English Dub Review: Our Last Crusade or the Rise of a New World “Beginning: The Girl Wishes Upon a Star”
Overview (Spoilers Below):
Risya meets with the emperor, who reveals Alice has a weakness: her love for Iska.
Princess Sisbell wakes from a nightmare. Later, her mother sends her on a mission to Alsamira to determine if the currently independent nation is cultivating ties with the Empire.
Unit N07 is trying to figure out how to continue to hide Mismis’s astral crest when they catch a lucky break: 60 days forced leave. The crew decides to head to the resorts for some fun in the sun.
Alice is swamped with administrative work, but she tires of being cooped up in the study for it. There’s whispers that out of the three sisters (her, Sisbell, and Elletear) Alice is the most likely to win the election and ascend to the throne. Her mother, having sent Sisbell away, recruits Alice and Rin to search her room for anything unusual.
Elletear seems to be planning something. She meets with Lord Mask of the Zoa family, and mentions she suspects someone close to her family has ties to the Empire.
Meanwhile in Alsamira, Sisbell bumps into Iska, literally. He recognizes her as the witch he freed, but she runs off when Nene returns. Sisbell later enters Iska’s hotel room, and he tackles her, believing she’s an assassin.
Alice and Rin find the newspaper in Sisbell’s room that reveals she and Iska know each other and are shocked.
Sisbell asks Iska for his help.
Our take:
It was only a matter of time before this series brought in a catgirl, but making them the Emperor is…an interesting choice. Oh, and they’re over a hundred. AND they somehow know about Alice’s crush on Iska.
But enough about the sinister plans of the Empire because: yep, it’s beach episode time. Thankfully the nonsense is kept blissfully short, since there’s so many other things happening. Sisbell (voiced by Emi Lo) and Elletear are each getting their own story lines with only two more episodes to go in the season.
It’s kind of weird that this is the first Alice is hearing of her sister being freed by Iska. I know they’re like, uptight royals and all, but didn’t anyone ask her how she’d escaped after being captured by the Empire? Also, a fairly small quibble, but why did she have to do all that paperwork by hand? Isn’t there like…some sort of spell that could take care of these things?
Additionally, we seem to be gearing up to…possibly a direct conflict between the Emperor and Salinger? Or both of them against the Sovreignty? Who knows.
On a positive note, things seem to be moving forward full steam ahead. Despite this being another vacation episode (and light on the action as a result) Sisbell seems to have the ability to get to the point quickly, unlike her sister. That helps keep this story rolling, and even made this episode seem a little shorter than the rest.
But maybe that’s just because I wasn’t cringing through it.
Lots of mysteries (what they’re going to do about Mismis’s crest, what the emperor’s deal is, the whole competition between the Nebulis sisters for the throne) and just a few short episodes for them. I’m definitely excited to see how it ends!
