Alderamin on the Sky

Episode 11

Last episode set this one up as a classic duel of wits and tactics between the male protagonist and a man worthy of being his foil, and that's what we get for the first 14 minutes or so. The resulting battle of maneuvers and counter-maneuvers between the Imperial forces organized by Ikta and the Holy Army of Aldera was a treat to watch, as both sides tried to outguess the other and respond to their tactics. For as tense and entertaining as this part of the episode was though, it isn't where the story shined brightest.

The best parts actually came from two character development-related matters. For the first time, the cool and flippant Ikta actually seems to be feeling the stress of the situation. While the build-up to his crisis of confidence and courage could have been smoother, the timing here doesn't seem out of place. After all, this is the greatest disadvantage he's faced, against his strongest opponent both mentally and in terms of manpower, and it's not unreasonable that some of the things he's encountered on this campaign have rattled him more than he's shown. Ikta has sometimes seemed above it all, but this scene shows that he's not.

The real meat comes after the battle, though. While Matthew contemplates his flirt with mortality and how much it shakes him that Ikta isn't infallible when it comes to keeping people alive, Sergeant Major suya is angry and upset that some of Ikta's platoon died rescuing the overextended Sinack, people they had been in a life-or-death struggle with until just a couple of days earlier. Her confrontation of Ikta, with Nana present, is handled with remarkable precision and delicacy. Nana doesn't say a word during the whole exchange, but she doesn't need to; her posture makes it clear that she knows she screwed up and lives were lost as a result. suya is allowed to vent but doesn't go over-the-top, and Yatori shows that she has Ikta's back in this just as well as he had her back when she led the move to rescue the Sinack. She doesn't so much slam suya down as blunt her tirade, and Ikta finishes the job by gently maneuvering her into a moral quandary. The conversation also leads to an interesting question that suya throws back at Yatori: what would she do if ordered to kill Ikta? Her implication that she's too inculcated into her family's lock-step mindset to resist the order is hardly surprising, but her response to Ikta's question about how she would do it is the masterstroke: she would have to destroy her sense of self and become an irrevocably mindless stooge for her family in order to do it. Ikta's sense of defeat in response to those words is so great that the tear streaming down Haroma's face is fitting; after all, this is exactly the kind of mindset that Ikta has been trying to break her away from ever since they first met, and Yatori's words indicate a complete failure.

All of the normal praise about the use of musical score and high production values applies, but I want to particularly point out Yatori's visual impact. Rem from Re:Zero may be the year's It Girl in anime, but I can't think of another female character who can make the visual impression that Yatori does. The series' production staff knows it too, which is why we get great images like the screen cap above.

The Japanese Blu-ray releases indicate that the series is getting 13 episodes, which is good, because I wasn't seeing how they could bring the story to a good stopping point with only one more episode. This is gradually becoming one of the season's better series.

Rating: A

Alderamin on the Sky is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.