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Overall, a resounding “Meh”

The end has finally come, the final battle between the People’s Army and the forces of the Holy Emperor.  As the battle wages, each side is pulled farther towards the Black Cross, a black hole that threatens to destroy all life in the galaxy.  Who will win?  Vetti or Cleo, will The Wind rule the day, or will the Holy Emperor gain the power to save his own life at the cost of thousands of others? 

In truth, all this sounds far more exciting than it really is.

Glass Fleet made a fool of me, as it dared me to hope.  It dared me to look beyond the lackluster ship battles and the generic homoerotic swordfights; to instead see an interesting story of political intrigue.  At the end of the day however, there is no grand climax, there is only a poorly animated ship battle, followed by a swordfight, which leads to an existential crisis for a main character that removes all the interesting facets of his personality, leaving Vetti a shell of his former self. 

Something odd struck me as I watched the final episodes of Glass Fleet, it was while I was watching the last flashback episode that I realized that there is a serious, even if unintentional, message about independent women in this show.  It is imposable to have a story set in a pseudo-Victorian setting featuring a female lead who must pass herself off as male without invoking images of The Rose of Versailles.  While Oscar, the main female lead in The Rose of Versailles is strong, confident, and able to lead her life without latching onto a man (a strong message for the intended audience of young women):  Michel is the exact opposite.  We never actually see Michel win a sword fight, or lead an army to victory without the help of Cleo.  Michel is instead forced to ride in the wake of the strong man who, for the majority of the series, wants nothing else other than to own her. 

The argument could be made that the intended audience for Glass Fleet is much different than that of The Rose of Versailles, after all Rose is the quintessential Shōjo manga while Glass Fleet is decidedly more for a male audience.  However, this does nothing to lessen the underlying message of female subjugation; and it could easily be argued that relaying such a message to men, those that will be the primary subjugators, is more harmful that delivering the message to women. 

I am not trying to claim that Glass Fleet has done some dire disservice to the world, in truth the message conveyed within is probably no worse than that found in any other Shonen storyline.  But to take imagery from what is arguably the most well known Shōjo story and use it to spread such a message…well it made me stop and think is all. 

On the whole, Glass Fleet falls short of any grandiose hopes I had for it.  There is in fact a flashback episode in every volume.  The climactic battle scene makes use of almost every cliché ever invented for such scenes, including mortally wounding the majority of the characters only to have the return safe and sound.  I was also bothered by Vetti’s transformation at the end of the series.  After the events of the final battle, Vetti comes to realize he has acted selflessly, and turns over a new leaf as a benevolent ruler of the galaxy.  The galaxy on the other hand, accepts Vetti’s apology, forgets about the thousands of people he killed for no other purpose than the hope of prolonging his own life, and welcomes their new overlord.  Michel, having lost more than anyone else at the hands of Vetti, helps lead the people to accepting the reformed psychopath.  After all of that, we are treated to a happy ending, Vetti has been cured and the all the people are safe from the threat of the Black Cross. 

Glass Fleet is worth a look for an interesting setting, or perhaps as research for a paper on the mutation of society’s norms, but as a series is fails to be enjoyable on the whole.  There we a few moments of revelation, or a few glimpses of interesting development, but they are too few and far between to warrant a recommendation.  Watch at your own risk, it’s a long ride with few frills. 

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