What They Say:
On his deathbed, Fleet Commander Fairlock entrusts Ridget with Gargantia. Meanwhile, Chamber finally gets a fix on the location of the Galactic Alliance, but they’re so far away that Ledo will never be able to get home. As preparations are underway for Fairlock’s funeral, Shipmaster Flange announces that he’s leaving Gargantia. Ridget struggles to keep other Shipmasters from following suit. Pinion has plans of pillaging the ocean floor, so he joins the like-minded Flange. Amy is sad when two people she cares about are leaving as well, Melty and Ledo…
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The last episode was clearly the one to steer this series in the new direction that it now can’t help but head in for presumably its remainder, and it was capped off with the sudden possibility of near-immediate death for the Gargantia Fleet Commander, Fairlock. It seemed a bit too contrived to happen at exactly that moment, but there’s no secret to what happened revealed in this episode; it seems it was simply due to the shock an old man faced with many of his people suddenly choosing to do something extremely dangerous and leave the fleet if his blessing wasn’t provided, which is plenty reasonable. At any rate, it was no red herring merely for the sake of a cliffhanger, and Gargantia suffers the losses of both its leader and, partly because of the decision of his successor, many of its people.
Beyond this, the episode is relatively uneventful, similar to a significant stretch of earlier episodes, but with a very different mood overtaking the cast. Spending much of an episode on an elaborate (for this humble fleet) funeral service for the beloved commander is very appropriate, particularly for the emotional material and character growth Ridget receives. However, this is another case that feels risky given that the series has only thirteen main episodes and only five of those left to explore the ambitious course it has itself set on. It’s tough to have to juggle so many ideas that each deserve sufficient time to develop, but with a series of this length, spending so much time on slow, slice-of-life affairs only to switch gears so drastically and then put so much more on its plate doesn’t seem like the best idea.
There’s clearly a lot left to explore regarding Ledo and Amy, as the two are to be separated in the immediate future and they don’t see much of each other during this episode. As they meet at the end, it’s clear that at least the beginning of the next episode will have to deal with that in whatever way seems most appropriate. The series continues to feel slightly episodic while a much clearer overall structure is guiding it all along in a series of connected events, and as a result, the episodes are now having more cliffhangers for endings, some more than others. This shakes up the typical structure the episodes had been following a bit, as it seems likely that the next will be another one that has some of its most important content at the beginning in order to resolve how this one left off, followed by a relative lull and then possibly building up to another cliffhanger of sorts.
In Summary:
This episode is much less eventful than the last, but letting itself wallow in some deeper human material works well without feeling too relaxed considering how serious things have become, like the mood of some previous episodes would feel at this point. My main concern at this point is the amount of time the series has left, and how it can sort everything out in a satisfying way.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Custom-Built PC, 27” 1080p HDTV.
