Whoa. they actually gave the people from Gracies the Russian language. And while I know nothing about that language, it actually sounded pretty authentic
there. This episode once again rocked, with some very solid dogfights and tactics. This episode did both justice to the Sylvius who had to escape against overwhelming odds, and Fam, who actually felt very responsible for guiding the enemy last week.
I’m still a big bugged about this whole “skyfish hunting”, though. This episode explained perfectly fine how this is done: destroying the Claudia tank of this huge warship eliminates the thing that keeps it afloat. It does leave me to wonder though: if it really is so easy, then why aren’t more people following Fam’s tactic? Or are Vanships really so hard to control that only the top pilots can really get a good shot before being shot down? That’s the thing that’s really bothering me about this series: why are there so little precautions made against Vanship attacks, even though it has been shown quite a few times that they can give the large warships quite a difficult time? Or did the enemies blow their entire budget on the huge imposing warships, hoping to win by intimidation?
So, eight episodes in and about a third of the way through, the execution has been a bit wonky, but the pacing has been surprisingly solid, albeit slow. This show was a bit clunky on the character introductions, but the past episodes have allowed us to get a good feel of the characters, and they’re beginning to stand out more. By far the best part though, is how much colour it brought into its world. This is the part at which I actually believe it’s getting better than the first Last Exile. The first Last Exile still stands miles above this one in terms of characters, though.
Rating: ** (Excellent)
This would have been a very, very good episode…
However, there are many things that made it off. For example, Fam’s sudden Skyfish hunting, as well as being able to pull off the sinking of the Anshar… There are also some quality issues in this episode…
Still, there are many good highlights in this episode… Gracies seems to have badass firepower and cool technology, not to mention that they Russian! I also liked that the Silvius had to really struggle to be able to breakthrough the siege… I find it kinda annoying though that Fam herself doesn’t need to struggle as much…
And what pains me in this episode is about Giselle! Poor girl! T_T How can Fam just leave her like that?!?
This would have been a very, very good episode…
However, there are many things that made it off. For example, Fam’s sudden Skyfish hunting, as well as being able to pull off the sinking of the Anshar… There are also some quality issues in this episode…
Still, there are many good highlights in this episode… Gracies seems to have badass firepower and cool technology, not to mention that they Russian! I also liked that the Silvius had to really struggle to be able to breakthrough the siege… I find it kinda annoying though that Fam herself doesn’t need to struggle as much…
And what pains me in this episode is about Giselle! Poor girl! T_T How can Fam just leave her like that?!?
The “skyfish hunting” part has always bugged me too, besides the very noticeable abscence of a solid defense against Vanship attacks in the Federation fleets. It is certainly a viable tactic to be used against their ships as evidenced by Fam in this episode, so I am not satisfied that they left such a vulnerable weakness that could be easily exploited. And I cannot fathom how the heck Fam and co are gonna salvage the Anshar if it has sunk. I mean, won’t it be wrecked when it crashes down to earth? If it was still salvageable, can the Federation afford to just abandon their ships to their enemies? Can’t they salvage it back from where it crashes down? They have a lot of other ships in their fleet, right?
Nevertheless, this was still a good episode overall. It was certainly nail biting to watch Silvinus’s fight against the Federation forces, besides getting a glimpse at the superior technology and weaponry at the disposal of the secretive Gracies forces. For me, this episode is signalling that the series is finally heading in the right direction and I find myself anxiously waiting for next week for more doses of Last Exile.
next 2-3 episodes incoming drama between gisey and fam
Honestly I think gisey is just being a . . .little girl getting her self all worked up and jealous of fam x milia as if she forgot the promise fam made to the king about keeping milia safe. . .what was that thing about sky pirates and ALWAYS honoring their contracts? (you know the king giving the family heriloom as payment)oh wait, all bets are off a once little girls throws hissy fits and gets her feelings hurt for the sake of *drama* and gissey just *happened* to be unable to ride the vanship with fam so save themselves from complete annihilation. I just face palmed at the scene of her crying after their asses just got SAVED, like seriously? you were just on the brink of death and the first thing you do is cry from jealousy instead of being glad you are alive?! Someone please shoot gisey now, Id rather millia take her role since she has gotten less whiny and more mature seeing as to what has happened to her over the course of the story. the impending two episodes of needless *dorama* is going to fuck up the pacing even more now. . .
well in the first Last Exile they mentioned before that there was no concept of using Vanships for attacking big ships (instead they were used to deliver messages and scout). They only used Vanship fighters to fight against the Guild after it was demonstrated it was feasible (after the heroes inspired the Mad Thane to use smaller ships in battle).
@nymbryxion: the problem is the setting is now on Earth, where the use of Vanships by the Sky Pirates for “Skyfish hunting” has been going on for quite some time already. I cannot believe that the Federation are not aware of that vulnerability as I believe the Sky Pirates have stolen a lot off their ships, hence the reason they set up that trap to annihilate Fam and Gisey’s band of Sky Pirates. If any off their enemies ever get it into their heads to use a fleet of Vanships each armed with those Claudia engine disablers like Fam had, the Federation fleets will surely be at a huge disadvantage.
Using vanship to attack the Claudia tank is actually harder than what the anime shows. In Episode 4 Gisey mentioned she never succeed even during training.
In the end of this episode Fam also says that this is their first success.
So it IS a viable tactic, but not am easy one to pull off.
The Ades battleships are equipped with small-caliber fast-firing weapon all over their body to shoot down those pesky vanships.In episode 8 several Silvius vanships are shown to be damaged after their sortie. However vespas are just too small for even those weapons to reliably shot down.
yeah, ppl happy that Gracies are Russians+) Well, i myself happy as well, but my ears just hurt when i hear most of their phrases, since I’m russian. +) But i heard one of them speaking clearly ^_^
I for once liked the admiral or whatever saying they can’t loose valuable and experienced crewmembers… and they are loosing entire ships.
By the way what is the purpose of rocket assisted vertical takeof if the first thing they do is going horizontal?
The thing with point defense is that it is very dificult when you have manual control and nothing remotely like a computer to control it. And in anime point defense never works to stop the good guys.
I think one of the VAs is a native Russian speaker, but the others…at best she might’ve coached them. Was still an awesome surprise to hear it up in my Last Exile.
I loved this episode.
Totally agree on the Russian, it was really cool and further added to the scale of the world with an international feel.
Perhaps the rockets got them to their target/border faster with the better propulsion.
@valinor89: Totally agree, Sadri was great. He even upped his greatness with him caring about his crew and him and his crew saluting their ship which I loved, really added that little “classy” touch that the chivalry added on occasion in the original.
Right gandalf8, and I think they are becoming aware of their weaknesses but change takes time, this is a massive fleet already in service. And they are in the midst of trying to outfit themselves with new anti-vanship weapons, it’ll take more time to address actual hull issues I’d imagine.
Also perhaps they eventually could have salvaged the Anshar once it hit ground if it were in their territory however they are in extremely hostile territory (Glacias) and defending their dead ship from the Silvius with a fleet would easily bring Glacias forces since he was already keeping back most of his forces and already risking bringing in a smaller force so this ship is a relatively small loss given their fleet and huge number of ships and as he said he wants to save his men so it’s unlikely they can sit their waiting nor bring in a new fleet since they are across Glacias’ border and the ship won’t be able to fly for much longer leaking Claudia.
Perhaps to finish off the capture off-screen maybe Dagobert from the Silvius as a real Guild engineer might be able to do something about that to prevent the Anshar from continuing to sink in a timely enough manner so as not to piss of Glacias since they may not be getting shoved out of Glacias territory quite as fast being one ship as Ades would and repair it just enough if they have some spare refined Claudia to refuel it a bit.
Ooh, another interesting bit, since it’s Claudia Unit damage we’re talking about here this also brings up an interesting question for later as we continue to learn more about Ades (and hopefully some more Guild threads as started last time) about their level of Guild knowledge and that they may be not nearly as familiar as thought possible just because Luscinia and Alauda were in power positions (and they’re clearly keeping some things isolated since we’ve never seen them with Guild-hybrid like Alauda’s, and their battleships are “current” not even remotely even slightly “super advanced Guild”), in regards to these in the first series Anatoray and Disith generally couldn’t make them they came from the Guild and likely couldn’t repair all but basic damage (unlike the Silvana/Silvius design and it’s Guild engineer) so it may have mostly been a lost ship to them anyway.
@goto: Gisey’s current is state is equally if not moreso about the “real war” around her and how hard she is on herself and the constant edge on which they’ve recently been in real combat and further pushed by watching the Sky Pirates getting shot down followed by worrying about her father’s ship. It was clear she was going break first from this kind of “you could die at any moment” than Fam who pushes her vulnerabilities to the back of her mind and takes action. With now both Milia and Giselle undergoing changes and/or losing their composure, hopefully it’s Fam’s turn now as we build to the mid-season climax as
The most likely reason, like the first series, they haven’t addressed the weakness yet is that they can’t just refit and replace their entire fleet that quickly, these ships put everyone else’s battleships to shame as shown in how they’ve been able to take on every other world power so they are relatively new and the height of the “battleship era” and yet were likely created just before vanships began to be used in actual combat and probably soon before or just about when the Sky Pirates began to use vanships in a sort of early version of vanship combat (and before they had full knowledge of Glacias since they’re clearly built on isolation), they’ve been caught in the midst of the shift to a new style of combat which is why they recognize they are in no way yet prepared to take on Glacias and are in the midst of developing new weapons and likely other new countermeasures and defenses for these new tactics, likely while their engineers back home are likely in the midst of developing new ships, but things are moving fast and they’ve been caught in between like most ships in the first series that stared down the Silvana and Alex and Tatiana’s groundbreaking tactics. Glacias is in isolation and the Silvius is a new player since they don’t even know where Anatoray is yet and it’s only been 2 years since they came to Earth (plus it’s unlikely they even knew the Silvius was a carrier until she launched her hidden fighters)
Damn that did not seem so big in the little text window….I would have split that up since I posted about several different things, sorry excuse the massive post.
From what little I know about ships at sea if they had to abandon ship they would also set explosive charges on board to ensure no enemy would be able to salvage her. So, unless they throw that basic premise out the window the Anshar is going not going to be useable.
I am guessing that Fam boarded the vessel and disarmed the ship and stopped the engine power link….it was in the scene we didn’t see this episode. 🙂
Any way great episode, I’m gonna have to go watch it again.
@DangerMouse: I don’t think the Silvius are infringing into Glacies territory right now. They had crossed the border in their attempt to escape the Federation fleet, but they managed to escape towards the Grand Lake as seen when they were just about to crash. If my memory serves me right, the Grand Lake isn’t in anyone’s territory, more like the international waters in our world where no specific country has full control off. I also don’t think the Anshar sunk in Glacies teriitory, as when they started to pursue the Silvius after all their sub fleets were damaged, the Silvius had already withdrawn from Glacies territory during the commotion of the Glacies forces opening fire on the encroaching Federation fleet.
@goto
Your comment about Giselle is probably as pathetic as that brain of yours. Giselle is probably one of the more mature characters in this series. She understands the gravity of war and its cost, while Fam and Milia are just two simple and THE MOST NAIVE characters ever. Fam has her ability as a pilot to support her outrageous stunts in battle, but Milia is the “little girl with nothing strong about her.” Seriously, the downfall of this episode for me was exactly how unlikely Anshar was sunk. Let’s accept that destroying the tank underneath the ship can destroy the whole ship, even though that’s also ludicrous for such a grand battleship. Then you have Fam charging in at high speed. Milia, the princess with little experience in markesmanship, pointed the gun, and HAS to hit the mark. 2 MAJOR mistakes happened. Why would anyone close their eyes when she is aiming for something that must be absolutely shot down??? Second, her inexperience, indicated by arm movements that the huge recoil was taken, still allowed her to shoot down the tank, which was exactly the hard part, as suggested earlier when Giselle commented on how she could never do that. So, if inexperience Milia can sink Anshar, why not let everybody pilot vanship and sink other battleships???
Furthermore, Fam NEEDS Giselle as the navigator. Haven’t you realize most of the tactics require timing and knowledge? (since you have limited amount of info-gathering-instrument on a vanship) Giselle is the brain of the vanship while Fam just execute them flawlessly. For example, the last turn during the race in episode 6, Fam needed Giselle’s precise timing, and Giselle delivered. Who else can be as knowledgeable as Giselle? She even memorized almost every strategic information required? It’s even lucky that Fam returned with Milia in their “sky-fish hunting” sorty. Seriously, Milia matured??? She’s even wiling to sacrifice her self to save Silvius, not knowing it’s a trick…and just imagine how she will govern her kingdom if she did gain them back in the end of the series…she’s way too incompetent by her naive-ness. Back to Giselle, yes, she did feel jealous of Fam and Milia relationship, but only a little. She’s more grateful that both of them returned safely than she’s more jealous of them. Furthermore, she never promised to protect Milia, it was Fam and her rashness again. Plus, wouldn’t you be more concerned about your family more than some random kingdom’s business??? She’s not throwing “hissy fit,” she’s just breaking down from all the emtions from the past events. Think about all the times Giselle saved Fam and herself with her quick-decision. You, however, are the one throwing a “little girl’s fit” Go face palm yourself next time if you have something naive to comment, just like Milia.
@cheese
You hate Fam. We get it already. We dont need a wall of text. Normally I dont post any comments but yours are just to annoying. Giselle is not mature, she is emotionally weak. So is Millia but not as much as Giselle. Yes Giselle is smart and clever but no planner. She is good at the practical implementation of someone else’s plan. Much like a sergeant carrying out a plan made by an officer. Of almost everything they did the basic plan was almost always Fam’s. Giselle just figured out how to actually do it. In ep 1 both the first catch and Lassas was Fam´s basic plan. So was the first capture for Tatiana where Fam figured out they somehow trick the owners when she saw the uniforms. In episode 7 Fam figured out how they would escape but left the actual implementation to Giselle. Giselle herself would have never figured it out, she was panicking to much.
Fam is foolish and naive but does not suffer from tunnel vision the way Giselle does. Fam is also stupidly fearless. As for Millia most of the maturing she did was because Fam forced her into situation the was unfamiliar with. Also seem to forget that Millia did a lot of book studying during the time Fam and Giselle where out hunting skyfish. Before she could not even read the lightcodes. Fam forced Millia to recognize her own weakness. Until now Fam has been the officer and Giselle the sergeant who figures out how to carry out the officers plan. Giselle is as dependent of Fam as Fam is of her. Actually Fam could probably manage somehow on her own. But right now Giselle is completely dependent on someone showing her the right direction. She herself is incapable of it.
@drask
Thank you for putting a constructive argument. I stand corrected on several points, one of them being giving the impression I’m saying Giselle is too smart. I do agree Fam and Giselle need each other, Fam being the officer, and that Giselle is emotionally weak, which again is why I like Giselle more, since it shows a more humane side to the story. However, you’re missing my original contention. I only wrote a couple of lines about Fam and I actually like her, not hate her. BUT, I dislike Milia and her character. Tell me, how has she mature throughout the series? She has been going through hard times, but in no way has it indicated she snapped out of her naive-ness, which in fact SHOULD be the result of enduring hardships. My original contention is that Giselle is not useless, like goto said in his/her post. And I also pointed out that Milia, which he/she said is more capable than Giselle, is actually not. Explain how it’s logical that Milia sunk the battleship with her skill, and the fact she closed her eyes right before she shot…The only good thing about her is that she sure has immense luck.
Lastly, thank you again for putting such a solid argument, disproving some of my points, but please at least stay on topic next time, since I was trying to say Giselle is not a worthless girl in the series, as goto insisted that “somebody shoot her now”
P.S. What is wrong with putting a wall of text? What do you find annoying in that, since you also put a huge wall of text and you chose to read my comment? AND you DON’T get my point…so I guess next time I need a bigger wall of text to make it even clearer…(sarcasm)
@cheese
I will be jumping somewhat between different themes: Giselle is not useless. she a skilled and excellent sergeant. The best you could want. But she is not a leader.
Milia is more mature than she was at the beginning of the series, where was a fairly arrogant princess (a product of her upbringing). Just look how she behaved towards Teddy. Does she behave this way now? Not really. On the other hand Milia is still not very mature. But she did realize her weakness. That she was powerless and did not really know much about the world. Thats one step towards maturity. Next step towards maturity is that she realized she had to do something about it. As I mentioned before studied things like light signals and other things while on Silvius. One can presume she studied things like weaknesses of Ades warships and what a navi must know. Central to this is Fam who constantly pushes Milia into new situations. Like when they went to get back her sisters glass and telling Milia the was an orphan or putting Milia into the situation where she got captured by Silvius (Dio did not help). Or pushing Milia to establishing a government in exile or lastly forcing Milia to be her navi. Fam pushes her, knowingly or not, to mature whether she wants it or not. I suspect Fam did the same thing with Giselle when they where young. Thats why she is such a good navi but also shy she is so emotionally weak. Fam is to dominant. This will probably be bad in the long run.
As for the sinking of the Ades battleship. Remember that Fam and Giselle tried to use this tactic in ep 4 when they tried to capture the Silvius and failed miserably because Anatoray are not stupid (like Ades) and put Silvius claudia unit deep inside the ship protected by armor. Giselle also said she never succeeded getting the shot even in training. This indicates this is a known weakness in Ades warships and Giselle thought Silvius would have the same weakness. One can suspect this was not a stupid design choice by Ades but probably a compromise of some sort. Their newer battleship are big and heavy so the claudia units must work a lot which requires a lot of cooling. They did not use vanships in combat so they probably did not think it would be a problem. Remember Gracies vanships have anti ship guns so a hit is going to hurt a lot anyway. Also from Giselles prior experience the target is difficult to hit. One can rationalize it like this but is was probably just a convenient anime plot weak point.
Basically Milia was just very very very lucky in hitting it since normally it does not seem to be a viable option. Also Silvius would have probably escaped whether they sank Ansher or not.
I suspect th post has gotten a bit to long sorry.
@drask
Thank you again for another intellectual comment. This probably will be my last comment, seeing that we’re mostly in an agreement. I completely agree that “Giselle is not useless….But she is not a leader.” And your second paragraph completely reaffirmed my contention that Milia has to be VERY lucky to get that shot. And you further provided a plausible scenario why there’s the weakness on Anshar, even though it still seemed a little ludicrous XD The only point I still do not agree on is Milia maturing. As of NOW, I will have to say Milia is still too naive. (hopefully that will change) She “might know her weakness” but she’s still not making any improvement on her character or intelligence. And I highly doubt Milia can understand anything about Ades’ weakness…Anyway I really liked this episode, despite some minor flaws. Lastly, once again, I thank you for your even longer wall of comment! XD And I hope you can see my original contention that goto is the one being annoying with his/her naive comment.
This episode was really exciting and I loved the battle scenes and the introduction of another country and their kick ass tech.
The downside to the episode was that Millia made the shot that brought down the battleship.
It’s annoying that the set up such a good battle scene with very real looking tactics, and then they win because some princes with NO experience of being a navi and NO experience of shooting, manages to shoot down a battle ship WITH HER EYES CLOSED.
I felt like flipping a table right there.
@goto that’s all kinds of harsh. Gisey/Giselle is what,a 15yo girl suddenly sucked into this do or die battle that she never wanted to get involved with in the first place, and you think that all she’s doing is having a ‘hissy fit’.
You chose to interpret her tears as being due to jealousy, but I would say that it’s a part of what she’s feeling, but I’d believe that she’s also relieved that Fam survived, and that she’s also crying because of the situation she’s found herself in.
Human beings are complex, it is possible to feel more than one thing at the same time.
___
Like @cheese I’m not a fan of Millia, she’s not really shown herself to be intelligent or country ruler material. She needs to sharpen up, but I’m not convinced that Last Exile is intent on making anything better out of her.
I’d have been disappointed by the weaknesses in the main girls, if it wasn’t for the fact that Last Exile has a lot of female characters that kick ass.
.. Where was Dio btw? he completely disappeared from the screen.
Giselle can be compared to Ravie in 1st series.
She too wasent fit for combat, and it hit her pretty hard when the fighting started.
With everything thats been going on, it wasent a surprise to see her break down in the end.
Fam is almost like Claus. Too blind to see and understand her feelings, and simply go with her own ideas.
Honestly, Fam shoulda been made a little bit more responsible.
Still, very good episode. Music fit in perfectly, and cant wait to see more of them russian pilots!
@kanub
It feels like a travesty to compare Fam to Claus, from what I remember, their characters are very different.
I keep waiting for the moment where I’ll warm up to Fame, Gonzo! throw me a bone here!
Lol, “authentic”, the pronunciation and accent and grammar was so bad that I didn’t realize it was Russian right until the end of the opening. This is not 2001, it’s not that hard to dig up some native Russian speakers to sho-in in Japan. Next time they ought to check the local taverns in Hokkaido ports.
Late/early post second world war they did develop rocket powered interceptors, the idea was they would quickly get off the ground and to altitude ready to meet incoming aircraft in a very short time then dump the expended rockets for better maneoverability. They were very quickly superceded when lighter/more powerful jet engines were developed but the same idea persists, in aerial combat the high ground is very important and shaving a few minutes getting to it before the incoming hostiles hit you is still important.
Also im thinking Giselle/Fam is Ravie/Claus clones.