Whew! At least we picked up the pace for the final installment of “Arpeggio of Blue Steel” (maybe; I can no longer tell if a series has truly ended any more), with “Ars Nova: Cadenza”. It’s musical history time. A ‘cadenza’ often refers to a portion of a concerto in which the orchestra stops playing, leaving the soloist to play alone in free time (without a strict, regular pulse) and can be written or improvised, depending on what the composer specifies. The final movie is like that, as so much ‘new stuff’ comes in, that we are left in its wake.

The good news is that this is a full and true movie. We have progressed beyond the cut and paste of “D.C.” and formed a real film, with all the twists and turns you have come to expect from a submarine chase film. The time has come to end this war.

Gunzo realizes that with his new weaponry, the final face-to-face battle has to happen. You learn that he was not intent on defeating the Fleet of Fog, but to force them to the conference table and work out a mutual peace plan. However, the Fog has other ideas and brings to bear their biggest gun ever onto the I-401. But it is not a weapon; it is a ploy…..which I cannot reveal and this is a major plot point and a massive spoiler if I spill the beans on this. I know I never saw it coming.

The only thing about the fight sequences is that these battleships are a caliber of Transformer, in that they have to modify themselves in order to fire what it called a Gravity Gun. It gobbles up a huge amount of energy and it takes several minutes to ‘reload’, leaving you open for any other caliber of weaponry. It also bothered me about the Ammo Angels that the Fog possesses. I mean, the ships can fire and fire and fire and fire what appears their entire magazine, but they can turn around and fire some more. How do you reload?

There is also that arrogance of those who are ‘superior’ to you, so that attitude can actually works for you, for they are so self-consumed with how fabulous they are, they cannot see their own flaws and shortcomings. Plus, the ‘ladies’ who defected to the side of the Earth are reluctant to surrender the freedoms that they have found while being on Earth. It’s just that they seem to be setting up something big and huge and massive to eradicate the threat of I-401 and, again, enforce domination over the world. But it’s an odd domination. I mean, all they do is patrol the seas and keep humanity penned up. Governments are still free to do as they choose, just as long as they stay off the oceans. Then why be here at all?

Again, good fight sequences, but something is really missing from all of this so you get that satisfied ending to it all that you have earned. It’s not bad, but I was hoping for something more final and not a brand of fizzle. And I am not fully certain if we won or not.

On a scale of 1 to 10:

Artwork           7 (That odd assemblage of 2D and 3D)
Plot                  8 (Improved somewhat)
Pacing              7 (Moves along, but the latter battle sequences are strained
Effectiveness   7 (No one seems to be growing)
Conclusion       8 (It reaches a ‘coupler point’, but maybe hasn’t ended)
Fan Service      2 (A similar show would be “Okamisan”)

Overall            7 (I guess I missed the Big Point in it all)

And remember, it’s first run until you’ve seen it. I fight for all.