Recap
This week, Kate and her crew decide to wage a war on the insufferable tyranny of habitual smokers in public locations. Things soon escalate into a conflict that encompasses the entire West Udogawa region. Additionally, we learn a bit more about Yasu and Goro’s past before they ended up joining Kate.
Gee’s Thoughts
This week’s episode takes a surprisingly entertaining turn as Kate and her motley crew decide to take on smokers. Anyone familiar with Japan will know that Japanese people love to smoke…a lot. As a result, I was pretty amused by the idea of a Japanese piece of fiction taking such a sanctimonious stand against smokers. It’d be like an American piece of work taking potshots at our growing obesity rates. Sure, some pieces of media do that, but probably not enough to really hammer the point home.
The idea of it turning into some kind of crazy civil war for survival also added to the fun absurdity of the episode. Exploring Yasu and Goro’s past was also kinda nice. It just kinda solidifies my belief that the giant middle aged man is pretty fucking cool all around. Helps he’s one of the better visually designed characters in the show. And yes, I will probably complain about how half the character design work in this show is just absolutely terrible. While Zvezda’s quality itself is managing to go on the upswing, it doesn’t excuse the frankly questionable appearances of some of the characters. Alas, it seems if I’m sticking with this for the long haul, I’m gonna have to get used to it eventually.
That said, it did go after a rather easy target. And I suppose that the only reason I found this episode kinda fun is because the show happened to target an issue I’m not a huge fan of. Living in Boston has made me aware of how annoying smokers can be, so I kind of relish the idea of going after them. If it had been something I was more sympathetic to, I don’t think I would appreciate how sanctimonious this episode is. That said, this episode is a step up from the previous two so I’m willing to stick with Zvezda and see where this goes from here.
Marlin’s Thoughts
As one of the most ardent anti-smoking advocates you’ll ever meet, this episode was an absolute delight. Every possible complaint and joke about the smoking community is given in such a grandiose way that. I couldn’t think of a better way to lampoon the smoking community and their excuses for continuing to smoke. Seeing it turn into an outright war was just the icing on the cake as the gags cranked up to eleven. The best line is when the MC, still acting as our voice of reason, says “I agree that smokers are terrible people, but they’re still human.”
The Glorio Blog 
Hey! Glad to see someone blog about world conquest zvezda plot, I was looking for someone’s opinion on episode 3. I don’t know if it’s just me, but episode 3 irked me, I honestly thought it was an extremely terrible episode, it’s enough to make me want to drop this show.
I get that the show likes to play around with absurdity and you can’t really take it too seriously..but the episode had such skewed, absolute type of tone I couldn’t stand. Why are smokers seen as such terrible people? The way they were portrayed to me was just downright offensive. I don’t support smoking, but to say that they should all die. That’s pushing it way too far. I tried to enjoy it, but i just couldn’t. Also, I don’t think Asuta reasoned anything when he said “smokers are terrible people, but they are human”. Smoking does not mean they are terrible people. It is detrimental to your health and to others yes, but my god, the anti-smoking sentiment in this episode was so over the top.
I thought it was pretty humorous the first two episodes, but i really just couldn’t stand how this episode played out.
Hey, glad to see someone reading our blog about Zvezda! While I didn’t have as strong a reaction, believe me, I wasn’t a huge fan of how condescending this episode was. I have no love for smokers, but as someone who participates in his own harmful habits, I also know I don’t really have a lot of room to point fingers, so an episode like this came off as overly judgmental in my book. Like I said in the recap, the only reason I wasn’t outright offended was because it went after something I generally don’t like in real life.
In general, I don’t like shows to preach to me, no matter how much I agree with their points. While I respect a creator’s right to put their own beliefs and messages into their work, I also believe it has little place in fiction unless that’s the point of the piece.
That said, I feel keeping tone in mind is also pretty important. Zvezda certainly isn’t trying to be a very serious show, and I think smokers were picked as the big bad simply because they’re a common complaint in mundane society, especially one like Japan where smoking is extremely common. If Zvezda was legitimately trying to impart some kind of social message or claim of higher authority, I definitely would not have been happy, no matter how easy the target was.
I think it’s these kind of mentalities that allow smoking to remain so widespread. I don’t think they should die obviously, but I think it is a big problem that smoking is still seen as acceptable as long as people keep it to themselves. People who continue to smoke daily despite all the knowledge of its dangers to themselves and others are worse people for doing it, I felt there was no exaggeration when Asuta said that.
I recently got into Zvesda, and I heartily admit to enjoying this episode. Finally, I can point to an episode in anime saying exactly what most of us are too polite to say out loud to the smokers around us. It was a pretty gleeful aside telling smokers in animated form that if you smoke even after knowing all the facts and the harm you will inflict, you literally have no soul.