Each side prepares for battle, and each side believes that they have the power of Exile on their side. Ades sends in the provincal fleets of nations they have annexed in as the first wave, but they get oblitereted by the Glacies’ vanguards. However, the vanguards get largely destroyed by Ades’ new weapons as Fam arrives too late to warn them. After Glacies’ ground-based anti-air weapons are destroyed, the Glacies’ ruling council falls back to their final defense: using the power of their Exile, which is buried in the ground. In response, Luscinia calls on Liliana so that he can use her exile in a counter attack. Meanwhile, Fam heads towards a Sky Pirate base to refuel, only to find it destroyed. After salvaging fuel, she rushes toward Kartoffel to warn them.

Dyan barely escapes Ades' new weapon, thanks to Fam

So it looks like the next episode we’re going to see the result of when an immovable object meets and irresistible force as two Exiles will face off against each other. Of course, it’s possible that Exiles are programmed not to attack each other, but if not, the battle may come down to which side knows how to use the Exiles better.

Meanwhile, it seems that Fam and Giselle have discovered evidence of yet another new Ades weapon: this one a ship that can fly higher than any other known battleship. The Sky Pirates kept their bases up high in order to keep out of the reach of these ships, but they are now in danger if that is no longer the case.

Meanwhile, Vasant really is beginning to doubt whether what Ades is doing is right, and we’ll see if she starts openly voicing that opinion in front of Sara Augusta soon.

I also find it somewhat suspicious that Luscinia sent in the provincial fleets in first, seemingly to know full well that they were going to get obliterated. It seemed like this was more of an attempt to eliminate an internal security risk – by destroying the fleets of the nations Ades had annexed – than it was anything else.

Ades has sent an assassination squad to Anatoray in an attempt to assassinate Alvis, but Dio protects her and escapes with her with his Vanship. Meanwhile, Fam, Giselle, and Millia have crash landed in Glacies, and one of Glacies’ pilots, Dyan, secretly rescues them and helps them repair their vanship. Dyan also tells the group that the disaster at the Grand Race is when Glacies decided to stop trusting outsides, and is why she thinks the idea of another Grand Race is foolish. Finally, Fam is able to leave, but immediately runs into fleets of Ades warships, causing Fam to turn around to warn Dyan.

Dyan find the rash Fam incomprehensible

This was a pretty interesting episode, I thought. It seems that Alvis may play a bigger role in the future, considering the assassination attempt on her, but we only saw her at the start of this episode.

Meanwhile, Dyan, who I think is the leader of Glacies vanguard force, seems to suggest that perhaps she and Glacies aren’t as cold hearted as they may appear. While Dyan still finds the trio’s behavior, especially Fam’s, nearly incomprehensible, she clearly seems to share some of their values, even if she tries to deny it. This certainly looks like it could be the start of cooperation between Glacies and Anatoray, especially with the Ades fleet on Glacies’ doorstep.

On a kind of side note, I hope if (when?) Funimation dubs this series, they keep the Glacies people speaking Russian. This episode would kind of be hard to pull off if they weren’t speaking different languages as the whole issue of Millia having to translate depends on that fact. It also just puts a finer point on the idea that Glacies is sees as different or separated from the rest of the world by their isolationism.

It’s a flashback to the Grand Race and our first real look at who Farahnāz Augusta, the previous ruler of Ades, was like. Giselle’s father, Atamora, wins the race, but a group of assassins assault the awards ceremony. Kaiser, Atamora’s flying partner, is killed protecting Farahnāz, and Farahnāz’s bodyguards do good work protecting her. However, the main assault appears to be a diversion as two of the very pilots attending the awards ceremony are the ones to ultimately assassinate Farahnāz. Fam then wakes up from her flashback, seemingly in the custody of Glacies forces.

Empress Farahnāz Augusta: The last hope for peace

So we finally get to witness the events that led up to Farahnāz Augusta’s assassination. Ironically, she ends up getting killed while trying to protect Millia. It’s hard to imagine how the Ades Federation could have possibly gone in a more opposite direction that what Farahnāz wanted it to after her assassination. She knew there might be setbacks, but didn’t want them to bring down the overall peace. Yet, that’s exactly what happened. Hopefully Sara Augusta’s main advisers, particularly Vasant, remember what Farahnāz had wished for originally.

I still wouldn’t be surprised if the assassination was orchestrated by people within Ades itself, with the prime suspect being Luscinia if that is the case. He clearly has a disdain for the Exile refugees, though it’s unknown whether he still felt that way before the assassination.

I also found it somewhat mysterious why Farahnāz had two bodyguards that looked suspiciously like Guild members. This was supposedly taking place before the Prester Exile even returned, which perhaps begs the question of who the Guild are from originally.

It’s a flashback to the Grand Race and our first real look at who Farahnāz Augusta, the previous ruler of Ades, was like. Giselle’s father, Atamora, wins the race, but a group of assassins assault the awards ceremony. Kaiser, Atamora’s flying partner, is killed protecting Farahnāz, and Farahnāz’s bodyguards do good work protecting her. However, the main assault appears to be a diversion as two of the very pilots attending the awards ceremony are the ones to ultimately assassinate Farahnāz. Fam then wakes up from her flashback, seemingly in the custody of Glacies forces.

Empress Farahnāz Augusta: The last hope for peace

So we finally get to witness the events that led up to Farahnāz Augusta’s assassination. Ironically, she ends up getting killed while trying to protect Millia. It’s hard to imagine how the Ades Federation could have possibly gone in a more opposite direction that what Farahnāz wanted it to after her assassination. She knew there might be setbacks, but didn’t want them to bring down the overall peace. Yet, that’s exactly what happened. Hopefully Sara Augusta’s main advisers, particularly Vasant, remember what Farahnāz had wished for originally.

I still wouldn’t be surprised if the assassination was orchestrated by people within Ades itself, with the prime suspect being Luscinia if that is the case. He clearly has a disdain for the Exile refugees, though it’s unknown whether he still felt that way before the assassination.

I also found it somewhat mysterious why Farahnāz had two bodyguards that looked suspiciously like Guild members. This was supposedly taking place before the Prester Exile even returned, which perhaps begs the question of who the Guild are from originally.

Now that I’ve wrapped up catching up on the Fall season, it’s time to look at the Winter season. I’ll of course continue Shakugan no Shana III and Last Exile: Fam, the Silver Wing, so I’m looking for one or maybe two shows to supplement that. I’ll keep churning out episodes like I have until I catch up, which at this point may be pretty near the end of the season.

There didn’t seem to be a lot of interesting shows, but there were three in particular that peaked my interest: Ano Natsu de Matteru (aka Waiting in the Summer), Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou (aka The Daily Lives of HIgh School Boys), and Another.

Waiting in the Summer is from the creators of the Please! series, and I loved Please! Twins, so that’s a plus. Plus the art and the synopses sounds interesting. Plus, it’s being simulcast on Crunchyroll, so I think I’ll pick this one up.

The Daily Lives of High School Boys, I was iffy on at first, but after further reading about it thought it looked interesting. However, this series ended up being about the only one which was both licensed and NOT being simulcast anywhere that I can see, and I have a “if it’s licensed, then I don’t download fansubs” policy. So, I would have blogged this one, but because it’s licensed but not “available,” I won’t be able to.

For Another, I’m really not a horror fan at all, but it has a good rating on both ANN and MAL, so maybe I could give it a shot. I suppose if I don’t like it, I only have to put up with it for 12 episodes.

So it looks like for Winter 2012, I’ll be picking up Waiting in the Summer and Another and we’ll see how it turns out.

Anatoray and the Turan government in refugee agree to an aliance against the Ades Federation. After the ceremony, who greets Dio but…Alvis. However, Luscinia’s ship arrives with Princess Liliana, who takes control of the Turan fleet and declares an alliance with Ades. Millie refuses, so Liliana strips Millia of her royal title. The Silvania and the Urbanus, which was hiding underwater, attempt to escape, but Alauda and a group of assassins boards the Silvius, disabling her engines and causing her to crash into the water. Meanwhile, Fam, Giselle, and Millia take off in order to try to capture Liliana, but are chased by three Ades vanships.

Alvis is back!

So, just like that all the hard work Fam, Giselle, and Millia did to make a Turan fleet goes out the window when Liliana, who is clearly under the influence of Luscinia, takes the ships over. Even if Fam were able to kidnap her back, I’m not sure it would make much of a difference.

We also meet character #5 from the original series: Alvis, which brings up an interesting question: where exactly IS the Exile that she controls? When Vincent said most of their fleet wasn’t there yet, did that mean they were back in Anatoray on Earth…or in Anatoray on Prester? One would think that Anatoray’s Exile would be a pretty nice weapon to have against Ades, so…why haven’t they used it yet, unless it’s in transit either to or from Prester?

We also learn that Luscinia’s head assassin, Alauda, appears to be from the guild, which is kind of what I suspected from the start, given his attire and looks. That begs the question, of course, of whether there are any other guild members out there, and if so, what they’re up to.

In any case, this is the last episode of the fall season for this series, so we’ll see it again in a couple weeks when I start blogging the winter season.

Giselle and Fam get into an argument about Giselle wanting to go back home, with Giselle saying that she’s a worthless navi. Fam and Dio then have a conversation where Fam says she just plowed ahead without thinking what Giselle was thinking, and Dio says he had someone like that (speaking of Lucciola) but now he’ll never know what he thought. Finally, Giselle realizes she was only thinking of herself as well and organizes a Birthday party for Fam with Millia to help cheer her up. But during the party, the commander of the Anatoray-Disith fleet arrives: Vincent.

Giselle's happy again

Well, the Fam/Giselle situation seemed to be resolved pretty quickly, considering the buildup for it, but I guess that’s OK. I probably wouldn’t have liked a very long dispute between the two of them anyway. Overall this seemed to be a pretty laid back episode. Nothing really happened outside the ship, with the main “action” being Fam, Giselle, and Millia’s angst about each bothering the other. At least we got a nice montage about Fam and Giselle’s past out of it.

With Vincent showing up, that makes the forth original cast member to show up, and if we’re going to be seeing more Anatoray people, then hopefully he won’t be the last person we see either.

By the way, episode “9.5″ as it’s called is a recap episode, so I’ll just skip that one and go to episode 10, which is the last episode in the fall season.

The 1st Fleet and the Silvius engage, with the Silvius’ vanship squadrons helping to break a hole through the line with bombs and smoke. However, the 1st fleet chases after them and the Silvius makes a run toward the Glacies border, taking heavy damage on the way. Meanwhile, Fam sees this as the perfect opportunity to catch her final vanship, but this time uses Millia as her navi. Both the Silvius and some Ares ships cross the border, and the Glacies forces engage the Federation ships. The Silvius uses the opportunity to slip away, but not before Fam is able to capture the flagship of the 1st Fleet.

Say hello to your friendly neighbors, Glacies

So the Silvius took heavy damage, but escaped, and Fam finally fulfilled her promise, but Giselle seems to have completely broken down that Fam was able to do this with Millia instead of her. I figure that bad things will happen once Fam gets back on board the Silvius. Of course, this also brings up the question of…where are the other ships, exactly? We know they were taken back to Anatoray, but where and why?

We appear to be at a point in the series where it could really go anywhere. the main outstanding story arc – Fam capturing the 15 ships – has now been completed. One figures that some arc regarding Glacies is probably next.

With the southern shore of the Grand Lake nearly conquered, Ares looks to take on the northern shore, with their first major obstacle being the isolationist nation of Glacies. The Silvius sets course for Glacies as well in hopes that they’ll accept their assistance. Meanwhile, Fam reads about transport of 8 Ares battleships and wants to capture them. She runs into the Pirates along the way, but they all are ambushed by the 3rd fleet, with Fam barely allowing them to escape, though not without heavily casualties on the Pirates. Then just as Fam has the Silvius back in sight, the 1st Fleet shows up demanding that Princess Millia be handed over.

It's a Trap!

So Fam’s (and the Sky Pirate’s) ambitions end up getting them in trouble, as the Ares Federation knew the transport would be a target too good for them to pass up. It was only by sheer luck that they weren’t all destroyed by the fleet. And now the 1st Fleet has suddenly shown up as well.

Giselle is clearly feeling like she’s the odd one out with Millie i the picture and becoming such good friends with Fam. Fam clearly doesn’t think anything has changed between them, but from Giselle’s point of view, their relationship seems to be approaching a breaking point. If Fam doesn’t return to the pirates once she fulfills her promise, I’m not sure what Giselle will do.

Fam has captured 8 Ares ships and, without consulting Fam, Tatiana has Dio take the fleet back to the Anatoray Exile government. Meanwhile, Fam has her next ship in sight: she goes to El Dorado, which holds famous underground races, to make a bet with a baroness that, if she wins, she gets to keep her ship. However, if the baroness’ pilot – a veteran of the Great Race – wins, she gets to keep Millia, who is disguised as a boy. The veteran leads most of the race, but a desperate ploy at the end allows Fam to barely win the race, and the ship.

Fam: biting off more than she can chew since 2011

This is essentially the same type episode as the 8-hour race episode from the first series, though in that case, it was a cover for a secret auction while in this case it was for Fam to get the ship.

Some other things established in this episode include the fact that, while we don’t know how long Dio and others have been back, it’s been less than 10 years, since it was after the last Grand Race. We also learn that Anatoray has established an Exile kingdom somewhere. However, their exile doesn’t appear to be one of the six moons, since they appear to have been around longer than that. It also makes the likelihood of seeing other characters from the first series much more likely.

Finally, it seems like more is up with Luscinia assassinating all of the nobles than meets the eye. I think he pretty much knows that the ships were stolen, and trumped up the treason charges as an excuse. The question is why. He references some wish of the previous empress, Farahnāz, but we have no idea what it is, beyond, perhaps world peace (which Luscinia hasn’t really been promoting).

Fam, Giselle, and Millia meet the Silvius’ Chief of Maintenence, Olaf, who is impressed with Giselle’s ship and astronomic knowledge. Millia tells Fam that she doesn’t know how to repay her if they are able to reestablish Turan, so Fam says that she can hold another Great Race. Fam, Giselle, and Olaf then set out to capture the first Ares ship, tricking the ship’s crew to leave the ship in order to accomplish it. Meanwhile, Ares formally annexes Turan while Millia creates a government-in-exile on the Silvius.

Millia leads the glorious Maid Empire

I guess I’m not surprised that Fam’s first capture ended up pretty easy, though I somehow don’t expect it to be as easy from now on. One good thing is that, as she collects ships, she may be able to start capturing more than one at a time. For example, once she has 4 or 5 ships, she may be able to go after two that are together and get them to surrender.

We also confirm that Dio served on the Silvius before joining the pirates, so this series is probably more than 6 months ahead of the first series, but it’s still clearly not that far into the future. Meanwhile, in a short scene it looked like Dio was playing chess from the old engineer from the Silvania. Otherwise, not a lot happened in this episode. Giselle was able to show off her expertise, and the government-in-exile was created, but that’s about it.

To help lift Millia’s spirit, Fam decides to try to capture the independent ship Silvius, and using a photo of it, Giselle makes her best deductions about how it’s built. The plan seems to go off well, but the Silvius commander gets into her vanship and runs interference with Fam, Fam tries to enter the Silvius from underneath, but is captured. She then comes face to face with the Silvius’ commander: Tatiana Wisla.

The female sexual tension level just rose again with Tatiana and Alister showing up

Well, well, well, we get to meet another pair of characters from the original series: Tatiana and Alister, who appear to be commander and first officer of the Silvius. Of course, the Silvius is a clear throwback to the Silvania in both name and operation. This opens up some more questions about where everyone else is and their story in arriving here.

One person who did get a nugget of information about was Dio, who apparently arrived with the Sky Pirates about half a year ago. He also seemed to be pretty familiar with the Silviius, so he has probably spent time on it before. One thing I’m wondering is if we’ll get some more background information now that Dio and Tatiana have met each other again.

Overall, this was a big blow to the pirates, with the entire team getting captured. Though this isn’t the end of Fam’s ship capturing adventures as Tatiana wants her to capture 15 Ades ships for her.

A pair of Ades fleets destroy a fleet from Notos, another Exile nation. We then learn that when the Turans returned 118 years ago, they took the land from a native tribe, which then fled to the Ades Federation. Meanwhile, Millia is angry at Fam for leaving her sister behind, and becomes more distressed when she sees the possessions from her ship being looted and sold off by the Sky Pirates. Fam then helps Millia a glass her sister owned that was sold off to someone, which helps repair the rift between the two.

But what if I don't want to return to the sky?

So Teddy, the Princess’ butler comes to live with Giselle, who tells him that the Sky Pirates are a collection of people who have lost their homes due to the Ades Federation, so it appears like Ades has been going around wiping people out for quite a while.

Really, there were too many things going on in this episode to write about all of it without spending too much time on it. Overall, this was a good episode explaining a lot of the background information about the Ades Federation as well as the people who returned on Exiles. It was also a good episode in developing Fam and Millia’s relationship. We also learned about a “Grand Race” which was supposed to celebrate a world peace treaty 10 years prior, but which didn’t last. Also apparently some incident at the Grand Race took the life of the current Ades child-empress’s mother’s life.

So far I think this series is doing a decent job of capturing the feel of the original series. This one seems a bit more battle heavy, and there are still obviously some big unanswered questions like…what is Dio doing there? But so far I think it’s fulfilling my expectations.

A pair of Ades fleets destroy a fleet from Notos, another Exile nation. We then learn that when the Turans returned 118 years ago, they took the land from a native tribe, which then fled to the Ades Federation. Meanwhile, Millia is angry at Fam for leaving her sister behind, and becomes more distressed when she sees the possessions from her ship being looted and sold off by the Sky Pirates. Fam then helps Millia a glass her sister owned that was sold off to someone, which helps repair the rift between the two.

But what if I don't want to return to the sky?

So Teddy, the Princess’ butler comes to live with Giselle, who tells him that the Sky Pirates are a collection of people who have lost their homes due to the Ades Federation, so it appears like Ades has been going around wiping people out for quite a while.

Really, there were too many things going on in this episode to write about all of it without spending too much time on it. Overall, this was a good episode explaining a lot of the background information about the Ades Federation as well as the people who returned on Exiles. It was also a good episode in developing Fam and Millia’s relationship. We also learned about a “Grand Race” which was supposed to celebrate a world peace treaty 10 years prior, but which didn’t last. Also apparently some incident at the Grand Race took the life of the current Ades child-empress’s mother’s life.

So far I think this series is doing a decent job of capturing the feel of the original series. This one seems a bit more battle heavy, and there are still obviously some big unanswered questions like…what is Dio doing there? But so far I think it’s fulfilling my expectations.

Princess Liliana has Fam and Giselle return her younger sister, Princess Millia, back to the Turan capital in order to give defense preparations to their ill father. However, he has Fam and Giselle take Millia to a villa in the East to keep her safe. Liliana, meanwhile, prepares a plan to attack the Ades flagship but it fails when she’s kidnapped. Dio tells Fam and Millia of this, and they go to save Liliana, but the Premier of Ades, Luscinia, recites a Mysteria, which causes Liliana to go into a trance, and activates one of the crecent moons, which happens to be an Exile. The Exile descends toward Turan’s capital, whose soldiers unwisely fire at it. The Exile then attacks the city in return, killing everyone in it, including the king.

That's no Moon, it's a space station!

So we get some background information in this episode. Apparently the Exile that was in the first series wasn’t the only one sent out. Apparently the Exiles were sent out as colony ships in an attempt to make sure the human race survived during a time when it was in grave danger on earth. However, humanity survived and started to thrive, when Exiles started returning. However, the indigenous inhabitants of Earth weren’t too keen on giving the people returning on the Exiles land, so apparently people like Turans look land and formed their own kingdoms. The Ades Federation was either a one world government that had existed before the Exiles returned, or is a federation of the original nations that have united against the nations formed by Exile inhabitants.

Or at least, that’s how I understand it at this point.

There were six “moons” in the sky, and presumably they’re all Exiles, though I’m not sure if they are ones that just were never sent out or if they are ones that have returned and are just parked in orbit. I’m guessing we’ll see action from the other 5 at some point in the future. In any case, it looks like Turan is in pretty bad shape, so I’m not sure where this series will go from here. Ades seems intent on wiping out a whole lot of other nations as well, so the series will probably be centered on Fam and other’s attempts to prevent that.