Sometimes it’s the little things that end up saving the world.
What They Say:
Episode #10: “The Girl Who Carries the Gundo”
The Review
Content: (please note that content portions of this review do contain spoilers)
Here we are, the grand conclusion to Chaika the Coffin Princess. The risen Emperor Gaz doesn’t seem to see any of our heroes as a threat to his existence. Why would he? He is the world’s most powerful sorcerer who has castles in geosynchronous orbit around the planet, and those that serve him do so unquestioningly. He heads for his castle, taking Niva and Shin with him, while the black Chaika stay to clean up the mess.
Chaika doesn’t know what to do now that she accepts the truth that she was just a tool. Her despair drives Toru to want revenge. Chaika doesn’t want Toru to go racing off to fight the Emperor by himself. Realizing his saboteur powers and skills aren’t enough, he finally forms that contract with Frederica. The two go racing off to the floating fortress where Gaz is, leaving Chaika behind to look on from afar through the sight of her gundo.
Red Chaika returns to the castle to retrieve her remains, only to find out from Akari what happened to them. The black Chaika decide to turn the other girls into dolls for their own amusement, and a massive fight breaks out, with Vivi, Leo, and Akari joining in. Gillette makes a report to home base about all that is going on. Gaz has already launched his death beam at several other flying fortresses, in the biggest ‘come at me bro!’ gesture one could hope to make. The one good commander we’ve seen holds back and decides not to attack, because it would only be throwing fuel on the fire. Gaz wants the bloodshed so he can gather the power from the negative emotions to power his own magic.
The fight between everyone who remained behind and black Chaika’s minions rages on in a spectacular clash. This series has always done action well and the battle is an engaging, hard hitting fight. The one who ends up taking out black Chaika deserved to land the finishing strike after all she’s put up with.
Toru makes it into the fortress and confronts Shin. The fight is brief, but pointed. Shin once again points out that Toru was never cut out to be a saboteur, but he makes an excellent dragoon knight. The Emperor invites the dragoon knight in, recognizing his power. Toru is nearly invincible to what would be a mortal blow for anyone who’s not a dragoon, but there’s not much he can do against the Emperor. Gaz repeatedly asks Toru if he wants to serve him, and says that in the 500 years that he has studied humans all he sees in their hearts is a desire to kill. Gaz seems to throw that at Toru as a challenge, because Toru wants to kill Gaz more than anything. Just when Gaz is about to deliver the death blow Chaika is able to use her gundo to protect Toru and Frederica.
This is where Chaika’s desire not for war, but for peace, comes in handy. Gaz decides it’s time for the little sniper to go, but there’s the matter of Niva. After all, it’s Chaika’s blood that woke her, and in the end it was her kindness that causes Niva to return to her. Chaika running out of bullets was a predictable situation, but her final line about what her mission has been since the beginning had me cheering.
While the build up to get to this point was long, the finale seems short. There’s much left unsaid once the Emperor finally is put to rest, but none of that really matters. We get a brief look at the aftermath of the battle at Hartgen, and then one final scene for our stalwart troop. Chaika gets her wish, in the end, and it’s a chance for new beginnings for those that only knew war.
In Conclusion:
Coffin Princess Chaika has been a whirlwind tour of a story, but none of the surprises ever felt fresh and it failed to grab me the way a series should. I expect a less jaded anime fan will get more out of the story than someone who can remember back when Scrapped Princess was all the rage. Despite my lack of enthusiasm, the show was a fun watch with some lovely action scenes and Chaika was a fun lead. I would have liked to have seen a longer epilogue and a more relaxed pacing for the final part of this story, but the pacing always felt brisk with this series. I’d be interested in reading the light novels to see what was left out of the adaptation, perhaps some more character building for the secondary characters. And since the goal of these animated adaptations is always light novel sales I guess that’s points scored for the producers!
Episode Grade: B +
Streamed by: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment: 27” iMac running OS 10.9.5, via Safari 7.0.6, FIOS 15/5 Mbps connection. Your milage may vary.
Actually Niva has a rule to follow. In the light novel the rule is, she can’t kill any of her owners and her former owner tries to kill the previous owner she will kill the former owner. This rule was made so that Emporer Gaz could never be killed by Niva but that backfired.