Banner of the Stars Episode 4: The First Campaign
Manga volume 1-1
Oshimeter
3 Ratings
EPISODE REVIEWS
First real space battle of the season and it's tense in that quiet, dread-filled way this franchise does best. No dramatic heroics, just anxious waiting and a numbers game. The flirty bridge banter between Jinto and Lafiel got called out by basically everyone lol.
the formal dinner in remembrance of Atosuryua's late brother is the most quietly tense episode of the series so far. nobody says anything outright confrontational. everything is perfectly polite. and yet the whole episode hums with the potential energy of something unspoken between Lafiel and the woman whose brother she killed. the way the show handles this — through subtext, through glances, through the careful navigation of social ritual — is exactly what makes Banner of the Stars feel more sophisticated than most space opera anime. Jinto being simultaneously more anxious and more perceptive than Lafiel in social situations remains one of the best running character dynamics in the show.
The episode suffers from lifeless character animations, repetitive dialogue, and an agonizing lack of momentum.
10
