[Rewatch] Crest of the Stars: Birth Discussion

**Rewatch Host**

Not being a source reader, I wonder what the mother colony intended in sending out the Abh. Were they to find new worlds (at sublight), signal back, and the mother colony would send out a proper human emigration fleet (decades or centuries later?)

Yet the narration says no Abh exploration ship ever returned.

I really love hearing Lexshue’s voice. I haven’t heard much else of her work. It must be from rewatching her episodes in Crest so much.

* “fiel”
* Go watch Carl Sagan’s *Cosmos*
* “atashi no kawaii denka”
* Dubus and Lexshue are merchants!
* Uh oh, this is bad.
* radiation sickness!
* looks like a gold headband

Basically, nothing at this point makes any sense to me. “we did they try to go back” Where is this coming from? They clearly didn’t make it back. They seem to be stuck in orbit around a supernova remnant (which might have damaged the ship). I don’t get what she’s saying.

And once again the narrator is being poetic and oblique, which doesn’t help.

I have mixed feelings about moving this to the end. I think it is supposed to reflect Jinto and Lafiel’s relationship, and to foreshadow Jinto’s use of “boko no kawaii denka” at the end of Banner II.

Apparently this is on one of my Banner 2 DVDs but my drive won’t recognize most of my Banner disks. I guess I don’t feel so bad about positioning it last.

This isn’t a particularly interesting or exciting episode. The tidbits of information of the pre-empire Abh is interesting for the anime-only. “better-built” might be a euphemism for “better-programmed”. The empire only exists because the crew of the Abliarsec resisted their programming.

It’s really nice to see Lexshue again, and this is the most screen time Dubus ever gets.

**First-Timer**

**On today’s episode of Passage of the Stars:** I almost thought we would need to go an episode without that iconic theme music for the series. Luckily, it starts playing by the end so we are spared from such a cruel fate.

– I admit, I miss not having the theme music around to start this OVA.

– Oh sweet, it’s Lafiel’s dad and Lexshue. We never got to see them actually be a couple together! [](#wow)

– Racism embedded directly in the textbooks. Isn’t it wonderful when that happens? [](#tiredaoi)

– Finding an abandoned ghost ship in space is such a cool concept. I love seeing it used in stories. [](#SPORTS)

– It is very cute that Lexshue keeps calling him “my precious Imperial Highness.” [](#mayushii)

– I’m shocked this ghost ship somehow still has enough air in it to not need a helmet.

– What the heck? Those black orbs have people inside them? [](#eh)

– Oh great, the ship’s started moving. [](#watashiworried)

– Using explosives to alter the course of where the ship is going? Reminds me of [Girls Und Panzer Das Finale 4] >!using the force of shooting a tank’s cannon to control how it skis down the mountain.!<

– These two flirting with each other is so nice to see. I can easily tell just how good of a couple they were together. [](#delighted)

– Oh damn! That was an Abh corpse. This ship must have been an Abh ship.

– Lexshue’s reaction fits with the general attitude the Abh have towards their distant past. A sense of shame about where they came from and guilt about what they did.

– Yeah, that would mean those black orbs were all filled with Abh. I would guess they are artificial birth chambers.

– It really does sound funny just asking another person to share their genes with you. [](#rinkek)

– [Baby Lafiel!](#anko)

– I really wish we had gotten more interactions between Lafiel and Lexshue in the series. Seeing the looks on their faces here makes me so happy. There’s an unspoken understanding and mutual respect between them. They know they are mother and daughter, but can’t publicly acknowledge it.

– Oh cool, we’re back at where Jinto and Lafiel met.

– Neat to learn the meaning behind Lafiel’s name.

– Ah, there we go. There’s the familiar theme music. [](#listen)

I think it was the right decision to wait until later on to watch this series. It kind of expects you to already know who Lafiel’s parents are and it also doesn’t really do much to introduce the setting to the audience. Watching this as the first thing in the rewatch probably would have been more confusing than anything else.

It makes little sense to have this be used as an Episode 0 in Crest of the Stars. Unlike, for example, the Prologue of G-Witch, this episode doesn’t really directly set up Crest of the Stars. It does set up some things like the backstory of the Abh or that Lexshue is Lafiel’s mother, but neither of those are really central to the ongoing plot of the series.

**QOTD**

1) It makes sense to watch this after Crest of the Stars. But I do prefer Lafiel’s vow as a finale.

2) I wish we spent more time learning more about them so we could get more detail on the Abh backstory.

3) I can now see that they really did have a nice relationship with each other. It’s clear that they were in love.

4) I think it was worth seeing.

*A Sci-Fi Fan Watches Passage of the Stars: Birth OVA:*

– Ah, so we’re getting a look here at the top of what the early expansion of the Abh was like. Given how old all the space stations and spacesuits look though, it does make me wonder how long ago this took place. Or even if it was before or after they destroyed their home space colony, for that matter.

– It’s nice to see how Lexshue and Dubeusec interact as a couple, since we never got to see how they interact together as Lafiel’s parents. They’re certainly comfortable among each other, this is some good banter between them. It’s a shame that we didn’t get that in Crest of the Stars itself, since together they’re a pretty cute pair.

– Man, these old model of Abh ships really do look unlike everything else we’ve seen in the series so far. And I mean that in that they’re so standard and plain, certainly not the more decorative and opulent ways we’ve seen their ships be before. This is all bog-standard grey metal, none of the shades of blue we usually see, not to mention no crests or paintings on the walls as well. This is probably the most generic spaceship interior we’ve seen in the entire series.

– Blowing up parts of the ship to quickly change its trajectory reminds me of the ending to The Martian. I’m sure there’s plenty of other examples of that out in fiction, but that’s the one that primarily comes to mind first.

– So it seems that this ship wasn’t helmed by the Abh as we know them, but rather their ancestors, the genetically engineered humans that were originally used by that one space colony. It makes me wonder what the story of this ship was, given that they’re in a system where a star went nova in the distant past and that the crew either all died on the bridge or entered stasis in those odd black pods, only to never wake up. But I guess the fate of that ship is similar to plenty of other ships that went to colonize different worlds, only to disappear without a trace.

– Welcome to the world, Lafiel! She’s an adorable baby, coming fresh out of the pod. I suppose it’s fitting that we get a story set in a system where it’s star went nova, only to end with Lafiel’s birth and a flash-forward to her taking a shuttle to pick up Jinto, just like at the start of Crest of the Stars. I can see why this would make for a good episode zero, if you wanted to start the series that way. I’d consider watching this before Crest as a viable start, just as much as it is to watch Crest first. I guess it depends if you want to start with Lafiel more as the main character or with Jinto as that.

Since we’re going to be moving onto general series discussion next, I figure that it’s only appropriate to use this post as a way to give my score and feelings about this OVA. So, using my patented themed ranking scale, I hereby give the Passage of the Stars: Birth OVA the ranking of: **Triglav**, the flagship of Dusty Attenborough from Legend of the Galactic Heroes. I feel that it’s a good comparison here: reliable and entertaining, and it doesn’t overshadow the bigger stuff that we’re here for like Yang Wen-Li/Crest of the Stars. This was a nice short and sweet episode to watch, basically a nice diversion that only adds to the experience without really taking anything away from it. Good stuff, good stuff. Now, onto our final discussion!

First timer, subbed

This is a fun side story, seeing Lafiels parents as well as the Abh birthing technology.

I’ve been staring at my google doc for 30 minutes now and am finding I simply have nothing more to say than that. At least, nothing that hasn’t already gone into my overall discussion post.

QotD:

1) Lafiels wedding vow for sure XD

2) Not really.

3) Nope.

4) For the sake of completionism, yes.

**First timer**

I found myself not caring about this “prequel” at all. It doesn’t add anything to the main story that follows it. We learn the origin of Lafiel’s name which is insignificant, that’s about it. It also fleshes out the origin of the Abhs a bit which is something. Then again, it’s unimportant when it comes to the main conflict of the show so it’s kinda w/e.

>QotD

– OVA 2 would’ve been better to end on.

– Meh.

– No.

– No.