With the destruction of Paris, the people of Upper Earth start to become more involved in determining their fate and prepare to fight back.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
As talked about in the last volume, one of the surprising yet appealing things to this series is that we really didn’t expect to have the action move to Upper Earth as the series progressed more than the initial visit. This extended stay with the war taking on a new meaning as various nations fall under the control of Bishott or Luft or strike alliances with Ciela is definitely an interesting turn of events, but like the first half of the series it does suffer from much the same problem, the continual fighting, fighting and more fighting without any seeming progress.
With this being the penultimate volume in the series, the battles are getting more intense and the situation direr for those living on Upper Earth and those that are considered the good guys. The destruction of Paris in the sea of fire that Bishott caused has not enamored the world of them and it’s causing a ripple effect among the populations. The biggest problem, though kept relatively off screen, is the way that Luft’s forces have managed to keep the American forces so completely at bay by occupying the capital and making retribution a very clear item on their agenda. This leaves it to Norway to become a leading nation once more as Bishott finds himself and his forces there after the Paris encounter for repairs and re-supplies. The population initially accepts them and starts doing the work that’s ordered, but there’s a growing resentment, something that Ciela is starting to sense in the aura as Earth’s aura comes alive more.
While the battles do get some higher stakes to them, there’s also some interesting conversations and interpersonal moments going on throughout. Show and Marvel have some tense moments since Show finally starts to realize that practically all of his plans seem to continually go completely awry and end up causing more trouble than good. This puts him into a serious funk and causes problems with Marvel since he’s got that whole like/love word problem to deal with. Elle and Ciela deal with the problems of being royalty and bringing so many forces to their deaths and the loss of Paris in particular since that strained their relationship with England. What amused me a lot was the way that Luft’s wife started to panic about her position with Bishott once Elmelie managed to sneak off the ship there and she realized that without her daughter she has nothing to stand on.
One of the best things about this set of episodes is that Todd comes back to play and he gets some great scenes and his last one in the final episode of the volume is just perfect. If anyone deserved such a thing to happen to him, it’s Todd. Go Todd!
In Summary:
Dunbine is a show that’s very engaging to watch as it plays out, but when you look back on it afterwards there’s only a few key things that really go on because so much of the time is spent with battle scenes. This is a drastic change from how series are today where there’s seemingly less and less action scenes or big animated segments in each episode because of costs, time and other factors. With only a few episodes left after this and the conclusion so near, it’s hard to imagine how it’s all going to be wrapped up smoothly but I’m looking forward to seeing how it all comes together and whether it crashes and burns or manages to be completely surprising and does a great job.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: Daisuki
