「Queening square」

Now that Dian has taken Liliana’s life, she feels the guilt that is associated with it. I guess taking the life of someone up close has a much bigger impact on her than shooting them down from afar with her vanship. Even more so when you know their sister and even came to be friendly with them.

Luscinia and Alauda didn’t waste any time to resuming their scheming despite everyone else taking a moment for Liliana’s death. As Luscinia’s fleet rolls out, Alauda conducts a surprise attack on the coalition fleet. The fight between Dio and Alauda was nice but much too short. It’s also very hard to confirm that he is in fact dead and not just unconscious since there was no blood.

As we find out, Lusicinia is still a very capable killer. This makes Liliana’s death all apart of his master plan to ruin the treaty. Unfortunately for Vasant, that meant she was also going to die. Of course that didn’t mean that she was going to give Sara up without a fight. I’m surprised at how ridiculously strong Luscinia must be to kill Vasant in one blow. It is a little bittersweet to see that Vasant’s last thoughts were of Sara. It’s just a nice touch to show the audience how much she really did care about her.

I’m not entirely all that impressed with Last Exile’s version of the Death Star. The important part here wasn’t that Luscinia was finally able to use his new found weapon but that he called the Sara “Maestro” and that she is a key to this new Exile.

It was finally nice to hear Fam acknowledge that she was pretty blind to everyone else’s feelings. It still doesn’t make up for the nearly 2 seasons worth stupidity though.

I don’t know if anyone else noticed but the animation was really bad. The shots up close didn’t seem to be affected but most (if not all) the shots that were zoomed out or panning that involved people were pretty bad. It’s a very disappointing.

The next 2 episodes seem like they’re going to be jam packed with action. They’re going to have to mount a rescue mission for Sara and fight this beastly Exile to boot. I’m not expecting much else to happen from here until the conclusion other than the tidying of the loose ends.

 

Preview

33 Comments

      1. Well they are crouching down, or looks like it. I’m being reminded of something like riding a motorcycle. If they are sky pirates, I imagine they’re used to the wind…(Still would have hurt during their first time.)

        Besides, this isn’t the worst I had seen in the LE verse. Remember the star-shaped ones used by the Guild at Prester?

        The Moondoggie
      2. Seya, my friend. Not to get on your case, but don’t tell me you also sit in disbelief while you were watching Harry Potter riding his broomstick. Or does magic excuses everything? =(

        Dusk
      3. The Moondoggie, the Guild uses great technologies so the star-shaped is another topic.

        Dusk, my friend. Of cause magic excuses everything. It is an another world. And if to think about the world of Last Exile, it is realistic (I mean only Last Exile, not Fam).

        Seya
    1. If we want to talk about the unbelievable ships, you don’t need to look any farther than the massive lumbering battleships that they fly through the air. Those things aren’t made of light weight materials that’s for sure.

      If you can believe that their technology can keep hundreds of tons of steelwork, guns, and crew in the air, what’s weird about an open vanship? No point in using our logic as a standard for a fictional work with fantastical elements.

      If claudia combustion/pipework can keep the flying equivalent of the Yamato battleship up in the clouds, I don’t see how it would have any trouble keeping a small lift craft up in the air. The Guild’s tech clearly precludes the ability to miniaturize claudia units and engines to fit vanships so I don’t see a disconnect.

      DaSilva
  1. I have to be honest in that Fam’s role through this series has not really been revealed
    to its audience. I dunno if this is good writing or sloppy writing – or if there will be
    future episodes. Obviously, Fam is important, but we’re not told how she plays in the final
    conflict. So I’m concerned that we won’t fully understand, or it’ll be rushed.

    I’m confused, too. I thought the power was passed when the current controller died, so it
    made sense that Lilliana’s death catapulted Millia to the top of Turan succession and gave
    her the ability to control their exile. How did Sara become a power? Did she always have
    the power? Then why didn’t Luscinia use her initially? Is it as simple as not knowing her
    exile’s location? Am I not seeing something?

    I think the series did an excellent job of showing, akin to real life, how people manage with
    the tools they’re given. Fam with her simple optimism, Luscinia’s use of war to achieve peace.
    I believe the writers have made sincere, believable, and true (to their character) characters.
    This is why Fam draws so much ire, IMHO. A real person would not suddenly change –
    had Fam done so, we’d be rightful to expect Luscinia to change his methods to achieve peace, too.

    All in all, I did enjoy the series – I don’t see a total fap for the end so I’m confident that
    it’ll be an end that mostly makes sense.

    mac65
    1. I think that the reason he didn’t use Sara immediately is 1. The Exile’s location is unknown and 2. He needs to keep it a secret so he can take the world by surprise. LOL, it worked…

      The Moondoggie
    2. I completely agree. Fam feels more like a spectator to the bulk of the series than a protagonist. She’s just the naive puppy that follows the real cast around while spouting complete nonsense.

      I go back to the Fam Fam Binks comment that I made in an earlier episode. She’s literally the Last Exile version of Jar Jar in that she serves no real role in the anime aside from being utterly stupid on the off chance that someone will laugh at her antics. The biggest issue with her is that she’s supposed to be the main character to the point that the whole series is named after her. Yet both she and Giselle seem to have no point in the actual story. Compare her role with that of Claus and Lavie in the original and you can see the disparity between the characters in terms of story importance. I honestly feel that the events in the series would continue as they have with very little deviation if these two characters were entirely removed.

      It’s a shame because the villains are really interesting, yet the protagonists are so weak by comparison that they’re literally killing themselves off without any help from Fam Fam Binks and her troupe of clowns. I was hoping for so much more from this series but it’s almost insulting to call this “Last Exile” as it pales in comparison to the original. It’s as if they were banking on the name (and the fans’ hopes of character cameos from the original) rather than any substance.

      This series is so bad I almost feel like making this a drinking game in order to make it bearable. Every time Fam mentions Grand Race, take a shot.

      Griffinman
  2. It might be a personal theory of mine, but at first I didn’t see a reason for the Grand Exile to exist, but… now that I think about. For an exile to have that much power to take people from Presters to Earth and back, and quoting that Liliana said that the main problem of Earth was that it was too small… then, probably the main reason for that Grand Exile to exist is to allow humanity to find new worlds.

    I don’t think that the Guild founders would be so fools to create a killing machine just because they can. So i thought of this.

    Xanathos
    1. Yeah, the ones who stayed on earth was probably part of HQ on new worlds scouting which would be a waste if they all came back to earth to stay. I haven’t read the manga so I have no idea if Anatoray was moving everyone back to earth or why they don’t just live where they did before, seeing as they could anyways.

      KJacket
  3. I’m just sticking with the show just to finish what I started, but the second season overall has been a disappointment (and I don’t think it can fix the problems with its remaining two episodes). I think most people would agree with that.

    Unajuuphile
  4. Plot-wise seems fine.
    Character-wise seems perfect.
    Production quality-wise… yeah, disappointing.

    All the raw elements of the story were superb. But the mixing… like in older posts. Didn’t you noted that many surprise and plot-twisting elements were really wasted?
    Tatiana’s return to Boreas?
    The attack on Glacies? Fam’s maternity issue?

    *sighs*

    Xanathos
  5. I’ll leave my considerations for the review of the next episode.
    However I can already say that the only thing probably worth of comparison with what we knew as Last Exile is Vasanto’s tragic death (and even there, they made Luscinia look too much like a bullfighter).
    I found Alauda’s fight with Dio being too short (as you said, no blood makes me wonder). And this thing with pseudo-laser swords like in Star Wars, makes me think that Fam production was handed to some space movies lover who didn’t fully understand (nor watch) the first series.

    The starting scene with Liliana could be cut. Even I actually thought at start that Liliana’s mind had been manipulated by Guild’s technology as it was done with Dio in the first series, but that she could change her mind like that could be better if omitted.

    MetalliumSlayer
  6. It’s not like I expected Vasant to survive, but I expected her to be the one ending Lusciana’s madness while having at least something left to say to Sara before kicking the bucket. Until further notice, Vasant was Sara’s surrogate mother to say the least and a suitable death would have been for her to take down Lusciana with her just like when Alex took Delphine down with him.

    The writers really missed something here and that was a cheap way to kill Vasant.

    Danny
    1. I agree with you… and it was also unclear, because a chop to behind of the neck usually knocks someone out, not kills it. I could have sworn that Vasant was rendered unconscient by Lusciana… but no. She gets killed, by a move that needs a LOT of force. Her death would have probably be clearer if a snapping sound would have been heard and just falling down. The part where she slowly closes her eyes is misleading, because if the neck is snapped, the victim dies on the spot.

      JiCi
  7. Well, since I don’t know if the last few episodes will be blogged I’ll say that this series wasn’t the disaster I thought it was turning into a few months ago. It definitely suffered from a lousy protagonist, some rather big contrivances, and a lot of lost potential as far as how far it could have taken its supporting cast, but I think the worst of these cropped up during the middle act. It wasn’t exactly the gem I thought the original was, but I enjoyed the opening and closing acts immensely. Without dropping any spoilers, I’ll just say that most of the developments in the final act were enjoyable with a few noted exceptions. As with the original, the finale did strike me as a bit rushed but at the end of the day the style and feel of the LE franchise remained, for me at least, very cool to watch.

    I’m sure plenty others will disagree with me, but I’m glad I was able to walk away from what was looking like the biggest disappointment of the year with a very positive note and I hope there’s more to be seen from this franchise in the future.

    Actene
  8. As the serie reviewing was righteously dropped without many explanations, maybe it would not be correct to write my impressions here. However, even if there have been some positive notes, Fam made me experience for good what it means when they “kill a masterpiece” with a mediocre-to-horrible sequel.

    Something worth of notice was some historical research (Ottoman style for the expansionist empire, the use of Russian language, history behind some names or costumes) and some (not all) of the soundtrack. To make sure the serie couldn’t “fly” as before, they even wanted to show a handicapped Claus, that couldn’t do simply anything: a sad, symbolically reverse omen.

    The ending could be in someone’s taste, but I found it without sense. It is very hard to even think this series can be considered “canon” if we compare lots of things and plot points between it and the original LE.

    MetalliumSlayer
  9. I don’t know why so many people labelling this show as a failure. I know this series isn’t perfect, but I think this series is getting better since eps 17. The action is very engaging, the story isn’t excellent but it’s enough to make me want to watch Fam every week and I feel satisfied with the ending.

    I watch the first Last Exile years ago and to be honest I don’t remember much about it. But after I finished Fam, I get the urge to rewatch the first Last Exile. Overall, Last Exile Ginyoku no Fam is a fun ride for me.

    briex

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