(CR) Egao no Daika

[FlareKnight]

Spoiler for Ep12:

Yeah, that's about how it would go with one episode left. The story had to move fast, Stella and Yuki got about 10 minutes of screentime together and everything worked out quickly. Although it is hardly the first show to have the war get settled really fast. At least shutting down of the machines was a pretty spectacle .

I suppose things should stabilize with the Empire since plant life is recovering incredibly fast after shutting those machines down. Sure it seems a bit much that the Empire still decided to back out when they'd conquered almost the entirety of the Kingdom, but hey...we only had 4-5 minutes to wrap up a war.

The show is what it is. It tried to do too much by covering two fairly unrelated main plots. Though it didn't mind killing off a ton of characters. Well actually Stellla's side got off easy. They lost like 2-3 members of that squad? Basically everyone Yuki knew died in this show. I guess that's one way to achieve independence and make your own decisions...just be the only person left standing .

[Stark700]

Yeah, this is rushed. They pretty much squeezed in the final battles with both sides in this episode. At least we got to see Stella fight in a mech again so that's a plus.

Stella managed to avoid death this episode when Leila pushed her out of the way. Also, we finally get a more direct confrontation between Stella and Yuuki in the finale. Long over due. But rather than trying to kill each other, they unite together. It ends with laughs and smiles between those two with their minds at peace. I got pretty mixed thoughts on this overall tbh. Could of been better...

I wish they developed both characters enough to made me care about them more. Yuuki is easily the worst character imo from this show.

[Kazu-kun]

The end was garbage. It made no sense and Stella was shoehorned and pointless. Take her out of the picture and nothing would have changed.

One of the worst shows I watched this year.

[AntonKutovoi]

I want my spent time back.

[4th Dimension]

Eh. I'd disagree that the Stella and like plot was pointless moment to moment. It's purpose, which I think was the main idea of the show was to show that solders on both sides are humans even though they might be trapped in a war where they have to kill each other and watch those close to them die. And as such I liked the Stella part.

Also I REALLY liked that this show showed that wonder weapon mechs won't help you much if the enemy is commanded by people who know how to fight a war unlike bunch of aristocrats that focus all their thinking on duels and 1v1 top trumps encounters.
Well until this last MacGuffin.

What is a disappointment is that I expected there to be a lot more interaction between two sides. Maybe not in person, given they fight from cockpits, but I'd expect the Stela's team to be more prominent as one of forces capable of fighting on equal terms with the Kingdom knights despite their equipment being worse, and like.

And finally this ending was rushed, and boiled down to pressing a button that makes all better while utterly f**** their logistics, transportation, industry etc. And Stella not being courtmartialed for essentially loosing them the war.

[Ghostfriendly]

Watched ep 10-11. Liked the Commander a lot more than the knights, he had better priorities, but a whole ep for him was too much. Super artillery reminds me of V-2 rocket and Channel guns in WWII, which had large weaknesses and distracted the Germans from recovering conventional forces. Weaknesses of super artillery probably include a long recharge time, which enemy commander should guess, so warning shot not the wisest move.

As C.S. Lewis and others mentioned, ideas for eternal peace like pacifism, world conquest or destroying weaponry are nearly always obvious pipe dreams. Yuki can't use that old excuse for not ending the war in front of her as soon as she could. Her VA actually made her sound very cute and sympathetic in ep 11, but her plot is still a whole lot of platitudes and nothing. I don't anyone will be smiling once she switches the power off, which is ironically what Princess Asseylum should have threatened to do with Aldnoah by killing herself to really sort that war out.

Telling the little girl about Izana's death brought Yuki full circle, but felt very redundant; I don't much care about one sheltered rich kid when children are being traumatised and killed all over the country. Don't care much for any of the silly characters on the Kingdom side, still sheltered and simplistic after 11 eps of war, or for the contrivance that should bring Yuki and Stella together after all. Also, some animation early in ep 11 was awful, and I should have mentioned earlier that Lily referring to herself in third person is ridiculous.

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by 4th Dimension

Eh. I'd disagree that the Stella and like plot was pointless moment to moment. It's purpose, which I think was the main idea of the show was to show that solders on both sides are humans even though they might be trapped in a war where they have to kill each other and watch those close to them die. And as such I liked the Stella part.

It's not that Stella was pointless in and of itself. I'm sure we could extrapolate some message from her side story. But she was pointless in relation to the plot. Heck, you could remove her presence from this episode and nothing would have changed. Yuuki would still just press the button and resolve the plot in the same exact way. Stella's presence there didn't add anything. She was totally irrelevant.

[Ghostfriendly]

^ As a rule, it would be bad for a show to have unrelated side stories hold up the main plot. However, if the main plot is more fundamentally pointless than the side story, maybe Stella deserves some more love? I suppose it depends on whether the point of a story is to advance its own plot, (which is something like the circular argument that the point of telling a story is to tell a story), or whether the point is to convey an interesting/entertaining/emotive message about the universe and all that surrounds it in some way.

[RDNexus]

A total bait and switch, a total disappointment.
I can't condemn original stories, since their authors have the right to try. But at least, make it work from start to end.
The premise ended up being a massive bait, the plot felt rushed and underwhelming...and I'm not sure if the meaning of the story's title ended up being fitting.
The Price of Smiles... Right...

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by Ghostfriendly

^ As a rule, it would be bad for a show to have unrelated side stories hold up the main plot. However, if the main plot is more fundamentally pointless than the side story, maybe Stella deserves some more love?

I may not sound like it, but I actually like Stella as a character just fine. I just dislike the show for not doing anything relevant with her. Forget about actually contributing to the plot. What about Layla and Stella being related? They didn't do anything with that either. Stella didn't even find out Layla was her mother. Lots of potential, but it ended up being wasted.

Stella should have met Yuuki and Layla around episode 6 so they would have time to form some actual understanding and have meaningful interaction.

or whether the point is to convey an interesting/entertaining/emotive message about the universe and all that surrounds it in some way.

If the storytelling is no good, it doesn't matter what message you're trying to convey.

[Alchemist007]

I only watched ep 1 because I didn't feel like going on a week to week basis for a show that I probably WOULD only like the first ep of and was waiting for the consensus now that it's complete.

It reminds me of the 80s-90s sea of OVAs where they're pining for a syndicated series but many failed and probably for the better, you get the gist of the show and the most quality you're likely to have. Maybe this is an approach they should bring back, I'm not sure why it went away exactly. Will this show make enough in disc sales to justify its production?

Anyways that's my off topic rant

BTW I totally would've kept watching if it was about mechas in capture the flag like the first ep.

[serenade_beta]

Spoiler for final thoughts:

...Seriously?
It's almost as if they planned to do 2-cour, but gave up and made it one.

To be honest, it is so bad, it really isn't worth analyzing why it was bad. For instance, I could talk about how the side-switching each episode was bad. I could talk about how the animation quality was bad.
But this anime is just so sosososososo lacking in intelligence, it isn't worth it.

It was just... very bad. 2/10.
It is sad that it turned out this way, since it was a Tatsunoko original anime and I was looking forward to it.

[Ghostfriendly]

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

If the storytelling is no good, it doesn't matter what message you're trying to convey.

Sure, the Stella episodes are more meaningful (not to the plot, but on their own) than Yuki's but not exactly 'Stellar' (bum-tsh).

[AntonKutovoi]

You know what this ending reminded me of? Superman IV: Quest for Peace, where Superman rids the world from the nuclear weapons and suddenly everyone now in peace with each other.

[Liddo-kun]

Watched episode 12:

Spoiler:

Glad the war ended with an armistice instead of a surrender by Soleil. I guess shutting down all chrars did solve the most deadly problem, which is the planet will eventually become a barren wasteland unable to support life if the chrars continue to be used.

Sad, Stella was so close to being reunited with her mom. But too bad Leila died in the final episode.

So, theurgears are all now scrap metal?
At least they still have vehicles that can move.

The empire seems to be treating the kingdom much nicer now. Maybe because they feel that cooperating is better than making war, now that all chrars are gone.

Yuki talk to the empire for Stella. I guess whatever punishment the empire gave, it's just a form of community service.

I give a final score of 6/10.

[Wandering Soul]

Pretty disappointing. Honestly, the two different perspectives aspect of the story feels unnecessary as the two characters never really affect the other and Stella never really does anything to affect the ending. If she and her squad never existed, the ending would be the same.

Yuuki's lesson of how war senselessly costs lives feels sort of cheap when you have her lose almost everyone she grew up with and Stella's crew pretty skates by losing only flower dude and thier mentor, who is pretty obligated to die.

[Liddo-kun]

Just some last thoughts..

Looks like the kingdom is the winner on this. They got back their capital, and I assume also other areas that were captured by the empire were returned.

Emperor is even respecteful to princess saying "please sign the armistice".

I don't understand if Stella was even punished. Looks like all they made her do is some extra work. :P

Now, to maintain the peace. Yuki just have to share some info about old tech that the empire is asking for.

[Wandering Soul]

Originally Posted by Liddo-kun

I don't understand if Stella was even punished. Looks like all they made her do is some extra work. :P

They did say that Yuki stepped in and helped lessen Stella's punishment.

[Ghostfriendly]

Originally Posted by Wandering Soul

Yuuki's lesson of how war senselessly costs lives feels sort of cheap when you have her lose almost everyone she grew up with and Stella's crew pretty skates by losing only flower dude and thier mentor, who is pretty obligated to die.

Stella's group seemed like real humans, battered by their daily contact with war even if they were lucky enough to live through it. Yuki's circle seemed like sheltered children even when dying in battle, obsessed with their cheap honour and principles, removed from anything true or significant about the human experience.

[Kitsu Breaker]

The empire part was pretty useless if you seen, remove the episodes and the history make sense even to understand the Empire reasons, obviously because we were fallowing random soldier and not important rankings. Stella big help was too push a bottom with Yuuki but she won´t need to do if Layla was alive.
Hope in the future i could write a fanfic resolving this, or nope.