Egao no Daika

Egao no Daika is the most slept on show of the Winter 2019 anime season. This doesn't mean it's a masterpiece or anything, but I think this show has unjustly fallen under the radar of most of the anime community. This means it either has gone completely unnoticed by a majority of the anime community, and the few people that did watch it sell it far too short. I definitely believe this show should be given a chance by many anime viewers and I'm going to tell you why.

Egao no Daika is set in the future on another planet, where the population of planet ... Earth has already ruined the environment and moved on to find another planet to inhabit. The story revolves around two girls, Princess Yuuki Soleil of the Soleil Kingdom and Stella of the Grandiga Empire. Yuuki and Stella, though they come from different backgrounds and answer to different governments, have more in common than just meets the eye. The story follows both of their perspectives throughout a war between the Kingdom of Soleil and the Grandiga Empire, which is one of the show's main plot points. I'm just going to leave the setting at that without spoiling much else, since it'll be better for you to watch for yourself.

What makes the show interesting is how the story unfolds very personally for each of the characters. Many times an episode may start with something that is out of context (and many times even out of chronological order), but the show drops enough clues for viewers to piece together the context, and doing so is often very rewarding in that it leads to organic character development for the cast. While the characters and the story writing aren't the best I've ever seen, they need to be given much more credit than what the ratings on MAL and what the anime community indicates.

The show's portrayal of war is also very intriguing since it shows off the ugliness of the front lines along with the challenges of making the big decisions in the safe (yet comparably stressful) command room. One of Egao no Daika's biggest strengths is opening up an intelligent discourse on the human condition. Especially when it comes to war, it often tries to digest thought-provoking topics when exploring the motivations of front line soldiers that are only pawns in the war, or when a leader needs to weigh their personal ideology against the greater good. The show often calls into question and really evaluates what the greater good should even entail. While Egao no Daika definitely doesn't have the philosophical clout that some other more well-known shows have, what it brings to the table isn't just ideological mumbo-jumbo that some people unfortunately misunderstood it as.

Overall, Egao no Daika is a character driven show that explores intricacies of the human condition using the setting of futuristic war. Futuristic war entails mechs and mecha fights, but you definitely don't need to be a hardcore mecha fan to enjoy the show. I think that at its core, Egao the Daika still tells a character driven narrative that touches over some philosophical questions. If you at all enjoy shows that have very human dialogue and characters or thought-provoking thematic elements, Egao no Daika should be right up your alley. The animation quality and some of the action sequences are already enough to carry the show as is, but the direction of the narrative and the thematic elements posed by the show definitely place it several tiers above your average seasonal rando show. As an anime original production with no source material, Egao no Daika deserves to be recognized for that.

P.S. If you've played Xenoblade Chronicles X, Egao no Daika's setting, characters, and thematic elements are all strikingly similar. Xenoblade Chronicles X is by the far the most slept on Xenoblade Chronicles game that falls under the radar of most of the Xenoblade community. Xenoblade Chronicles X is also my favorite Xenoblade, nay, favorite game of all time. Seeing the parallels between Egao no Daika and Xenoblade Chronicles X (both in their thematic elements and how they're getting largely ignored by their respective communities) is what gave birth to this particular review. I continue to defend Xenoblade Chronicles X from the haters that misunderstand it and didn't even play it, and I'll continue to advocate for Egao no Daika as one of the most underrated shows of the Winter 2019 anime season. Anything is possible with passion and will!

To me, science fiction and is a genre that has been somewhat underappreciated in our generation. It feels like many shows are treated as ticking time bombs that starts off with promise but eventually degenerates into a dumpster fire. Egao no Daika (The Price of Smiles) is an anime project serving as a celebration of Tatsunoko Production’s 55th anniversary. To celebrate, I should say The Price of Smiles should try to stand out as a show of its own and not be a clone of other similar popular works. What do we really get?

First impressions are important and with no doubt, war themes makes an ... impact. It also gives off a political war feel with the conflicting nations, ideal clashes, and world building. We meet Yuuki Soleil, the 12 year old princess of the Kingdom of Soleli. Having lost her parents at such a young age, the show puts her character into the shoes of a leader. Red flags show early on when I see Yuuki as a naïve child and incapable of leading her kingdom. It doesn’t take long to realize how oblivious she is to the state of war. This is a sharp contrast to Stella Shining, a fighter of the Imperial Army serving for the Grandiga Empire. As a war orphan, she exhibits quiet strength although is also known for her untimely smiles. The show chronicles both characters’ roles on opposite sides of the war.

But did this show really capitalize on its sci-fi war story? To an extent, it definitely does as we we’ll quickly realize the reality of war. Smiles are shattered when Yuuki sees bodies hit the floor. Death is a harsh reality and it’s a hard truth to bear. Episode 2 is an easy example when Yuuki realizes the death of a close friend. And she finds out in the most gruesome way possible. Make no mistake. If there’s an episode that features extended focus on a character other than Yuuki or Stella, you should expect a death flag raised and set sail. That is to say, I do appreciate the show making time to gives some characters a chance to tell their story such as Joshua, Pierce, and Layla. The more important focus however falls under the main characters especially Stella and Yuuki.

From the very first moment I laid my eyes on Stella, I knew there was something unusual about her presence. The easiest way to say it is that she smiles a lot. In fact, she smiles under different circumstances that even includes on the front lines of war. During one particular episode, she shows an unstable side of herself after expressing a disturbing smile upon completing a mission. While a smile is often represented as an expression of joy and happiness, Stella’s smile instills an ominous feeling. It doesn’t also help that she is willing to kill children including Yuuki for her nation. Still, I do feel some sympathy for Stella after seeing her background story. Despite being an orphan, a family took her in and gave her love until they had a child of their own. From then on, her own world collapsed even more to the point where she abandoned her adoptive family. By the time we meet her in the present, she is considered “broken” as even stated by some of her comrades. However, the background storytelling about Yuuki is far less interesting, so much so that I don’t even feel it’s worth mentioning.

As a war driven show, there’s different elements that also includes politics. The Royal Order and Empire of Grandiga both adapts policies to maintain their existence. Even if needed to be, military dictatorship is used to maintain order. However, on the frontlines, there’s heavy emotions, bloodshed, and death. Stella’s squad undertakes the more direct frontline approach with their military expertise. Prominent members includes Lily, Gale, Huey, Pierce, and Break. The show explores some character relationship dynamics, most noticeably between Lily and Stella. For Stella herself, she may also be capable of expressing genuine smiles. In other words, while she can be a cold blooded person on the battlefield, she is still human and capable of showing human emotions. On the other hand, the more I watched more of this show, I felt distanced from Yuuki.

I’ll be honest. Yuuki is by far the WORST part of the show.

She is not intelligent as a leader, naïve as a child, and incapable of being a realist in this war conflict. I cannot take Yuuki seriously at all with her overly dramatic screams and personality. To make matters worse, she often doesn’t learn anything and has to have her advisors do the work for her. Now given her age, some could argue that she is too young yet to be a leader. Well, I say otherwise. She could take the better initiative and even support for her people. Instead, she gives the impression of a useless fool that others have to carry. Unlike Stella, her actions never speaks louder than her words and exposes the weakness of her character nearly every episode. By the time this show concluded, she became my very least favorite character. That being said though, Stella herself isn’t a very well written character either as she undergoes little development. Price of Smile seems to be more of an anime about showing rather than telling. The war speaks for itself and we can see the consequences of both sides. It’s not complicated to understand the story and to be honest, I don’t find it very well executed.

Created and produced by Tatsunoko Production, I could say this show is cool enough to be a science fiction war story. The mecha designs are distinctive enough to make an impact felt on the battleground. Meanwhile, characters on both sides are designed with military and political creativeness in mind. As one of the better executed part of the show, I would say the world building stands out for being able to craft these fictional worlds with complex systems and even technology. One of the key selling concept of the show is the smiles. The Price of Smiles, as they call it, is the title and we do get plentiful of that in different ways. On the other hand, I hate to bring this up again but Yuuki is really hard to take seriously when she shows emotions. It’s the typical scream of horror or anxiety you can picture from any war show.

The Price of Smiles. I don’t know if I should be smiling after completing this anime. It’s not too easy to recommend considering the length of its storytelling and lack of character development of the main leads. In truth, my feelings of this anime doesn’t change much from the first episode to the finale. It’s a mediocre mecha/sci-fi/war/drama story that did a lot of showing while failing to deliver a cast to remember.

I do not understand why such wasteful shows like this one are made or even allowed to exist.

After what I’ve seen here, I think I’ve just about had it with these so-called “seasonal fillers”. This show just really gets me perplexed on so many levels that it’s not even funny. From what I’ve been told, this show, Egao No Daika (The Price of Smiles), was actually produced to commemorate the 55th anniversary of its producer Tatsunoko Productions, the very same studio that actually contributed to the likes of Neon Genesis Evangelion, Ping Pong The Animation, and the OG Macross series. However, this production, meant as ... a tribute to the long-running studio, wasn’t a very happy anniversary, to say the least. It just seemed like the show just failed on the most basic levels.

STORY:
So what’s the story? Egao no Daika introduces us to an interplanetary (or interstellar) setting, focusing on the perspectives of the two main heroines: a princess named Yuuki Soleil, and a soldier named Stella Shining, both born and living on two distant planets that are apparently at war with each other. The kind of progression that this story takes is like constantly shooting yourself in the ACL with every step forward you take, and from the recoil, you take several steps backward and fall on your ass. There doesn’t seem to be any sense of direction; the show tries to implements all these concepts of war, politics, and mechas to make itself look professional, but its depiction of those themes and/or concepts are amateur level at best, if not idiotic.

In this “war”, the two sides are just constantly clashing for practically no good reason, and at no point during the entirety of the show was there any engaging exposition or exploration as to why they’re butting heads in the first place. This show literally runs on the “at least 1 death per episode” strategy and our main girls’ exaggerated reactions of shock and/or horror to these imageries of the atrocities of war, which really gets painfully exasperated and repetitive with each progressing episode. This was obviously meant to be used as shock value as an excuse and as compensation for the abysmal structuring of the plot and setting of this series. What’s funny is that while this IS a show about war, there barely any imagery of actual war to be seen…just pre-battle skirmishes here and there that somehow result in some “boohoo oh so tragic” death(s). The actual big battles we only know of via character dialogue, so we’re basically fast-forwarded to the events AFTER they’ve already took place. It honestly felt like being cheated out of a multi-million dollar lottery where you’ve spend almost a fortune on just the ticket itself beforehand.

The constant shifting between the two sides’ perspectives honestly isn’t that awful. The problem is that there is really no reason to try to sympathize for either group. By default, we should’ve been siding with Yuuki’s side, the Empire, but the extremely abysmal portrayal of the characters really denies that option. Many of their actions are just selfish, and they show absolutely no regret or disdain for what they’ve done. Why in the name of God should I even give a sliver of sympathy to such foolery? If this show wanted us to care for these guys, there should’ve been deep exposition and exploration as to why this war even started in the first place, as stated earlier.

I really have to place the blame on the facts that the show dared to place the “cute girl fanservice” on the forefront for everyone to see. I personally don’t have a problem with female leads, but I’ve found a recurring problem with this, and I have sort of a theory regarding this. Apparently when the Japanese anime industry produces shows with female protagonists as the main lead, they seem to bank on the hopes that the imagery of feminine main characters as the main attraction in the show for the viewers will divert their collective attention away from potentially mediocre to bad storytelling, characterization, and showcasing of important themes and concepts. This is NOT how you’re supposed to write a damn story, much less produce a TV show! That being said, there ARE many actual good shows with female leads, so at least the trick isn’t a complete scam.

ANIMATION:
I’ll be honest here. I actually didn’t think the animation was that bad. Well, at the very least, I didn’t think the 2D animation was that bad. I’ve seen far worse examples. The 2D is just kinda mediocre, and if this wasn’t trying to be some military space mecha chimera of a show, the designs of the characters and the background settings I would’ve been perfectly fine with. It’s not like I was expecting some Shaft, KyoAni, or Madhouse levels of awesomeness, anyway.

As for the CG graphics, it felt like one of those mecha games you play on Xbox or Playstation, but on a very amateur level. The movements are clearly jarring and awkward, so much so to the point where the show often tries to “jump-cutting” through them to try to lessen the focused attention on the poorly framed images….only to just make the displaying of the fights even worse. This level of atrocity in the 3D here are only surpassed by the likes of Berserk, Alice to Zouroku, and the extremely infamous hellspawn known as Hand Shakers.

SOUND:
Okay. The opening theme, I get it. It’s very beautiful. I actually REALLY like, if not LOVE, this opening theme. In fact, for me, it’s something where I’d sit back and listen to it on loop for at least 10-20 minutes. “Egao no Kanata” seems to be somewhat of a duet with lots of violin and piano music, with some drums-and-cymbals action; it’s filled with a lot of bittersweet emotion, where the lyrics seem to cry out or lament the pain of war and the difficulty of trying to physically display happiness (in short….smile), while still giving a sense of hope and wishes to balance out the negative emotions. This would perfectly fit the title of the show and the opening visuals in which the theme is played. An extremely lonely bright spot in a literal dumpster fire of a show.

The rest of the soundtracks are not really that memorable, in all honesty. The ending theme "Kono Sekai ni Hanataba wo” is simply underwhelming compared to the OP. The voice acting is quite mediocre as well, and I really blame the terribly produced scripts for that. The performance of the VAs is kinda bipolar in nature, from practically emotionless dry dialogue to overcooked overly dramatic screaming and shouting. At least the show let me know when I have to cover my delicate ears when the latter happens.

CHARACTERS:
Oh boy, the characters. This show’s selection of characters was as if someone skipped a bunch of steps in a chocolate chip cookie recipe, which included the blasphemy of not even adding chocolate chips! For the most part, they are literally cookie-cut, copy-pasta, one-dimensional husks, especially the recurring support characters. Now they did have the potential to be likeable enough to not be viewed in that way, but due to the way the story is portrayed and how the character dynamics are, or how there’s an evident lack of that, it is practically impossible to even like or relate to them. At the very least, the support characters were allowed to have their backstories told to give some sort of structure, but ultimately, that was a desperate attempt to make us to suddenly sympathize for them when they’re mostly just fodder for those “1 death per episode” shock value shenanigans. I sure ain’t one that easily buys into shock value, to say the least.

For example, Joshua Ingram, a member from the Empire and the Princess’s male bestie, seems like a very promising character because of his very optimistic personality. Two episodes in, he’s killed off and the Princess literally becomes Shinji Ikari (or maybe Tatsuhiro Satou?) for a moment with her overplayed reaction to his “livestreamed” death…..like seriously, crack staff? Really? I’ll digress…

Now for the two female leads:

The Princess, Yuuki Soleil, is very incompetent, hesitant, and unlikable as a main character. She is directly responsible for her country’s setbacks, which offsets her competent subordinates’ efforts to do things right and to win the war. She can talk the talk, but can’t walk the walk, and practically spends most of the time crying or trying to comfort the family of someone who recently died due to her absolute uselessness. In all fairness, she should never in charge in the first place, and I don’t really know why she was just dropped into this central role in the first place. It’s as if the show wants to utilize the reactions of a character like her to elicit some sort of emotional response from the viewers whenever someone dies. Instead, her reactions just come off as quite obnoxious and revolting. While she is not completely dumb, as she does tactical abilities, she simply just can’t do the appropriate actions to execute whatever plans she suggests. She also backs off too easily when the people tell her that her ideas are too risky or unrealistic. The way she’s somehow allowed to conduct herself and keep her position really amazes me in a bad way; in all honesty, she should be relieved of her role, but alas that never happens, and it just makes her side look like a bunch of idiots as well. The only thing that bails her out in the end is some unwarranted “deus ex” plot device to ultimately end the war in the most underwhelming of ways possible.

Stella Shining is an interesting but ultimately wasted potential of a character. Apparently, she seems to try to smile whenever possible, due to the rather rough background she is given. However, her superficial smiles hide an unstable side of her, because while smiles are supposed to portray the feelings of optimism, her smiles have an ominous feel to them, which is pretty much linked to the fact that she is willing to kill even children if it’s deemed necessary. I wanted to feel sympathy for Stella, cause I do view her as someone “broken” and having lost something dear to her, like with the case of the titular character in Violet Evergarden, but as the story progressed, she doesn’t to really get any sort of notable character development until the very end. So I’m basically forced to view her as a pseudo-Mary Sue for the majority of the show, and hence the damage was already done, if it wasn’t already by that bratty Princess. And oh yeah, she can apparently do the overdramatic reactions to someone’s death as well, apparently….smh.

The one thing I did hope for when I was watching this show, based on what I saw from the visuals, was for Yuuki and Stella to have a chance encounter and foster a “prince-and-pauper”-like relationship, where they would often meet in secret, have fun playing, and talk about each other’s side of their stories; this would’ve really helped with their character dynamics as well as their maturation as human beings. From these developments, they would’ve been able to move their people and find a realistic way to end the war, with properly driven emotions. Alas, it was never the case, as they only meet face-to-face in the final episode, and suddenly become good friends after the “war” ends. Tis quite a shame….

ENJOYMENT:
Watching this show was just frustrating and felt very much like a chore, for the most part. Believe me…I wanted to like this show….I really did. But due to the constant problems already mentioned above, I came to gradually scorn the show, and by all means, I could’ve easily dropped it if it wasn’t for my completionist mindset. On the bright side, I could never bring myself to skip the opening theme, as it is quite the catchy anime opening tune that I’d love to make an AMV with in some time from now.

Egao no Daika was simply a poorly made batch of cookies that could’ve used a two-cour format if the producers were actually serious about making an actual good show. Considering it IS a tribute to the 55th anniversary to Tatsunoko Productions, I don’t see any reason why they should not at least put actual effort into making this show actually good, actually something that can attract the masses and not be just another useless “seasonal filler”. Unfortunately, mistakes were made, big ones at that, resulting in a crapfest that’s mediocre at most.

If you want something of similar premises, you’re better off watching Aldnoah Zero or the elitist favorite Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu (Legend of the Galactic Heroes). While I’m not exactly a fan of those two shows I mentioned, they display similar premises and war themes, but in a far, far better way, and have more competent cast of characters; Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu, in particular, shines in its ability to have adequate exposition and exploration into the politics and the war strategies. Go and try out those two, don’t bother with this apeshit soap opera right here.