was a… disappointing episode of Kaina. A lot of questionable revelations that, rather then adding to the show, take away from its very premise. Can it still fix these next week in the finale? Yes. Am I particularly hopeful it will? Not really. Kaina has survived up until this point by being solid and consistent. It never really surprises, doesn’t have any big “spike” moments. So for it to start to falter this late in the season, I don’t expect it to be able to pull itself back up. And that’s a shame, because Kaina was sort of my dark horse of the season. Maybe the movie will give some of that back. I can only hope.
