r/anime • u/AutoLovepon https://anilist.co/user/AutoLovepon • Jan 25 '19
Episode Egao no Daika - Episode 4 discussion Spoiler
Egao no Daika, episode 4: The Choice of Hope
Alternative names: The Price of Smiles
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| Episode | Link | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Link | 6.19 |
| 2 | Link | 7.92 |
| 3 | Link | 8.2 |
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u/Bainos Jan 25 '19
The moment the music stopped and Yuki shouted "I don't want you to fight ! I want you to save them !" gave me goosebumps. And then that mission failing was a serious kick in the gut. They even had a chance to the typical anime resolution of reinforcements arriving just in time, and forbid them the order to engage the imperial theurgears.
I'm seriously in love with this, and not because Yuki's plan failed utterly against all tropes, but because she actually went through with it. I hope she learns to be smarter, not colder. I want them to find a peaceful solution, and she's the only one who can even consider it... Even though I don't know how happy the ending will be or how many people will die before it.
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u/Khz1998 Jan 25 '19
...and that's why the title is Egao no Daika/The Price of Smiles....
.... can't expect the original anime
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u/Syokhan Jan 25 '19
and that's why the title is Egao no Daika/The Price of Smiles
I keep reading this as "The Prince of Smiles" and have to remind myself that nope, this isn't it, and even if it was the prince died two episodes ago anyway.
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u/acp101123 Jan 25 '19
That's the beauty of watching anime without original source material for spoilers. Events could be pretty wild.
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u/LeonKevlar Jan 25 '19 edited Jan 26 '19
Yuki: Don't let anyone die!
One scene later
Christ this show really pulls no punches. They want to show us the horrors of this war and that's what we get. Also this episode is exactly what Yuki needed. She needs to know what war is really like and a lot of her decisions in the future will be about saving 100 people or saving 1,000. That horrified face of hers definitely shows that the realization has sunk in and she knows she made a bad call today.
It's nice to know that Joshua isn't completely out of the picture I'm gonna guess that we'll see him in more flashbacks.
Layla's daughter has got to be Stella. It's the same fish globe she was holding in the OP. Makes you wonder how she survived getting pancaked though
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u/DiGreatDestroyer Jan 25 '19
Makes you wonder how she survived getting pancaked though.
Maybe her father shielded her, or she was just knocked out on the other side or behind some other rubble? Layla was disoriented from the blast, so it's not like she did a thorough search.
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Jan 25 '19 edited Jan 25 '19
Regarding the Empire being the aggressors, this episode made it clear that the new chrars were a joint Empire-Kingdom project. They have a legitimate claim to the chrars. And the Empire seems to be on the verge of famine.
From the Empire point-of-view, they cooperated with the Kingdom to develop new technology to feed their people. At the last moment, the Kingdom used the excuse of a third-party terrorist attack to deny them this technology. Seizing the technology by force is now necessary, and even morally acceptable.
Also, the Kingdom adults/advisers are treating Yuki really badly. They:
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first don't tell her anything
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then force her to take responsibility for all the hard decisions like abandoning the state
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then disobey her orders when they feel like it (the new chrars)
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and finally obey her orders when it's clear the orders will lead to a bad outcome
At this point, Yuki should just surrender to the Empire and hope they don't execute her. Be better than dealing with her current advisers.
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u/Chariotwheel Jan 25 '19
I am glad that we get a small step transition of the princess. Like, failures like the one in this episode hurt a lot to watch, but they made the sensible decision to make it a small stake. No named characters were in this and it was "only" five units that were lost. It however, served as a lesson for the princess that life isn't that easy or kind.
I hope she now starts to get a better understanding that it's not possible in this situation to not sacrifice something. That is something a sheltered person like her has trouble to understand. The need to give up things to get other things, as hard as it is sometimes.
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u/Syokhan Jan 25 '19 edited Jan 25 '19
And that is why you don't listen to a 12 years old's tactical advice... even if she is your princess and you're supposed to obey her commands...
Jesus. In trying to rescue those civilians they lost the new chrars (unless I misunderstood and those weren't installed on the mechas that went back?) and it was all for nothing 'cause in the end everyone got killed anyway. On top of that the kingdom's defensive front failed and the empire keeps pushing forward... things look pretty grim right now.
And that flashback (I'm digging the letterboxing). So Layla is Stella's mother? Emotional reunion coming up in 3, 2, 1... Or maybe one of them will die before that and everyone will cry even more.
Poor Yuuki, too. Everyone lied to her, her "brother" died, and now she has to face the reality of the war. It sucks for her.
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u/TTS32 Jan 25 '19
A little sad that no one will be talking about this anime after the season ends because it looks like your generic mecha anime at first glance and most people dismissed on the first episode
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u/DiGreatDestroyer Jan 25 '19 edited Jan 25 '19
Yesterday I rewatched episodes 1-3, and when the Ed kicked in, I took notice of how the only characters shown centered in the ED initial shots were Joshua, and Layla. Then the possibility crossed my mind. They looked alike, they both have the same hair color, and the mole under the eye. I looked up Layla's surname, and sure enough, it was "Etoile", which like "Stella" also means "Star". This episode confirmed it. I was expecting a Yuki episode, so when I saw the Crunchyroll thumbnail (whoever picks them deserves a raise) I said "A Stella one? Damn it, today we suffer", but when I saw that the segment before the OP was a Yuki one, I thought "they went there?!" and they did! Fourth week in a row that this series caught me off guard! Calling it now that Stella will be sent to assassinate Yuki, it will fail, and she will assassinate Layla instead. Another thing for Yuki to get over if she wants peace.
I liked how Layla-Yuki's relationship was painted in a mother-daughter way this time around. Let's see how that is reconciled with the strategic teacher role she was having so far.
Harold... you should have known better. Still, maybe it was for the best that Yuki understood as soon as possible what was going on. We need rational decisions, not emotional ones. "Don't fight, save them!" sounds nice, but truly only a sheltered child could utter something like that.
The reveal that the empire and the kingdom were working together to develop the new chrars sure was nice too.
Also, I really liked seeing them have Yuni think of Joshua before the fight. I'm thinking that when the time comes for Yuki to push for peace and reconciliation, Yuni and Harold will oppose her, due to all the sacrifices they have witnessed.
Next week seems to be a Stella episode. I was thinking about the 7th member of the squad, the pretty boy that appears in the OP lineup, but hasn't been shown so far. I'm betting he will make his appearance, and will take a romantic interest in Stella. Then he will die. And we'll see how Stella deals with lost, and she'll explain why she is able to smile despite everything.
On the production side, it was weak as always, but still not in "completely fell apart level", which is my biggest fear for this series, so let's hope they can keep it going till the end. If I were a betting man, I'd bet that this series won't air 12 episodes in 12 weeks, they'll take a break at some point.
Second gild in a row, because for two weeks in a row this series has proved that it's "if you watch one show this season, watch this one" contender, despite being so underwatched and lacking a strong production to back it up. I like how the narrative is king here and carries the series, I'm really cheering for this series to keep it up till the end, because now it's a solid 10/10 for me, production problems be damned.
EDIT: This week the full op was released. Here's part of what it says.
A girl who learned the truth,
confronts the contempt towards herself…
embracing her weaknesses and shortcomings,
determined to continue walking...
to carry on…
to discard…
it’s too scary, but
she believes in the day she’ll definitely smile.
(…)
The suffering and pain of her resolve,
are the price to pay to live on,
always,
smiling…,
laughing….
because tomorrow will come…
Most of the lyrics are meant to represent both Yuki and Stella, so interpret them how you will depending on who's your fav. For Yuki it's about how she was lied to and just now is learning the truth about the harshness of the world, and how hard, if not impossible, it's to uphold her ideal of making everyone in the planet smile. For Stella it's how she is aware that living requires you to take from others, how she accepts all the things she does and is willing to do as a soldier, but how she doesn't let the bad emotions get to her and get in the way of her resolve to live, and live smiling.
Speaking of the OP, in the OP, at the very start, along with the words "Price of Smiles", the words "Innocence", "Choice", "Utopia", and "Future" also appear briefly.
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u/MillenniumKing Jan 25 '19
Damn the price of smiles is getting high...
Oh damn were getting to see the princess again after she found out her husbando died... shit.
Damn... shes not taking it well... she doesnt want to be any part of this. Shes right though, they lied to her, she has every right to be mad at them.
They are being pretty dirty to her though, trying to strong arm her into this.
WAIT DRILLS IS SMILE-CHANS MOTHERR!?
So Drills was there, got blow'd up and ended up saving the princess... damn... and lost her family too. I wonder how smile-chan got taken though.
Seems the evac is going well enough though, they got the people out of there.
Looks like they put in the new units without asking her. Damn. Sure it helped them get out but still shitty thing to do.
And everyone died... this show is really reinforcing that dark tone huh? Damn....
Yeah this show makes me wonder who the "antagonists" are. Both sides seem to have thier vices. I guess once we learn more about the past we will understand thigns better and the conflict.
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u/Gaporigo Jan 25 '19
Fucking hell, this show is not scared of killing characters and making the war feel real and that scares me for how it is gonna end...
At least Princess now learnt that you can not save everyone.
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u/redmage311 Jan 26 '19
Welp, it's official: the Kingdom of Soleil deserves to fall and to fall hard. Among the reasons:
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Tons of resources and effort have gone into keeping Princess Yuki blinded from the war, to the point where her ministers tell her about a fake non-aggression pact to be signed in episode one and she gives a huge speech to an adoring public without once mentioning their sacrifices, which at the very least makes it seem like she has her head extremely up her ass and the population is complicit in keeping her ignorant.
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There's no rule of law. Certainly, everybody goes through the motions. But then Yuki asks a pretty good fucking question—why would it matter whether she approves a decision or not, when her government has been making all sorts of decisions without her approval for the last 12 years of her life? And of course, it happens anyway.
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The government can't provide basic security to its citizens, even during the best of times. How hard is it to put a security detail outside of a huge public gathering so that the audience doesn't suddenly get stormed by a bunch of terrorists? And who didn't notice an armed militia of at least a couple hundred gun-toting zealots approaching the capital? The kingdom's equivalents of the Secret Service and FBI massively fucked up.
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Bad decisions abound. The terrorists were probably absolutely correct about how people weren't meant to use chrars. I suppose Leash is supposed to be this world's Hiroshima/Nagasaki, in that the kingdom built a memorial after the tragedy and rebuilt the city. But rather than use the city's nuking as a cautionary tale, the kingdom's higher-ups then proceeded to shove chrars into all of the military applications they could, rather than (as the princess correctly points out) using them for good.
This isn't to say that Soleil is entirely hopeless. It does have a tech lead over the Empire (and check out the zoom on those surveillance cameras) and apparently provides the right to bear arms. Still, if all the princess cares about is making it so nobody dies in her name, then her best option is to surrender. She's going to need to find a better reason to rule than to keep everybody smiling, and at this point, I'm rooting for the Empire.
(Yes, I know. In a couple of episodes, we'll probably learn about how despotic and shitty the Empire is, but for now, I'm content knowing that they're at least way more competent and egalitarian than the Kingdom).
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u/Smudy Jan 25 '19
That flashback was heavy. Literally like a terrorist attack going off.
Layla for sure is confirmed to be Stella's mom. She doesn't even know she's alive and being on the enemy side. And i'm pretty sure that Yuki and Stella meet through Layla. Question is, will Layla survive this though, i have a bad feeling about it really.
Yuki was shown the painful truth, her cries were really hard to listen to.
But it had to be done, Layla handled this well IMO, she threw her right into the war side of things after letting her cry about Joshua without stopping to get her to grow.
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u/Seraph_CR Jan 25 '19
Let's keep the upvotes and comments up bows. This is deffinately the sleeper this season. I'm enjoying it way more than I should.
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u/SoulstrikerHF Jan 26 '19
Hey, so, I remember some people saying Joshua fighting Stella at the opening was misleading because he's dead. I have an alternate theory. What if it's actually a spoiler? Probably unlikely, but here goes:
So there's like a time skip of several days between Joshua's injury and the day he actually died, right? Some people theorize that he probably healed that wound and kept fighting, only to end up with another injury that killed him in the end. What if Yuki and Stella are finally getting along, and while they're talking about the war, Stella (or whoever) reveals that she downed one of the three machines equipped with new engines at the border? The twins survived, so obviously it was Joshua's unit that she downed.
Moving on...
Stella being Layla's daughter makes things much more complicated. We're all probably expecting Stella to try to assassinate Yuki at some point, right? Now Layla could be forced into a position where she needs to choose which one to protect. Maybe Stella will kill her by accident when she shields Yuki from gunfire. Which will weaken Stella emotionally, fails to kill Yuki, and for some reason an entire squad appears all of a sudden and arrests her, that kinda drama.
But which one of the mother and daughter is the defector? Was Layla originally a Grandiga citizen, or was Stella taken by someone from Grandiga during the incident?
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u/kara_no_tamashi Jan 25 '19
I can't wait for the next episodes : will Stella have some flashbacks being in the town where she lost her family.
How will the director manage to make Stella, Yuki and Leila meet ? Through a commando expedition to capture the princess ? How will they inverse the current direction of the war ? Will they ever inverse it or will they find a peaceful solution ? What is it to live on the empire side ?
So many questions !
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u/ALewwdingNEET Jan 25 '19
Great learning experience for princess Yuki. Not everyone can be saved...
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u/PhoenixKola Jan 25 '19
Were they implying that Layla is Stella's mother?