Nejimaki Seirei Senki: Tenkyou no Alderamin 03 – 05

“Two are better than one…”

–Ecclesiastes 4:9

So what did go down thus far? Well, our group of sudden knights find themselves now immersed in military training. This is great for some of them and it’s what they always wanted, but for others, it’s worse than death.

I’m at least thankful for episode 3 and 4 allowing me to be able to remember and retain Torway’s name, which now makes 5 characters of our main group of 6, that I can now fully remember their names. All that’s left is for healer girl to distinguish herself more from out of the background, and then we’ll be in business!

Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed.

These first couple of episodes are basically only done to showcase Ikta’s intelligence and his nature as a character. It’s a lot of military boot camp cliches, along with some baby’s-first-battle strategies. It’s an okay set of episodes but nothing we hadn’t seen before. I do have to wonder exactly what Chamille is doing there? Don’t you have some other royal duties to take care of princess? Especially since it really seems as if she’s not really going into it seriously at all, and seems to be there only so she can study/moon over Ikta the whole time. I can get that being so young and because of her station, maybe she just wanted more friends and thought this was the best way they could hang out together?

Like I said last time, Chamille is in this weird space where because of her station, she tries to act very mature, and yet we often get to see the very spoiled child side of her as well. It is actually possible to be so mature that you completely lose the child side, as we shall talk more about later, but for the princess, I’m hoping we starting seeing that more mature leader come back out moreso in later episodes.

If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble.

We get to meet Torway’s big brothers, one who is very much a douche, and one who’s more on the borderline. I’m glad that everyone in a family has the same color hair, or I honestly would have never even thought the mild mannered sharpshooter was in the same neighborhood as those other two, much less in the same family. Life as a kid must have really sucked, but I’m glad he’s got friends at his back that can give him support that can feed his self-esteem. Ikta is a very interesting conundrum for me. Everything about him would normally be my absolute favorite character type. The kind of man who fights with his brain rather than his brawn, who is an expert at manipulation, is loyal to his friends, and can constantly outsmart his opponents without breaking a sweat, all the while carrying an earned sense of arrogance about him. A feeling of superiority that he has over all others around him, who can’t see what he sees.

Bullies…such a dime a dozen.

And yet, while Ikta has all that, I just for some reason still found him unlikable at times. I felt as if he was missing one trait that makes those extremely smart, arrogant characters, like Lelouch, Light, Sherlock, Loki, Narsus, etc. so interesting to watch at work. And I think that trait is charisma. I think that perhaps it may be the fact that he’s so laid back that even though I can see how smart he is and how good of chessmaster he is, I just somehow simply feel bored. For Ikta everything is an “of course” and common sense, and yet somehow I don’t feel amazed when I hear his plans, somehow it just makes me feel as if I’m the dumb one for not seeing it!  And I’m the audience!

Likewise, two people lying close together can keep each other warm. But how can one be warm alone?

Who is this man, and why do I both love and hate him?

Ikta is smart, but he’s not a people person. Sure he’s suave when he wants to be, but that’s not even remotely the real him. This can sometimes work for these kind of characters, like Narsus or L, but the thing about them is they have people to bounce off of that allowed us to see these geniuses as more human and interesting despite them being on another level mentally then us.

Ikta actually HAS that too, in the form of the flame-haired Yatori. But if he does have someone that can allow him to connect to the other characters and the audience. Why do I still feel such a gulf separating us? Well, have you ever seen two really close siblings or friends that have such a close relationship and history that they seem to be in their own world with their own language that makes everyone else feel like outsiders if you try to interact with them? Well, that was Yatori and Ikta. For the longest, I was getting more and more frustrated with the two, and I was quite close to counting Yatori out as a character completely.
And then episode 5 came…

Paint them red.

I’m telling you that we should have had, at least parts of episode 5, long before now. But thank goodness we at least got what we got. In one episode, they suddenly gave both Ikta and Yatori more depth and life than all the previous episodes. I finally get to understand why the two characters are the way they are and why they act the way they do–I’m no longer out of the loop!

A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer.

When they said it would be all sunshine and rainbows, they weren’t kidding!

And once we are able to now get a solid understanding of Ikta’s background, while it still doesn’t help his lack of charisma in the present day, it DOES help us to be able to get an idea of why Ikta is that way in the first place. The same goes for Yatori, who was in sorry need of some characterization and background (honestly…I didn’t even fully get a grasp of her name until that episode…).

It’s interesting that with this flashback, we find out that Ikta Solork, was Ikta Sankrei for much longer than I had initially thought. They way he put it about growing up in an orphanage made it really seems as if he had lived his life without ties and parents for at least 80% or more of his young life. But here, we see that he had as normal a childhood a military kid could have at least until he reached preteen age. Honestly, seeing how much he looks and acts like his father, I can’t see how anyone other than the princess hasn’t made the connection. Especially considering he kept his first name. His mom (weirdly looking like a warring era Japanese princess), is the most sweet, lovely person that you could have ever meet. And all of his dad’s men along with the “scientists” are really cool and you could really see that it was a great family atmosphere for young Ikta. And you can see why he got so freaking pissed at the princess’ words last time.

The family of once upon a time… 

We also get to see Yatori’s childhood, practically raised from birth to be the best soldier she could be and to bring honor to her family name. Remember how I was saying earlier that a child could completely lose the child-like part of them and just take on that beyond-their-years-maturity? Well, that was young Yatori. A girl raised by her distant, authoritarian, military father to think of nothing but being worthy of the family name.

Talk about your 180s…

And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him…

When you see Yatori and Ikta’s first meeting, and their two opposite natures meet, they don’t clash as you would expect them to. In fact, while they don’t quite understand each other’s ideals, Ikta loving logic, adventure, and being himself, and Yatori willing binding herself to her family’s traditions, ideals, and following the path laid out for her, they still seem to find a connection between each other. Quickly becoming friends, each changes the other’s world, the boy teaching the girl how to let loose a little bit and to have a little fun once in awhile, while the girl pushes the boy to become harder and fiercer and to think quickly on their feet. They became more then best friends. They became two sides of the same coin, the left and the right hands, where one goes, the other is not that far away. Their natures very much like the idea of the differences of the left and right sides of the brain that works together as one.

Opposite and yet together–always.

The connection they made during that summer, which was cemented while they spent a night battling with the world’s smartest wolves(!), became permanent one that withstood years of changes and hardships for them both. As of right now, their relationship is much like that of close siblings, but I can easily see that changing to one that’s not so platonic. I’m not hurrying anything, but the possibility is very much there.

This episode gives so much more depth two our two main characters in retrospect. Suddenly all of Yatori’s statements about Ikta that seemed rather vague, now make a lot more sense. The way that the two interact and talk to each other, has a whole lot more meaning. The reasons why he and she act the way they do and say the things they say, and react the way they do in certain situations are now more sympathetic and justifiable. 

…and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

(Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 NLT;KJV)

It feels as if we are still in just the first act of this series, even though we are closing in on the halfway mark. I’m not sure if this series will be split cour or not, but I’ll have to see where else this show decides to go in the coming episodes to see how much time it will really need in order to unfold it’s tale. While I do like war/conflict stories, military academy tales are not really my cup of tea. I’m really hoping that we can skip through all these training tales and get to actual political conflict and armed warfare. Seeing them in boot camp is really not that much different from seeing them in a military high school and I think this kind of setting demands a better story than that. Now that they  have given character and development to almost all of our main characters, I think we can get started on what’s going to be the actual plot of the venture. Seeing Ikta show his tactical prowess is only worth it, if he has a worthy opponent or conflict to use them against. And no…the equivalent of military schoolyard bullies and paintball games, doesn’t cut it.

And of course we have our cute faerie of the day, isn’t it cute!

About IreneSharda

A Chicagoan biochemist, teacher, and an aspiring virologist, with a love for science only rivaled by my love for movies, animation, and anime. Both a lover of action/adventure and romance, I'm a girl who walks the entire spectrum. Mecha, Sci-Fi, Psychological Thriller, Romantic Period Piece, if it's has a good story, I'm there.