This is a historical show set in a vaguely medieval time period. Magic does not play a significant role in the show (if at all – I don't recall any magic but I hesitate to promise its total absence), and overall it is pretty realistic. The MC (Altair) does have protagonist plot armour in some situations, but as a whole I found the story fairly believable.
The setting consists of a variety of nations that resemble those of the historical-Mediterranean perimeter. The MC is a high-ranking member of a pseudo-Ottoman nation's government. The MC travels around throughout the show and different nations are featured along the way. Various ideologies of both nations and individuals are explored throughout the story. It is pretty interesting. The show accomplishes an impressive amount of elaborate worldbuilding during its 24-episode runtime. All the different nations depicted in the show were also potent imagination fertilizer.
Overall the story of Shoukoku no Altair is exceptionally well written and clever. The storyline is very intricate and unique. It is complex yet coherent and intriguing. I found the story very interesting and enjoyable. The writing (including worldbuilding and abstract themes) of this anime is its best feature. Most of the plot is related to political and military conflict between (and within) nations.
Beyond the plot, the writing explores themes relating, or at least tangential, to international relations and geopolitics. Themes such as military grand strategy, relations between a nation's culture and its foreign policy, and a wide variety of political themes in general. These themes made the show very interesting. There are often parallels that could be drawn between the story and real-world history.
In addition to being excellently written, the story is well executed. Despite the complexity of the story I never had any difficulty understanding what was happening. Furthermore, the pacing felt perfectly calibrated to me. It is a well-directed show.
One caveat I should mention is that, as you might expect of a manga adaptation, the ending of this anime does not have any finality. Although it does end at a major turning point in the plot, most of the conflicts that the plot is centered around remain unresolved. Personally I don't mind this (and it does signal that the adaptation is faithful) but I know it will bother others. I am very tempted to read the source material to find out how the story continues.
Despite the mature themes explored in the writing, the show does sometimes have a juvenile shounen-ish feeling. It's a very mixed bag though and varies from episode to episode. Generally speaking, I found the earlier episodes felt juvenile more frequently. As the show progresses, the strategy elements start to dominate more and more, and the scale of conflict increases. It takes time for the worldbuilding to develop to a point where the exploration of some political themes is even possible. My numerical rating for this anime increased as I progressed through the episodes.
It's also worth noting that this is not a particularly character-driven show. It is very much plot-driven rather than character-driven. It seemed to me that little attention was paid to depicting the emotions and feelings of the MC and other characters, particularly during the later episodes. This isn't a criticism, just an observation. In a different show this might be an issue, but for a strategy-focused show like this that explores abstract political themes it really isn't. Although there certainly are emotional episodes, some episodes are so devoid of emotion it almost felt like watching a history documentary. Again, particularly during the latter half of the show when the grand-strategy elements really reach their climax. Despite the show's length, there's also not a whole lot of character development, however there is a diverse variety of personalities in the cast, and perhaps more importantly, different sociopolitical attitudes. The show certainly has ideological diversity within its cast.
In a lot of ways the MC does feel like a generic anime protagonist. Although his lack of character development really isn't an issue, perhaps more effort should have been made to depict his ideological attitudes and their development throughout the show. On balance, I have a neutral feeling towards the MC, but I can understand the perspective of people who disliked him. I would agree that this is one element of the anime where there was room for improvement.
In my opinion, the OST is good. Nice OP and ED songs too. The voice acting is adequate but nobody really stood out to me. I thought the voice work for the MC was a little weak.
As for visuals, some of the character designs are nice. Due to the size of the cast and its cultural diversity, a wide variety of outfits are featured in the show. Unfortunately, the character animation is frequently crude and lacking detail. However, the background setting usually looks great (I took lots of screencaps); every episode has at least a few nice detailed landscape frames to admire. During indoor scenes a lot of the pseudo-Arabic architecture and interior decor is neat as well. The visuals are inconsistent overall, but there are certainly moments where things look awesome.
My overall rating: 8/10
This anime is exceptionally well written. The story is interesting and clever, the themes explored are thought provoking, and it contains some of the most elaborate worldbuilding I've seen in a while. It is rare to see anime handle a topic like political strategy so competently. Furthermore, the anime is well executed and doesn't have any major direction issues. Visually, the setting looks good but the character animation is often sloppy.
This is an underappreciated show that would appeal to a lot of people, including those who aren't typically anime fans. I would definitely recommend Shoukoku no Altair to people who like political/military strategy stories. However, I should warn you that I found the first couple episodes comparatively weaker to the rest of the anime. The show feels a little juvenile at the beginning, but it eventually develops an elaborate world with a rich complex story. Don't judge it prematurely based on the first few episodes.
Also, the manga might be a better way to approach this franchise. I haven't read it, but the fact that the anime's best quality is its writing does suggest that literature is the optimal consumption medium.
I liked this way more than Arslan Senki (a similar anime in concept).
>I will never command a unit of attack-falcon-equipped soldiers in a medieval war between civilizations on the Eastern Mediterranean perimeter
JDIMSA
