NARRATIVE SCOPE: OR WHY I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND ENJOY CREST OF THE STARS

TONY T. - Managing Editor, 3rd Year, Economics and Data Science

"Banner of the Stars is far less successful in this aspect."

Crest of the Stars kind of does the impossible for me. It’s an anime about a pair of adolescents and their will-they-won’t-they romantic tension stretched through thirteen episodes, with vague and ill explained background elements. For that matter, it’s also an adaptation of a light novel, a medium I generally dislike, with production values I wouldn’t necessarily call awful, but aren’t really that praiseworthy. Even the aspects of Crest of the Stars that would normally appeal to me are somewhat middling. Its backdrop of political intrigue in an age of space-faring civilizations is not unlike Legend of the Galactic Heroes, but it can hardly be considered deep or even morally gray in its presentation. Perhaps unintentionally, the main conflict in Crest of the Stars’ background has a side that I think most people would consider more just. Furthermore, the sequel, Banner of the Stars, has been publishing for literally twenty years, with its first novel releasing in 1996 and the latest coming out in 2018, with nothing being concluded and the series devolving into a mess of poorly defined politics and moral grandstanding that goes against the appeal of these types of works.

Where Crest of the Stars gets it right is its scope. The story primarily focuses on its main two characters who clash heavily in their backgrounds, as they get caught within a larger skirmish with political implications. While that overall narrative is not terribly interesting, the series is captivating in the protagonists who have genuinely interesting banter. Aside from great character writing which is somewhat interconnected, something like Legend of the Galactic Heroes succeeds as a story primarily because of its large world with each action having large implications. Hence, that series makes sense when being described as a political drama. Crest of the Stars has political drama as a piece of the characters’ backstories, which could define it as part of that genre (and certainly the larger series is a political drama with Banner of the Stars’ focus on that part). Still, the main crux of the story, along with all of its twists and turns, comes from watching the characters evade outside forces while sorting out their complex feelings towards each other. It is, if anything, an action-adventure romance, and focusing on aspects that don’t gel with that fundamental dynamic is something that which I believe impeded the success of Crest of the Stars’ sequel.

Given that framework, Crest of the Stars works because its characters are well written and are placed in interesting scenarios. While I could easily fit the main duo into archetypes that plague the majority of romance in Japanese animation, neither are written so extremely to be defined by their archetype. Neither character is written too subtly, nor are they really that complex as personalities, but they are extremely believable in their roles given their backgrounds, and the show puts them in scenarios that fit them. For instance, while the racism subplot is somewhat uninteresting due to it clearly making one side of the show’s politics more sympathetic than the other, it leads to a complex dynamic between the two characters, both of whom are somewhat discriminated against in different ways. That element isn’t exactly well written, but it lends itself well to the drama. Beyond that, the characters are brought to various different places highlighting the differences in their cultures, and the manner in which they each deal with that is fascinating. There are a few moments where seemingly interesting impasses are evaded with writing that I don’t find very compelling, but it still works to develop the characters and their relationship.

Ultimately, Crest of the Stars is a short one-cour series that is ambitious, but largely succeeds for elements that have little to do with the direction it is trying to take. While I’ve done a lot to minimize the political/science fiction elements that the series utilizes, ultimately, it actually succeeds at doing what those genres generally try to do. Science fiction generally needs a core human element to ground settings that are very foreign to the reader, and Crest of the Stars does that well with its main characters. For that matter, while I can’t call the politics in the series anything interesting or even food for thought, in some regard it does also strengthen that main dynamic. When I first watched Crest of the Stars, I was looking for something akin to Legend of the Galactic Heroes, which is why I’ve compared it in this article. Crest’s strengths, in tandem with Banner actually striving to be something like LotGH, show me that my initial outlook was flawed. Sometimes it’s better to appreciate pieces of work for what they do well independently, rather than looking for something that repeats aspects you enjoy. In a roundabout way, then, Crest of the Stars is not only a great adventure-romance narrative, but also a show whose strengths are somewhat unexpected. It’s a series that I think has universal appeal which its initial veneer of science fiction politics may not fully indicate.