Suisei no Gargantia - 3

"The Villainous Empress"

"Give fresh water to he who catches fish."

Three episodes in and Garagantia is showing no signs of letting up; it remains a tightly constructed narrative that ticks off all the right boxes at exactly the right time, and it's showing just the right amount of Urobuchi Gen's touch without drowning in his philosophy. If this is what the man can do when he's put under control, then by all means, let him keep doing it! If it continues at this rate, I can easily see Suisei no Gargantia landing on quite a high spot for the year, and even claiming classic status some years from now. As it is, at the moment it seems we have something very special on our hands so far, and though most of us are tensely awaiting the moment when shit hits the fan in traditional Urobutcher fashion, I think this series can do great things even without all that drama, and this episode proves that this is the case.

After all that happened last week with the pirates, Ledo finds himself in a more precarious position than ever. The fact of the matter is, though he may have helped the Gargantians, his methods are placing them in just as much danger as if he'd never helped at all. Not only do they have to worry about the practical matters (as in, when the pirates will want their revenge), but now they have very real reason to fear the boy from outer space. As Ridgett so rightly puts it, what's stopping him from turning on them and annihilating them as he did the pirates? His morals on murder are clearly not the same as theirs, and though he's just as practical, the problem lies in perspective rather than in actual questions of ethics. After all, though Ledo has no issues with murdering in cold blood, he still goes pale at the thought of eating an animal carcass; which, in typical Urobuchi style, raises questions of morality, ones which, as usual, have no answer.

However, Bellows also raises a different point, which is "give fresh water to he who catches fish"; in other words, it's only right to return the favor when someone does something for you, and though Ledo might be threatening, he did in fact save her life. Her resulting trust in him drives him to decide to stay on the Garagantian's side, and even to follow their conditions and fight the Pirate leader, Rakkage (Tsunematsu Ayumi), without taking any lives. While that makes things far more complicated for him than he's used to dealing with, he nevertheless adheres to his word (as a good soldier should), finally placing himself in an advantageous situation with his new hosts. The question now is, just how well can this war-conditioned boy adapt to a life of relative peace when he's not even familiar with the human emotion of gratitude? I'm guessing PTSD will take some role from here on out, and though it isn't perfect (too much CGI for one thing), Suisei is definitely the anime I look forward to most each week.