Movies: Glass Fleet -La Legende du Vent de L'Universe- Vol. #3

Volume 3 begins with war — the first real skirmish between Michel Volban and Cleo’s newly-raised People’s Army and Vetti’s imperial forces. Unfortunately, all does not go as planned: Volban discovers that her own supposed allies are hesitant to commit to an actual shooting war (there’s an astonishing moment when she realizes they never thought they would have to do the actual shooting), and one of her own trusted aides may be a traitor trying to sell her side out on a truce that has “peace for our time” written all over it.

Actually, “deepening gloom” is probably the dominant motif for this volume. Vetti has cracked at least some of the secrets of Cleo’s glass battleship, and lures it — along with Volban, Cleo, and the rest of the crew — into a trap. Vetti of course has had designs on possessing Volban for some time … but boy, does he ever have the psychic rug yanked out from under him when he learns Volban’s big gender-switching secret. It’s bad enough for a man to be in the grip of a mad ambition, and even worse for him to discover that he has no way to fulfill it at all.

A good deal of the running time of this volume is also devoted to stepping the audience through Vetti’s gruesome personal history and showing us just how someone this amoral and mercenary came to be. Small wonder that a effeminately-handsome young man who seduced by his own father (!) and took revenge by counter-seducing his mother (!!) would not exactly be anyone’s idea of a fine, upstanding citizen. Actually, this indirectly explains how Vetti could be considered neither homosexual nor even bisexual — like Griffith from the far-superior Berserk, he will simply do whatever is needed with his body to secure a covenant with someone else, male or female. Sex is just a tool to be used on the way to getting power. He admits as much to his newly-minted wife Rachel: he only has use for her insofar as she can grant him access to the Papacy. Everything outside of that — love, affection, family, whatever labels you put to such things — are simply not important.

The last episode of the show is devoted to showing just how far Volban, Cleo, and their comrades have fallen. When Vetti discovers Volban is just an impostor for her brother, she throws her and everyone else onto her side into the darkest dungeon he has. All except for Cleo, that is — he’s turned over to a doctor who has taken an interest in why Cleo recovers so quickly from most any injury …

Funny how Glass Fleet is such a mixed bag, despite (and sometimes because of) its ambitions. There’s a lot going on that shouldn’t work, and plenty that simply doesn’t — like the space battles, which are more confusing and anarchic than interesting or compelling. And yet it still holds my interest and keeps me guessing as to what kind of feverish developments are going to get lobbed at us next. Surely that counts for something.