Seikai no Senki

Banner of the Stars, as you all know, continues from where its prequel series Crest of the Stars left off, and so the basic premise and setting is the same here too. Humankind is under attack by the Abh Empire, and it is up to United Mankind and their allies to stave off the impending advance after a temporary ceasefire...wait, that's wrong, you say? I didn't actually say anything inaccurate here...oh right, I forgot - silly me - this story is told from the invaders' perspective, and it's them that you're supposed to root for.

Sarcasm aside, given just how utterly horrified I was by Crest ... of the Stars (scoring it a 1/10 in my review), you might wonder why I even bothered with the sequel. The thing is this - this show seemed to be more about its battle than about its political justifications, and given its undeniable artistic talent, I figured maybe there's actually some scope for enjoyment here as long as you could put the god-awful politics aside - temporarily, at least. Unfortunately though, even on its own terms, the battle simply isn't what it was initially made out to be - not unlike the prequel series. And on the other hand, it isn't long before the horrible politics creep right back and break your immersion anyhow. This right here is the long and short of it - the rest of my review will be about justifying and elaborating on this stand.

The show starts off getting you up to speed with the current status quo, as well as the military logistics of the Abh fleet. It also introduces you to the crew of the attack ship Basroil captained by our lead character Lafiel Abriel, with our other lead Lin Jinto serving as a supply officer. A Terran combat veteran called Samson is notably part of the bridge crew, along with Ekuryua, a somewhat withdrawn and introverted Abh girl who seems overly attached to Jinto's pet cat, and another Abh lady whose name I forget. Also introduced are the various Abh military commanders whom I'll get to later. The show wastes no time getting into combat mode, and before you know it the introductions are over and you're thrust into the immediacy of the war. One thing that the Seikai series as a whole does deserve credit for is its pacing.

Now there are two levels at which the battle is depicted: at the here-and-now tactical level, we're shown the trials that the leads face and how they deal with them; and at the strategic level, we're shown various higher-order commanders as they squabble amongst each other and come to crucial decisions. And here's where it gets interesting: at the level of the here-and-now, the show puts you in the hot seat of the front-lines alongside Lafiel and her crew, and gives you the impression of a gritty and dogged battle against overwhelming odds. Every one in the bridge is practically sweating from the tension, and sirens start blaring across the board as one sector after another of the ship take increasing amounts of damage. The tactical breaks provide very little in the way of relief.

And in between all this, the focus shifts to the higher-order commanders as they deal with the bigger picture and strategic aspects of the battle. But in the war room, things seem almost downright boring - the commanders seem supremely sure of themselves to the point of detachment - one goes for a bath in the middle of all the fighting, and another makes a game of pestering his understaff about her personal relationships. All these 'cute' scenes in the high command ships are supposed to showcase the Abh's supreme competence, and their capacity for mischievous joviality even in the heat of battle. But when the show nears its conclusion, all this charm comes undone when an Abh commander commits a shocking act that reveals what the real stakes of the battle were all along, and makes all their previous joviality and nonchalance come across as rather obscene in hindsight.

Another thing to note is that the battle is depicted solely from the Abh's standpoint: you only get to see the Abh side of the strategising, and you only ever learn of United Mankind's strategy or tactics through the obstacles the Abh side faces. So on one hand you get to see how chivalrously the Abh face off against their opponents; and on the other hand how dastardly the enemy is...because that's what they tell you. One unintentionally good thing about this one-sided view of the war, though, is that the enemy is never given a face this time. You only get to see either their ships or mines being blown up. No dastardly, gratuitously-villainous, moustache-twirling military commanders from the ranks of United Mankind plague the screen this time around (that job is taken over by the Abh commanders, albeit unintentionally).

With that out of the way, it's now time to address the Elephant in the Room i.e. the two-faced politics of this show. No, you saw this coming a mile away - and no, there's no getting around this. Because quite simply, not only is it thematically central to the whole story, but it also taints and utterly poisons everything it comes into contact with. So anyways, we're right back to what Crest of the Stars did worst - any humans who do not wholeheartedly and with tears of gratitude accept Abh overlordship are portrayed as corrupt, greedy, morally broke or otherwise generally pathetic. The president of the Aptic system, which the Abh forcefully took over, gives a defiant speech to never surrender to the Abh invaders - but he is shown to do so just to look good to his voters. He even suggests behind-the-scenes that the Abh retort with racist and condescending insults to spice things up for the cameras. The Abh's offer to accept surrender from the Aptic government without imposing any deadline on them is made to look like a magnanimous act of generosity. Even those working for the Abh fare no better - a nation is shown to have joined with the Abh simply because the Abh didn't object to their dietary habits whereas the Terran alliances were absolutely appalled (if you must know, they ate cats - no, I'm not making this up).

And then of course, there's the United Mankind - the only force in the Galaxy that poses any credible threat to Abh dominion. Their policy is depicted not as a legitimate political resistance to the Abh's unilateral aggression (which it easily could and should have been), but as a dogmatic mission to either enslave or exterminate the entire Abh race. And surely enough, they are portrayed as genocidal fascists (albeit off-screen this time) who do not consider the Abh to be human, and thus see it as fair game to disregard their enemy's basic human rights - during combat or otherwise.

On the other hand, Abh commanders like Crown Prince Abriel and Baroness Spoor or even the Bebaus twins, whose actions would have clearly branded them as war criminals in just about any other narrative, are not only never (intentionally) made to look bad, but rather made to look like eccentric geniuses whose outwardly obnoxious antics belie just how "wonderful" and compassionate they supposedly are beneath the surface. The show accomplishes this with its singularly worst act of hypocrisy - while it's abundantly clear to any rational person that these commanders took many of their decisions with a callous and blatant disregard for human lives, their actions are ultimately justified by the show on grounds that these decisions somehow end up working out for the best. A related point is how the show expects you to overlook all of Abriel's needless endangerment of his own troops because he expresses the coy sentiment that he'd never be able to forgive himself if anything happened to Lafiel (his distant descendant) or Jinto. The exact same issue loomed in Crest of the Stars as well, and Banner of the Stars continues in the same dishonoured tradition.

Later on in the series, the Terran-born Prime Minister of the Abh Empire has a brief parting talk with the infamous eyepatch-wearing ambassador from the last series, where he praisingly refers to the Empire as "the only force in the galaxy that can impose modernity on the surface worlds". That right there is the big pretext that the show provides to justify all of the Abh's military aggression over anyone who seeks to oppose their completely one-sided dominion over humans. I continue to be surprised at how many people seem perfectly fine with this.

To make things worse, the show doesn't just leave things be even here: even when the crew are on their down-time and just breathing, either reflecting on their lot or even just making small talk, the show takes every opportunity to illustrate how superior the Abh are in every conceivable shape and form, and just how hopelessly unattainable that superiority is to ordinary humans (again, this ties in with the show's justification of the Abh's forceful takeover of human worlds). It may not be as blatant as it was in Crest of the Stars - but it's there, believe me. And it's done much more subtly this time.

Which brings me to the show's perhaps craftiest sleight-of-hand: during one of their breaks from the fighting, Jinto has a chat with Lafiel - reflecting upon his lot in life, the position he's been thrust into, and his possible career options from that point on. Lafiel also shares some of the decisions she's made about her own future. Throughout the span of that discussion, their relative lack of freedom and legroom within their position as Abh nobility gets brought up time and again, given just how pervasively it is a part of their reality. But under no circumstances is the Abh system itself, which is actually the root cause of their plight, ever brought into question or criticised. The most dumbfounding moment is when Jinto briefly contemplates giving up his title as Count of Hyde and simply returning to his homeworld, but then decides against it because he thinks the people would look down upon him for chickening out of his role as their overlord. Are you KIDDING me?! The people of Martine long for Independence from Abh dominion, and if an involuntarily-appointed governor were to turn down that post and return home, that would make a bold and heroic political statement against the Abh, and the people would have welcomed him home as a goddamned HERO!! Nope, Jinto has no choice (in his own mind, at least) but to continue in his dual roles as a petty officer in the Star Forces on one hand, and a puppet figurehead for Abh rule on his homeworld on the other. Interestingly though, there is one character (and an Abh one at that, to boot) who implicitly criticises the ways of the royals, but the show plays it away as an intentionally spiteful remark made by someone holding a personal grudge, rather than a genuine grievance.

On the technical side of things, the animation is somewhat better than the positively freakish fare that you had to endure last time. The sound and audio cues are pretty much exactly the same as last time, and they mostly do their job quietly and unobtrusively. The opening score, on the other hand (and especially the eerily ominous drum-rolls whenever the voice-over narrator or anyone else speaks Abh-tongue), made me feel deeply uneasy and nauseous - in much the same way that Richard Wagner's "Flight of the Valkyrie" today invokes imagery of cold-blooded monstrosity because of its rather unfortunate appropriation by the Nazi regime.

As for the characters, things are more or less exactly as they were in the last series. Jinto once again proves himself to be an accomplished sycophant. This time around, he is given more space to "develop" - as in, more airtime to express his self-pity with melodramatic wistfulness. Among other things, he broods that no one will miss him when he dies (awwww), and that he won't be around for as long as Lafiel. You know what, his worries might be unfounded - even in his early twenties, he still looks like a 14-15 year-old, and still retains a husky adolescent voice...maybe he has defied the odds and hit the genetic lottery after all! The show also tries to "humanize" Jinto by showing how he winces and cringes in embarrassment at having to read out the Abh's official statements of hostile takeover, but it's a diversion from the plain-and-simple fact that he is perfectly OK with what the Abh are actually doing - the hypocrisy on display is simply sickening. Lafiel is, of course, exceedingly good to Jinto as always, and unfailingly dutiful to her crew - but underneath even that generous and dutiful personality is an uncritical mind, and an unwavering loyalty to the very system that serves to oppress her (and not to mention entire planets besides).

Overall, Banner of the Stars retains the core essence of what made Crest of the Stars so sickening and reprehensible. But where Crest of the Stars provoked shock and outrage, Banner was more of just constantly annoying. The stakes are not something you can sympathise with without rooting for criminal invaders, and that's primarily what breaks the immersion factor whenever you're reminded of it. As for the battle itself, as gripping as it may initially seem, it proves to be more one-sided than it was made out to be, and basically depicts the wholesale slaughter of conveniently "evil" enemies in a glorifying light. If it seems "better" than Crest of the Stars, that's only because it has less obviously-offensive scenes, and instead goes for making subtler insinuations during the more "quiet-time" interactions between the characters. And finally, as much as you may try, it proves impossible to separate the artistic good from the thematic poison of this show, as every event and every interaction is inextricably linked to its reprehensible ideas. It proves once again that it's just not possible to make good wine from bad grapes.