Crest of the Stars (Sekai no Monshou)
Episode 2
My new favorite leading lady, Lafiel.
Ok, I'm very quickly warming up to and really liking this show. I liked this second episode even more than the first. Lafiel is introduced and she's awesome! I think I'm beginning to see why
Lafiel likes Lafiel so much, what an entrance there! Seeing how her name is spelled in Japanese now I would have gotten the pronunciation right away then and it is indeed
Ayako Kawasumi as her seiyuu.
I just love the dialogue in this second episode! It really came across as just so natural and convincing in every way. From the way it was written, to the way the seiyuu deliver their lines with the appropriate tones and pauses, even the subtle bits of body language of the characters with their positions or animations. The episode is basically two talking sections partitioned by a bit of a chase scene in the middle and I wasn't bored one bit.
This episode has even more neat scene transitions, such as right at the beginning of the episode, you see Jinto sitting there with his head down and then someone calls his name but it's a bit distant and echo like and then suddenly a person moves by the screen and you now see Jinto slightly more grown up and the voice calling to him is more clear as his friend approaches him. It was just a nice reflection of the past to present.
After Jinto and his friend Dorin have a bit of a broment, some elderly lady gets her bag stolen, to which Lafiel enters the scene by catching Jinto's space baseball thing he got as a memento from Dorin after missing hitting the child thief. The way she smacks him with the ball and then the chase is on as she jumps over a ledge and down the stairs trying to catch a helper to the thief was great, really entertaining stuff.
I like how the show takes the time to do some visual world building when the characters are talking. Since large chunks of the episode are conversation pieces between characters, rather than trying to spend the whole time framing them from interesting angels, the camera will pan around the environment where you can see how the world operates. It might seem like minor things but just the fact that you can tell it's a busy spaceport(on that note, I like a lot of the details drawn into things too) or how people use the technologies they have, such as luggage now seems to be in slightly automated carry-on type of machines that hover alongside you. A lot of little things like that where they show you the world rather than telling.
There are no beautiful cabin attendants but the ship has a pretty good looking pilot,she says.
The latter conversation between Lafiel and Jinto was also really well written and delivered I thought. The way she states the above as so matter-of-fact and without any inference of being rude. That's just the way the Abh are and have been for a long time, it's a fact. I always like these conversations between two different people from different cultures and backgrounds.
Jinto mentions Lafiel shouldn't get so complacent by relying on machines all the times as they can make mistakes, to which she counters humans also make mistakes(with probably the same amount of error rates) so basically what's his point? Jinto finds the controls of the ship strange to what he's accustomed to and feels there is probably a better way, whereas Lafiel is used to them and thus she bluntly asks what would make for better controls? It was just these little back and forth exchanges that I found to be really interesting and amusing/entertaining. Jinto had to remind Lafiel that this was all new to him where Lafiel would apologize as it's just normal to her and has been this way for as long as she's known so she finds his reactions to seemingly rather ordinary things somewhat strange or confusing.
If this keeps up for the rest of the show, I think I'm not only going to really like it but it will turn into one of my favorite anime I've seen. I really look forward to the next episode now.
