Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet - Episode 10

The whalesquid nest has been utterly wiped out, leaving all of the materials and technology within this unlikely hiding spot to be salvaged by Pinion and his crew... but at what cost to Ledo's well-being?

While Ledo wrestles with the shocking information relayed to him in the previous episode, it seems as if this success has gone to Pinion's head - not only is he unwilling to share the technology and items he's salvaged with others outside of his fleet, but he also opts to send out a message to all and sundry advising them of his achievement and warning outsiders not to even think about coming close to his fleet lest they be obliterated.  Needless to say, some do try to do exactly that, but don't get very far against the firepower of Pinion's crew.

All the while, Ledo's frustrations are growing and growing as he tries to come to terms with everything that he knows - not so much out of disgust of all the (sort of) humans he's destroyed to this point, but more out of a concern that his "job" of fighting the Hideauze is now futile.  It's left to Chamber to try and point out that he does still have a purpose - once-human or not, the Hideauze are still an extreme race that will extinguish civilised humanity without pause, meaning that it still needs to be combated regardless of the origins of the race.  Such a train of thought is soon put on hold however - it seems that a familiar face has come from afar to pay Ledo a visit.

After the ludicrous and stupid twists that brought us to the end of last week's episode, this latest instalment of  Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet at least manages to get things back on track by deflecting a fair amount of its focus elsewhere thanks to Pinion's hubris, while also spinning the fallout of the revelations presented to Ledo in quite a surprising way by largely dodging the ethical questions in favour of taking on the theme that has run throughout this series - that being Ledo trying to figure out his place in the world and where he "fits in".  Thus, I'm now decidedly interested in where this series is aiming to go for its final few episodes again, especially as time seems to be running out for a resolution to some of its broader storytelling strokes.