We've waited long time for it, but it's finally here: a DOGFIGHT! And it lasted a half of the episode! That was probably the best 10 minutes of Allison and Lillia yet. In previous episodes only the short flight scenes looked really good animation-wise and it holds true in episode 4. The dogfight looks really nice and detailed, it was worth the wait, even though it was Ker who took all the spotlight (Allison still owned him with paint bullets though :) )Surprisingly they've finished the "find the treasure" arc in second half of this episode.That was quick, I thought it would take them all the remaining episodes of the Allison part of this show. But it was a pleasant surprise.Turns out the treasure didn't have any supernatural/sf origins, my suspicions were wrong here (I guess Last Exile has twisted me this way :) ). What it was however was a surprise. It was simply an ancient (from the time before humans invented the writing) wall painting that proved that both countries came from the same one civilization, thus taking away the whole reason behind the long war. I liked how they've handled that, obviously this wouldn't be enough to stop hate during the war, but after 30 years of truce? People just needed an excuse to officially end the war and this gave them exactly that.The old man really was bad ass though, he murdered his whole squad just to save this painting (way to go grandpa).What annoyed me though was Wil's pacifism, especially since it kind of came out of nowhere, previous episodes didn't suggest that.Not only he screamed like a little girl when he thought Allison would shot down Kar, but also after owning the bad guys with a gun he got so scared he dropped it... so lame... You won't earn the cool points in front of a girl like that pal!I never liked characters like that in anime, fortunately next time he will do better.This episode ended the first arc of the series, it's probably how the first volume of the original novel series finished. Overall it was easily the best episode of Allison and Lilia yet and hopefully they will at least keep this level up for the remaining episodes. So far the series has left me severely disappointed (I was expecting a mix of Baccano and Kino no Tabi), but at least episodes like this keep it entertaining enough for me to keep watching.rating: 8.0/10
(Read the rest of this entry)