Seikai no Senki III again is completely different from its predecessors. It’s much lighter, the conflict is much simpler, and there’s a lot more emphasis on random conversations than ever. It;’s about Jinto, as he returns to his home planet after having been gone for years. At an hour’s length, I at first believed that this was going to be another one of those unimportant side-stories that you often see in DVD-specials nowadays, but Jinto really develops throughout this OVA.
But yeah, one hour is still way too short, and it also doesn’t help that the creators try to do way too many things at the same time. It could have worked if the creators only focused on Jinto’s development, but for some reason they wanted just about every character to some kind of cameo here. There’s just too much time wasted on pointless banter between these side-character, including a rather strangely out of place mock-battle of which I still nave no idea what point it tried to make.
The strangest thing about this OVA though, is one particular side-character: Ekuryua. Do not ask me why, but this girl completely changes character, beyond anything that was established about her in the previous series. It’s especially grating because the creators keep using this as some kind of quirky gimmick, but those attempts at comedy never really work.
So overall this OVA definitely had the right intentions, and Jinto’s development is as good as ever, but unfortunately it overall was poorly balanced and needed a lot more episodes to really shine like its predecessors.
| Storytelling: | 7/10 – Not focused enough for such a short OVA. |
| Characters: | 8/10 – Jinto’s development rocks, but there are too many pointless side-character cameos. |
| Production-Values: | 8/10 – A graphical upgrade… including a bunch of recycled scenes… |
| Setting: | 8/10 – Excellent, but could have been even better with more episodes. |
Suggestions:
– Space Fantasia: 2001 Nights
– Tytania
Sekai no Senki III actually serves as a logical end to the series. From volume IV the war ‘restarts’… So what this OVA did was officially make Jinto and Lafiel into a couple. That is all.
I liked it because it gave a feeling of closure to the series and established the relationships of our leads. But I can see your point of it not being focussed on the plot.
I believe it was originally slated to be another series at one point, but then got condensed into an hour-long OVA. You can even see how it could have been broken down into various episodes (I counted at least six clean divisions) had they gone through with the series run. Which is a disappointment, because I think even 10 episodes would have been enough to really explore the stuff in this installment.
At least the ending provided a nice conclusion.
The ‘Mock Battle’ was actually a cover story for a preemptive strike on the planets defences, wipe them out before it could declare independance if memory serves.
Ekuryua is probably the worst squandered opportunity in the series, especially in Seikai no Senki II. She should’ve been used to externalize some of Jinto’s doubts about his relationship with Lafiel.
Seikai no Senki III nicely resolves Jinto’s ‘origin’ story. It ties back to the beginning. The mock battle parallels the Ahb invasion at the beginning of Seikai no Monshou. Jinto revisits characters from his past. Finally, it also ends with him in exile from his home world. The difference though is that he makes the choice this second time, and, significantly, he chooses Lafiel over his past.
Senki III suffered quite a bit from being squeezed into a single OVA, there are just about as much material in the Senki III novel as any of the others in the series. Imagine if they had to compress Senki I/II into a single OVA… yea… In the end Senki III felt more like a collection of quick shots from various scenes patched together rather than a complete story.
That said, I still enjoyed the dynamics between Jinto and Lafiel immensely, I don’t think it’ll ever get old 🙂
Complicating things further, I believe that the first release or broadcast of this OVA did not include certain scenes, which were only added later.
That said, I found it satisfactory as a way to end (at least for the time being) the saga of Lafiel’s and Jinto’s relationship, though I definitely hope that one day we will get to see more from this particular fictional universe.
I just watched all of these, and I really liked them, but I have to say I was a bit disappointed. It seemed like the whole thing lacked direction and was never heading towards any sort of climax or end.
Granted that’s partially because it actually isn’t finished, but I don’t think that’s the only reason for that feeling.
If all the series and OVAs and such were extended and combined it’d be something that could rival LotGH, maybe, but the way it is now it feels like a kind of homage to it that doesn’t have the scope of the original, if a bit different due to romantic focus with the two main characters.
Just finished the show in a marathon and it was an enjoyable ride, really loved the interaction between Jinto and Lafiel nad I hope that we will get to see them once more and maybe even their children in the near future?