Glass Fleet Vol. 4 Review

The rebel forces have been almost entirely wiped out, Michel is being held captive by the Imperial army in Vetti’s mansion and Cleo is locked away in a prison somewhere. Things are looking bleak at the start of the volume.

            Cleo and Eimer are adjusting to prison life but only long enough for Cleo to form an escape plan. While the initial plan doesn’t go as planned, Cleo finds himself in the presence of someone who has information about his past and his family. While on the other side of the galaxy, Michel is dealing with the shame of being drugged and raped by Vetti while Rachel is dealing with a husband who wants nothing to do with her now that they have married. And in yet another corner, Ralph has run away to seek out the oracle and find out what he must do in order to save Vetti’s life.

Good and the Bad

The characters are finding themselves in new challenges. Some of these new challenges include new characters and the build up to a brand new conflict between the imperial forces and the rebels that will decide things once and for all. At least I would hope so.

            With the second half firmly in place now, the staff behind the series has decided to shake things up by inserting new characters. Most of these characters will appear fairly quickly in the volume with most of the new characters taking the form of prisoners who quickly decide to join forces with Cleo as he makes his escape back into the world.

            Since the beginning I’ve given this series the benefit of the doubt many times. While I’ve called them out on space physics and overdramatic dialogue, I’ve still tried to give it slack to make up for my own inability to wrap my head around things. In this volume though, there is no way that anyone could ignore the amazing coincidence that seems to follow Cleo. Defeated in battle, left for near dead and drug to a prison on an unknown planet and then dropped down a shaft… he just happens to stumble upon the long lost friend of his foster father. This series has tried to throw a lot of things past the audience since the beginning but this is stretching it even for a space epic like this.

            The new characters do serve their purpose though. With the addition of the prisoners and the man that Cleo meets, the audience has quite a few new characters to get to know. While only one new character was given time to really develop in these four episodes, there is still a few episodes to go. One can only hope that this series will give these new characters a chance to win over the audience in a way that the primary cast members have yet to do.

            Out of the primary cast, Michel is pushed into the background for much of this volume. Locked away in Vetti’s mansion, this serves as a great excuse to develop Cleo further. While more time spent with Michel dealing with her violation by Vetti would have provided a great outlet for development, finally sharing the history of Cleo’s family is an excellent alternative.

            In this episode, Cleo’s family and birth rights are revealed along with the history of more than a few others playing a role in the current story. While the history behind Cleo’s family never came across as all that surprising (and downright predictable in many places), it still manages to provide the missing piece to Cleo’s character that fans and audience members have been waiting for since episode one.

Music

            The music in this volume continues in the same pattern that has followed this series from the beginning. While most of the scenes contain the pomp and grandeur full orchestra compositions there is one scene that stands out as different and simple. In the third episode of the volume, the flute theme that plays during the introduction of Elvia is quite fitting and well done.

Dub vs. Sub

            Both the Japanese and English tracks are well done though I have to ask is it a law that space operas must contain a certain percentage of characters that speak with British accents?  Beyond Ralph, I believe there were three more characters introduced on this volume (though one was a bit role) that had various types of British accents. While I could understand if all of the characters spoke with this accent, none of the characters are ever really established by where they are from in the galaxy so it’s always a little jarring when a new character appears and they’re using an accent but no one else is.

Extras

            Besides the usual clean animations, the new extra on this volume is a live drama theater piece. In this eight minute piece, the first six minutes are dedicated to a recording of three of the actors doing a short parody piece at a con involving Cleo and Eimer running a taxi service. The segment is actually kind of funny but nothing that made me laugh out loud.

Overall

            With the second half building to a new climax, audience members do have some kind of hope that the series will provide something worth the long drawn out build up. While this series has always strived to be the big anime space drama, all it’s managed to be so far is pretentious.