Ad Astra per Aspera chapter 04
アド アストラ ペル アスペラ ch 04 chapter review

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Shinobu flees from Satella, who pursues him. He reports to Versailles of his trouble, so the mecha instructs him to flee to the roof of a tall building, where it can easily grab him. Shinobu flees into such a building and as he climbs the stairs inside, he tells the people he meets that he’s being chased by a mugger.

The stairs are taking their tole on Shinobu, but when he hears Patty in pain, he finds the strength to make it to the roof. However, once he arrives, he’s confronted by Satalle, who holds a gun on him. Shinobu uses his lighter gun as a bluff, but knows it isn’t a good one. Although she has orders to execute him, he pleads with her, saying that though he may have committed a crime, he did it to save a friend and that shouldn’t warrant death.

As Shinobu pleads his case, even citing the pleasant conversation the two had just had in the pharmacy, Satella keeps hearing her mother’s words about treating people with kindness and understanding. She pushes those thoughts aside and tells him she will never allow crime to go unpunished. She tells him that her mother was assassinated by a teenage terrorist whom her mother was attempting to show compassion to. As such, she vows to never fall for that trap, but though she calls Shinobu’s gun bluff and puts a gun to his head, she cannot pull the trigger.

Thoughts/Review:

I was totally taken aback by the fact that it wasn’t Satella’s mother who executed a high school student, but her mother who was assassinated by said student. However, when I reread chapter 3, I see how Hata-sensei foreshadowed this. Well played, Sensei.

I don’t know how much of a role Satella will play in this manga, but I’d like her to be around for a while as I like the character. One can see how witnessing her mother’s assassination after her mother showed mercy would make Satella rise up in the ranks of the Imperial army as she did and become the Peerless Ace. She’s quite good at what she does.

On the other hand, the principles her mother instilled in her are there. With Shinobu, she’s had a normal conversation and so even though he’s branded as a terrorist, it isn’t so simple. Technically, he committed a crime, but he had a good reason for it. And, there’s an element of Shinobu’s stupidity too. So though she should kill him ’cause he’s officially a terrorist, she knows that in Shinobu’s case, he’s not the monster he’s portrayed as, which is why she can’t kill him.

I can see things happening to where Shinobu knocks the gun out of Satella’s hands, Versailles grabs both of them, and that’s how Satella ends up with Shinobu and Patty.

Through four chapters, I’m liking how Hata-sensei is using the monthly format to actually push the story forward. There are gags still, but with twenty five pages to work with, Hata-sensei can do both plot and story. I’m hoping that the series continues to follow this format.

In the end, this was an interesting chapter allowing the character of Satella to get a nice bit of background. I’m looking forward to seeing where this goes.