Uniforms in Crest of the Stars / Seikai no Monshou

[roboemo]

So I am just posting this because I wanted idea for uniforms.

While we do see Abh's uniforms (like the image below) quite alot, I am not sure about uniforms of their enemies (United Humankind and Four Nations Alliance).

Is there any good reference for them if available? Just wanted to make a fan art.

[Seto Kaiba]

15 hours ago, roboemo said:

So I am just posting this because I wanted idea for uniforms.

While we do see Abh's uniforms (like the image below) quite alot, I am not sure about uniforms of their enemies (United Humankind and Four Nations Alliance).

Is there any good reference for them if available? Just wanted to make a fan art.

Wow... did NOT expect this request for art reference to be as hard to fulfill as it turned out to be.

The only content I was able to turn up is from the sequel, Banner of the Stars.

The following is from character designer Keisuke Watabe's Design Works Vol.4:

 

Edited June 20, 2020 by Seto Kaiba
Sorry, will try to re-upload the images one at a time.

[Seto Kaiba]

Unfortunately, most of his published Design Works volumes are just storyboard collections.

Here's some reasonable color reference I turned up in a collection of DVD booklet scans:

 

Edited June 20, 2020 by Seto Kaiba

[roboemo]

Cannot see images.

[Seto Kaiba]

Sorry, something about how I pasted the images into the post didn't go over well with the forums.

I'll re-upload them as attachments.

[Seto Kaiba]

Trying again, as attachments,

[Seto Kaiba]

[roboemo]

Well, thanks.

i think I was also looking for the uniforms of enemy side also.

like Four Nations Alliance as stated in the OP.

[Seto Kaiba]

4 hours ago, roboemo said:

i think I was also looking for the uniforms of enemy side also.

like Four Nations Alliance as stated in the OP.

Unfortunately, that's all I was able to find... most of the character designer's published artbooks are just collections of storyboards from Banner of the Stars.

[roboemo]

Yeah, to be honest, I watched the show (at least skim through it and it doesn’t seem to show enemy uniforms at all and wonder why.

[renegadeleader1]

31 minutes ago, roboemo said:

Yeah, to be honest, I watched the show (at least skim through it and it doesn’t seem to show enemy uniforms at all and wonder why.

It didn't show them because it was too busy extoling the virtues of being a sell out collaborator to genetically superior elvish space nazis who hold a monopoly on space travel.

[roboemo]

47 minutes ago, renegadeleader1 said:

It didn't show them because it was too busy extoling the virtues of being a sell out collaborator to genetically superior elvish space nazis who hold a monopoly on space travel.

Yeah, I think bias may have been the point.

But even then Star Wars and almost every space opera do have uniforms for villains.

[technoblue]

I don't know. At least the Abh didn't have reeducation camps like the United Mankind. 

But yeah, the story is told using Lafiel and Jinto's perspective, so the narrative bias is clear from the start.  We end up seeing things as our two protagonists see things, and both of them are coming from privilege: Jinto, being ushered into things haphazardly after his father surrenders their planet (dad's downfall) and Lafiel, being a royal Abh heiress in line to the throne.

As for UM character references, wasn't Lt. Kyte an MP of the United Mankind? Was he undercover or in uniform? I'll have to watch the episodes again to refresh the noggin.

[renegadeleader1]

21 hours ago, technoblue said:

I don't know. At least the Abh didn't have reeducation camps like the United Mankind. 

You don't need reeducation camps when you can literally convert all future generations of subjects to your cause via forced genetic manipulation.

[technoblue]

14 hours ago, renegadeleader1 said:

You don't need reeducation camps when you can literally convert all future generations of subjects to your cause via forced genetic manipulation.

Hm, I'm not seeing any evidence of this theory in the story. I mean. it's fine if that's your take but to me it seems to lack subtlety. I would criticize the Abh for a number of other negative characteristics before going down this road. For instance, the relative ease with which they have in burning the atmosphere of a rebellious world and destroying entire lander populations from orbit. Also, the harsh way they come in and capture valuable FTL resources and then zip away again, leaving whole planets and systems abandoned to fend for themselves.

The story actually goes out of its way to state that the Abh are not concerned with planets or world governments. On the list of priorities these things rank lowest in the Empire. The problem is that their aggressive claim to all FTL lanes is hurting countless worlds. The story could give more of a retrospective on the Alliance to show us if indeed they are truly the answer to everyone's problem. Similar stories like LotGH do take the time to do just that when analyzing a similar power struggle, but I don't think this anime was trying to get that detailed. 

Anyway, yes the Abh are genetically altered because they were originally a nomadic faction of humans that improved themselves for deep space exploration. In the context of the story, this was long before the core of humanity outlawed the technology. There are some important subtleties that are revealed later on: 1) The Abh stopped genetic alterations on themselves after a time because they didn't want to evolve synthetically past being able to identify themselves as human. 2) Only those born as Abh are genetically different. Humans that are given the title Abh when planets are "conquered" are not forced or even asked to alter their DNA. These noblepersons are only mandated to serve time in the military. The story does reveal that the Abh Empire has genetic Abh born members, genetic Human born members and even mixed Abh/human born members. See the Febdash side story and the multiple interactions between Lafiel, Jinto and the others assigned to the Basrogrh. 

I think it is safe to say, given the perspective of Lafiel and Jinto as the protagonists that the Abh are perhaps portrayed a little too clean. I do not think this is a fault of the story. It's just a limitation of seeing things from the eyes of these characters. When the story shifts at times to give the audience insight to another character's perspective, like Lexshue in the Battle of Goslauth, we find that there are those, even Abh, who are hoping for real change. 

Edited June 22, 2020 by technoblue

[Seto Kaiba]

Just gonna say... not only can I not find any artbooks with art of the opposing side in Crest of the Stars or Banner of the Stars, I can't even remember what they looked like and I've seen the bloody show.

[technoblue]

9 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Just gonna say... not only can I not find any artbooks with art of the opposing side in Crest of the Stars or Banner of the Stars, I can't even remember what they looked like and I've seen the bloody show.

After scanning through Crest of the Stars tonight, I can confirm that we get a better view of the spaceships than the rank and file. However, there are some characters that stand out, and the animeperson.com site includes some screen caps.

• Lieutenant Kyte (United Mankind, Military Police): http://animeperson.com/character/kaito_15/
• Lieutenant Commander Alanga (United Mankind, Platoon Commander): http://animeperson.com/character/alanga/
• Marca: http://animeperson.com/character/marca/ and her insurgent team seeking trade independence:
  (the guys have interesting uniforms for a group of space traders)
  • Daswani: http://animeperson.com/character/daswani/
  • Bill: http://animeperson.com/character/bill/

 That's about it. 

Edited June 23, 2020 by technoblue

[JB0]

I remember watching this show, but all I remember of it is "space elves in spandex".

[hachi]

Lol I love the "space elves in spandex". The POV is biased but that was how the author intended to write it--from the POV of the 2 main characters who are of course, Abhs.

Currently JNovel Club is putting out the English translated ebooks (with eventual print editions). I've got all the ebooks out so far. Translation isn't 100% flowing but I support it since I want to know what happens in the later books. There were fan translations before but they were scrapped eventually.

Looking at the pictures I am really envious of those who got the art/design books. Of course at the time they came out I was probably oblivious to its existence and would never have bought them anyway.

[Seto Kaiba]

On 6/24/2020 at 6:32 AM, JB0 said:

I remember watching this show, but all I remember of it is "space elves in spandex".

All I really remember is a lot of tedious talk about space politics... like it was C-SPAN Space.

[slide]

On 6/24/2020 at 5:32 AM, JB0 said:

I remember watching this show, but all I remember of it is "space elves in spandex".

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

All I really remember is a lot of tedious talk about space politics... like it was C-SPAN Space.

 

I remember that, Dimensional [?] Bubbles, and Big-@$$ Railguns...

[technoblue]

11 hours ago, hachi said:

Currently JNovel Club is putting out the English translated ebooks (with eventual print editions). I've got all the ebooks out so far. Translation isn't 100% flowing but I support it since I want to know what happens in the later books. There were fan translations before but they were scrapped eventually.

I picked up this print edition, which is a collection of the Seikai no Monshō light novels.

https://www.amazon.com/Crest-Stars-Volumes-Collectors-light/dp/1718350708

Not sure how it compares to the ebook translation, but JNC is the publisher and I've read that a similar collection is due for Seikai no Senki.

Might be out as soon as 2021? That would be cool.

1 hour ago, slide said:

I remember that, Dimensional [?] Bubbles, and Big-@$$ Railguns...

Mm. The anime only touches upon points of the written story, although it was nice to see the Battle of Goslauth play out on screen. 

Edited June 25, 2020 by technoblue

[Dynaman]

7 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

All I really remember is a lot of tedious talk about space politics... like it was C-SPAN Space.

We saw the same show.  Made more unwatchable in my case since I was listening to the English VA cast and a couple of them just didn't work.

[hachi]

On 6/26/2020 at 6:00 AM, technoblue said:

I picked up this print edition, which is a collection of the Seikai no Monshō light novels.

https://www.amazon.com/Crest-Stars-Volumes-Collectors-light/dp/1718350708

Not sure how it compares to the ebook translation, but JNC is the publisher and I've read that a similar collection is due for Seikai no Senki.

Might be out as soon as 2021? That would be cool.

Mm. The anime only touches upon points of the written story, although it was nice to see the Battle of Goslauth play out on screen. 

Anime is a lot better action-wise, because it's been condensed or details added. As for print I'm holding off on buying. Hopefully shipping/economy goes back to normal next year, I haven't been in the mood to buy anything physical from overseas since March.

Also if you got the Banner print book, could you compare Lafiel's words there with the anime (last lines in Banner OVA, the one after the meal with Till and his wife)? The anime line was so different from the translated one, but the anime line was spoken in English (in the JP version). I actually prefer the anime line, made more sense to me.

[technoblue]

2 hours ago, hachi said:

Also if you got the Banner print book, could you compare Lafiel's words there with the anime (last lines in Banner OVA, the one after the meal with Till and his wife)? The anime line was so different from the translated one, but the anime line was spoken in English (in the JP version). I actually prefer the anime line, made more sense to me.

Sure! I'll make a note to review that scene.

For now, though. I only have the Crest anthology on order. I picked it up to get the improved translation. The Banner set was out of stock when I checked. I'm not sure when it will be in again, but I do intend to pick up a copy when it shows up.