Well, I finished this a while ago (recommended it to Arch a few days ago) and I'll add a few thoughts about the conclusion.

spoilers within


To get it out of the way, Aura, Doll, and Wahanly are probably my three favorites out of the harem. Aura for her awesome body, competitive personality and physical skills to nearly match Kenshi, and hilarious "weakness". She gets the most embarrassed, but thankfully isn't a tsundere. Wan for her brains, clothespin hairclips, and personality in general. Wan gets bonus points for being openly critical of characters outside her social class, and being a competent fighter without being showy. Doll, because, she's Doll. Everything about her is great. Her character design especially.

That said, I'm also a big fan of Emera, Dagmeyer's handmaiden. She is for the most part a very loyal and just person. Her early conflicts with Chiaia are amusing, but the really stand out part is right at the end of the series. I had forgotten she was even a seikishi, because she really only gets on a seikijin a single time. Red, Blue, Green and Yellow (Wreda, Bwoole, Yeliss, and Gryino. Yes, those really are their official names) are fun too. Heck, most of the side characters in this series are great, even Lashara's two handmaidens usually seen piloting the Swan.

Flora...so evil. She really doesn't get enough screentime to be insane, enraged, and vicious in combat (the reason Maria and Lashara fear her) but those few moments when her eyes harden and grow cold...priceless.


Concerning Doll, while you never see what happens the first time through, it is a lot more obvious a second time through. I highly recommend rewatching this series at some point later on with that knowledge in mind. The whole premise is really well thought out. As mentioned, I really like her character design. I also like that she isn't truly evil, she's just lost complete hope about her situation. She simply didn't entertain thoughts of regaining her freedom until very late in the series. She cares for her loved ones and Kenshi, she just resigned herself to being a doll, puppeted around.

I'm choosing to take the ancient saying that the white seikijin will save the world and the black seikijin will destroy it to mean Kenshi in both forms. Doll herself isn't really evil, she's rather kind hearted when she is allowed to act on her own. She just coincidentally happens to have a black seikijin. Kenshi on the other hand, when corrupted with Ahou, is far more of a monster than Doll ever was. His black seikijin is a true beast, and as the characters said, if he didn't choose to destroy himself, he surely would have done enormous damage to the world.

Lastly, I greatly enjoyed the setting of the world. The often confusing interaction between Ena and Ahou, the way the fall of one civilization set the founding of another, the largely matriarchal society as a result of more female seikishi than male ones, that normal folk (Ran and her gang, Emera, the dark elves, Wan never riding hers) can be as deadly outside the cockpits as the seikishi are within one.

The part that really struck me was the Ena/Ahou connection. The world and travel through it are shaped by the Draft of the Ena sea. Ships and seikijin can only operate below a certain level of elevation where the Draft exists. Thus the world is filled with huge canyons and tactics must be taken into account in regards to terrain and location. Havoniwa could defend itself with only one fortress because airship and seikijin access is so limited. Going along with that, a generator of sufficient size and draw (the Meteor Fall's, The Swan's forward engine, various others) can render a seikijin much weaker or even useless by absorbing most of the Draft nearby, creating a vacuum. Also the operating time being the Ahou energy resistance limit of the seikishi as they are slowly poisoned by the Draft being converted to Ahou.


end spoilers


In short, great series, even better the second time through, and it is a nice change that the series never holds your hand telling you about everything. The audience is largely left to figure it out on their own as they go. You are put into Kenshi's shoes, learning about the strange world he finds himself in at the same time he does.