Kal’s story continues as Ari reminisces about their first meeting.
What they Say:
“Episode 4 – Sea of Stars”
The Review
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers).
Now that the seas have become stormy and tumultuous, Kal and Claire are isolated on the water in their plane, waiting it out. The rest of the class is forbidden from going out to look for their two missing members, since they might become victims in the process. As she’s forced to sit and wait for word on her brother, Ari tells the others about her first meeting with Kal after her father adopted him, and their rocky beginnings as siblings. But what she can never reveal to anyone is the fact that Kal-el Albus has his origins as a member of the nobility that was overthrown during the Wind Revolution, a secret that she keeps close to her heart.
After a couple of embarrassing moments, Kal and Claire settle down to fish for their dinner, and Kal tells her a story about his first airplane flight as a child. Even though their fishing is unsuccessful, being alone together is almost nourishment enough. However, Claire becomes unsettled by a few of the things that Kal tells her about his life before being adopted into the Albus family, and she begins to suspect that the rumors of the la Hire heir being aboard Isla might be more than just hearsay.
Eventually the two are found by the rescue team and return safely to Isla (though Ari definitely has a bone to pick with Kal for worrying her). Claire is scolded for having endangered herself. As her servants attend to her, it turns out that she has a few of her own secrets that she’s kept from Kal.
Though I’ve been writing about anime for quite a while and have a background in textual analysis specifically, I have to make it clear that my way of experiencing media is much more theme-focused than it is analytical about plot progression. I’m often embarrassingly dense when a major plot twist comes around and I just haven’t seen it coming at all. This might not be the most unique anime out there, nor do I expect it to hold up as one of the most memorable, but boy oh boy is there a “what a twist!” moment that occurs during this episode. It “got” me so good that I couldn’t help but be entertained. I won’t go into specific details about it because, in spite of the blanket spoiler warning up above, I think some secrets are worth keeping. But I think that anyone who’s already enjoying this show will either get a big kick out of it like I did, or be so irritated that they question their decision to keep watching. And that’s all I’m willing to say about it.
The previous episode provided a hearty glimpse into Kal’s aristocratic past from his point-of-view, filling in some gaps and advancing the overall plot of the series. This episode provided much of the same functionality only from Ari’s perspective. I have to say that, as irritated as I was by some elements of the earlier episodes (as far as I’m concerned, most of the side characters could be removed with little ill-effect), learning more about the background of the characters and the history of the land via these flashbacks has been a satisfying experience. On a related note, there’s something I really like about the letterboxing used to indicate the characters’ flashbacks. It’s not a unique technique by any means, but it makes the whole thing feel more cinematic and helps flesh out the visuals to what’s otherwise a more generic-looking show (aside from the nice backgrounds, which feature in this episode again).
Now that we know about Kal, I’m itching to learn more about Claire. Again, without delving too deeply into spoiler territory, it’s made clear during this episode that she almost certainly has a more active role to play than it may have seemed at first. She’s not simply a love interest, she’s an active player whose past is probably just as fascinating as Kal’s journey has been. It will be interesting to see whether the two can reconcile their differences after they inevitably find out the truth about each-other.
As a final comment, I’m still very curious to see whether or not Ignacio’s role will be expanded. He always gives the next episode preview narration, and during the episodes he often attempts to take actions that seem as though they might be inspired by some thus far unnamed motivation that I suspect will become important. What a mysterious person.
In Summary:
I continue to be surprised by this series, which took a couple of episodes to find its footing. It still owes a lot to common anime character tropes, but in spite of that there’s a certain something about the way in which the plot is progressing that’s keeping me interested. I suspect that many people will probably find a lot of what happens in this show more predictable than I do, which isn’t really a surprise; I’m very open to being manipulated and fooled by what I watch, so I miss obvious things a lot of the time. With the “twist” so early on, though, it remains to be seen whether the show remains as compelling in upcoming episodes. After dropping such a huge bomb, it’s what’s left in the aftermath that really counts.
Episode Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment: Acer P235H 1080p LCD Monitor connected via DVI input, Logitech S220 2.1 Speakers, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560
