Henrietta doesn’t want to get peasants caught in the crossfire, and so orders Louise to work some Void magic over Albion’s capitol, Londinium. Unfortunately it seems that the previous success was a result of 10 years of pent-up magic, and Louise is back to being a crappy mage again. Also, Londinium’s dragon riders are alerted and send a massive strike force of 2 whole dragon riders to take them down. Saito takes out both dragons, but the engine takes damage and everyone crashes.
Louise bullies Saito a lot, but then uses her body to keep him warm at night. Saito doesn’t remember it at all, though. They then find one of the riders that was shot down, Henry Stalford, and Louise and Henry talk about how great it is to be noble and care about your reputation. Anyway, eventually Henry comes to an understanding with Louise and Saito, and tries to help them trick the enemy forces. It’s wasted effort, though, because Julio swoops down and picks the pair up. Louise is devastated at her failure, but the city was abandoned by Governor Sheffield, so no harm no foul.
Man, what the hell was this crap? What a boring, pointless episode. I understand that ZnT is not exactly plot-driven, but just when we finally get away from Agnes we get some boring dude whom we will never meet again. There’s only 3 more episodes, too! All that happened was that Louise was revealed as a one-hit wonder, and Saito talked about not wanting to kill people. I had forgotten that this series is supposed to be about Saito and Louise, actually. Henrietta looked funny in her battle gear this time; she looked so clunky, like a football player.
I don’t really understand Governor Sheffield’s plan. How does letting Henrietta’s forces walk in buy them time? So what if there is no food… Tristein still took the place with no casualties. Aren’t you supposed to leave a small force behind to harry and harass the enemy with hit and run? It seems that even though this world has guns now, they are still depending on dragons and really sad military tactics. Speaking of which, no mention is made of how Saito and Louise left the plane behind. I thought that plane was supposed to be really really important to Tristein and Saito…
This post was written by...
Kabitzin – who has written 1970 posts on Sea Slugs! Anime Blog.
One of the founders of Sea Slugs, I handle most of the blog admin tasks while wearing my I AM BOSS shirt. I like my action series well choreographed, and my romance series extra trashy. I also have a soft spot for puns.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Yeah, the series seemed like it was heading in a promising direction after episode 4…but recently it’s just been unnecessary side characters, first the whole Agnes/Trogdor thing , and now this.
Take away the food and bog down Henrietta’s army by having them stay there and feed the townsfolk. Its a delaying tactic and not a bad one, if the town held little strategic importance and you just don’t happen to care for your own people. Given how quickly Sheffield abandons it, why the hell do they want it and why is Henrietta listening to a general that insists on capturing such trivial places?
The rest of the episode focuses too much on Saito not wanting to kill anyone and that everyone should just be friends. As if such an ideal world can ever exist.
I can see your point if they know that Henrietta will want to help out the people of Albion. I guess this is a little unusual, since the occupying army typically doesn’t care about the opposing side’s peasants.
BTW, I just noticed something…
Scene: Henry states that his dragon died to keep him warm with its naked body (like Louise).
Problem: Ummm, wasn’t that a FIRE BREATHING dragon? Why didn’t they just build a bonfire? There were trees everywhere.
Kabitzin you’re looking for too many plot holes that the creators don’t want you looking for! ^.<
LOL
Also, I can’t stop cracking up whenever I see Henrietta’s armor…it’s been ridiculous since the first season. xD
Sheffield’s strategy is sound…stretch Tristian’s supply lines and make them support the civilians. That or risk riots or a guerilla war for Tristian. Then counterattack. And that is the novel scenario. Which is the set-up for Saito’s version of “300″
I have an issue with Henrietta sending Louise to route out the Albion army on the pretext of keeping the civilian casualties low. Isn’t that akin to sending a H-bomb to destroy an anthill? Employing Louise’s blunt and uncertain magic is likely to incur more collaterals.
As for Henrietta’s clunky build… I might grow those shoulders too if I had carry such massive shoulder plates for prolonged periods XD
I absolutely thought of the atomic bomb when they said that. Considering how quickly Tristein and its allies stormed through all of Albion, how many casualties could possibly have come from the battles?
If anything, sending Saito in his plane with a more skilled mage would have been more effective at taking out really powerful units.
I still enjoyed this episode despite all those negative thing blogs have been saying, yes there are some plot pot holes, but all this is building up to something.
You can infer from the Queen’s orders that Louise was to nuke the opposing *army* (i.e. presumably the enemy encamped outside/around the town). It was only mentioned SEVERAL TIMES in that scene (the Queen didn’t want civilians to get caught in the fighting). The army wouldn’t be encamped right IN the town, where would you fit it?
(1) Even if the “opposing army” doesn’t care about civilians, if you take a town you have to hold it (unless you want to raze it). If you don’t feed the citizens you’ll have a riot on your hands. Or risk guerilla warfare (see ordnance11′s comment). If you don’t care about the town… then don’t occupy it? Duh. They did, so they had to take care of the situation… there’s the delay.
(2) The dragon was mortally wounded. I agree though they could’ve tried to start a fire (dunno why they didn’t, maybe the dragon was already too weak). It’s not like the dragon died expressly to keep his rider alive; it was already beyond help.
Either your comment was a joke, or you were.
The plane was recovered btw, mentioned in the next ep. Even if Louise and Saito wanted to save it how could they, by themselves?
It’s a goddamn fluff character piece anime; I’m not watching it for realism. You guys remind me of the Narutards who nitpick over which hand seals exactly Kabuto used in a fight scene etc etc.