Review: Knights of Sidonia “Glory”

Nagate gets to talk to the big guns of the pilot squad, but what role does he play with them? And, how salty is Kunato because of all this?

Spoilers!

Well, we start the episode with anime trope #62: The episode begins with a long winded recap of the last episode, in case you caught amnesia or hit your head on a really big rock.  After the silly recap, Kunato is in a Garde sparring match, and he wins it rather easily. Lala is looking on from her shop, when Nagate walks in trying to get food. Lala tells Nagate that everyone is eating at the Gravity Festival, and Nagate may not be able to in his current condition. He says he’s fine, and is going anyway. At the Tsugumori dock, Izana is thinking over the occurance with Nagate last episode, then turns to run off as Akai is watching Kunato’s match. Akai has a match next against Tsuruuchi, so he goes to prepare. Aoki won rather easily as well.

Back at Lala’s Izana walks in dressed with a kimono, looking for Nagate. Lala tells Izana that she Nagate went by himself. Izana runs off to find him, while a bunch of people are watching the Gravity Cup in a class room. Yuhata seems a bit distracted, because she is still thinking of Nagate piloting the Tsugumori. Kunato’s next match starts while Yuhata is in the middle of a day dream. Another flashback occurs, this time with Yuhata’s first time meeting Nagate. This was right as Akai and the other three great pilots walked up to Nagate. Akai wanted to meet the pilot who went head to head with the Gauna. Akai pressed Nagate about his feelings fighting the Gauna, that it was normal. Akai pushed Nagate, and Nagate fell down. Akai helps him up, and excuses himself so Nagate can get food. Akai and his crew roll out, same with Yuhata and her brother.

Yuhata tells Izumo that Nagate was the pilot of the Tsugumori that kept the Gauna at bay. Izuno questions how Yuhata knows, and she tells Izuno that it was from the repair reports. Back in the present, Yuhata wonders how Nagate would do while she’s watching the current match. This match is between Akai and Kunato, and it was a great fight until Akai knocked the head off of Kunato’s Garde. Elsewhere, Nagate makes it to a restaurant to eat, but he has no money for food. Luckily, Hoshijiro shows up just in time to cover his food bill.  They talk a bit more, and Izana walks in with the worst case of screwed luck, ever. She walks in just in time to see Nagate sit down to eat with Hoshijiro, and turns around to walk right out.

At the command center. Kobayashi and Seii are going over the battle reports, and the strategies the reports suggest for future encounters. These include Yuhara’s suggestions, who was nominated for a command position by one of Seii. Seii thinks that Yuhara can replace him if he has to go see battle, but Kobayashi tries to tell him who the actual person in charge is. The Gauna is still moving towards them, and Sidonia won’t be able to escape it.

Back by the restaurant, Kunato is still fuming from the loss earlier, he’s just bowling people over. Izana bumps into Kunato, who backhands Izana as she falls to the ground. Izana gets the stick to the candied apple into her thigh, and Kunato just acts cold and callous towards her. Nagate runs over to her because he saw the commotion. Kunato gets a nice superiority complex because Nagate’s an underdweller, and almost breaks, Nagate’s arm. Hoshijiro patches up both Izana and Nagate, then leaves the two alone. Izana turns on the TV to find out about the fight, and Akai won, and all of his teammates won prizes. The door bell rings, and it’s Akai. He invites both Nagate and Izana to the sea. Izana is overly excited, but Nagate has no idea what’s going on. It’s probably because only official pilots can go.

Akai and his team actually rented out the sea for themselves to celebrate their victory. Izumo makes a crack about this being Nagate and Izana’s last chance to get a date, because the Gauna is on it’s way. Akai and his team are on the strike team, and Aoki tells Nagate that all of Akai’s fears went away when he saw Nagate. That gave Akai’s team all of the confidence they need. Yahata calls Izuno and is pissed that she wasn’t invited to the sea with Nagate. Meanwhile, the other sub, Akai and Hinata are enjoying some alone time on their way to their destination.

Some time later, the strike team has made their way out to attack the Gauna. Everyone on Sidonia is watching intently as Akai, Hinata, Izumo, and Aoki make their way towards the Gauna. They are given the go-ahead for attack, and they attack with their Heigus cannons. The Gauna then attacks with their tentacles, and grabs Hinata. Akai saves Hinata, only to get speared by a bunch of tentacles, and absorbed by the Gauna. Sidonia loses signal to the fight, but Command still has it. The primary objective shifts from destroy to distract. Sidonia prepares it’s heavy mass cannon again, but Hinata charges back in to try and save Akai. Things go haywire, and the entire strike team is now dead.

Well, that took a Game of Thrones turn, didn’t it? You get these four badasses who are the best pilots Sidonia have, and they all become tentacle fertilizer. Looking back, the build up to the battle with the Gauna was very Martin-like as well. We get a build up of Akai, Aoki, Izuno, and Hinata, to be really cool characters. We can see them getting really far into the show. Well, Akai gets “Ned Stark”ed, Aoki gets “Robb Stark”ed, Hinata gets “Catelyn Stark”ed, and Izuno does his best Robert Baratheon impression. I swear, I would think Martin wrote this story if I didn’t know better. You get the four worst kills thus far with about a minute in a half left in the episode. Akai didn’t even stand a chance once he went in after Hinata. So much for being the best. As you can see, the plot took center stage here.

The animation is very crisp. I was surprised at how good this episode looked compared to the first two. Izana was missing the pissed off facial expressions when she saw Nagate with Hoshijiro was lacking. It looked to me that it was more being dumbfound, even though it was clearly supposed to be anger she was showing.  I think the animators just took a nap during that scene. However, the sea looked phenomenal, and I was annoyed that we got to see so little of it because the fish looked awesome, and even the animation of the submarine was done right.

The music and atmosphere in this episode, especially around the Gravity Cup and the Gauna fight has been really killer. The ominous tone of the music really took a turn to deathly once Hinata got captured the first time, and it just went down hill. It was a great touch to the episode that drove the impending disaster home.

All in all, the show is getting there. There are aspects that can’t really be changed after release, like the bland background shots, but there are glimmers of hope. If in the next season we get more of how the sea was done, and less of that really bland exterior shots we have, we could have a winner on our hands.