Banner of the Stars III is the final adapted part of Seikai no Saga, and, alas, I cannot say that it was finished on a good note. No, I won't state that this two-parter OVA is bad. It is not bad. But for a set of reasons, it's not great either.

This is still a touching story of Lafiel and Jinto, two people who have to deal with their odd heritages, with the greatest war of all times happening around them.

In this part Jinto can finally try to reunite with the homeland he kinda owns as a Count, though his planet is yet to surrender to the Empire; Lafiel is accompanying him through her short leave from the Star Forces as a representative of her royal family, which lended a nice sum of money on rebuilding of Hyde Countdom (and expects nice centuries of returns in interest). At the same time the rest of "Basroil" crewmembers are spread across the Empire. Sobaash is assigned to captain a ship of a new rank - a frigate "Flicaubh". Frigate is a ship type built to link destroyers and cruisers in formation, becoming the most powerful ship class in normalspace, and being able to withstand stronger foes in linked formations in planar battles. New ships are to be extensively tested during a large-scale military exercise, suspiciously arranged to happen in Hyde Countdom.

For those who are unaware, Seikai no Saga, which includes Crest of the Stars and all parts of Banner, is an adaptation of Hiroyuki Morioka's novels of the same name. The novels are still ongoing - the last one, Imperial Thunder, came out in 2018. Each novel is rather short, - of course, they're all ranobe, - but thematically deep and, from what I can see, as I was not able to familiarize deeply with the original, and read only translation with occasional verification from the source, - very well written. Narrative in the novels is very tight and dry, it's hard, almost impossible to shorten them without damaging.

In my Crest review I mentioned the scene of Imperial Elder Counsil meeting being an important part of the story that got cut. In that scene - Crest spoilers! - Lafiel is evaluated on her activities during her training to determine whether she is fit to continue her military career as a full fledged officer. Due to the events and adventures she and Jinto have endured - they scrutinize all her actions, pointing out mistakes and consequences of her actions, and this scene is both heartfelt, funny, very characteristical for both Lafiel and the Empire she might one day lead. Lack of this scene significantly reduces the weight of many events in Crest, for which it often gets criticized. And this is a singular, relatively short episode being removed.

The novels are all built this way - each scene has several purposes on several levels, and all details, despite some mistakes on authors part, which occured due to specifics of Japanese publishing approach (like protagonists hair changing color at least once for no reason, or fleets changing Admirals mid-battle due to obvious typos) - and all the previous series at least tried to maintain this approach in adaptation. Certain errors did get through, of course, like female dresses on Abh ladies, whom all, both male and female, actually wear robes over skintight suits at all times, or some changes made to add some action or tension to the scenes, like tidal wave after the emergency launch of last colony ship which ironically killed Angusson, who in the novels simply got exiled and probably killed due to his ultimate failure.

Banner III is no longer trying - for a number of reasons, I assume. First, this project clearly was not the most prioritized even by its makers. Second - it is shortened so much, it was a priori impossible to maintain the narrative... Like, at all. The story is almost not there. Banner III is better if you think of it as if it's just a collection of disjointed scenes "by the motives". Amount of "canon" errors on display is ridiculous - with Palpatine-ish holograms on frigates, Lafiel wearing I don't even know how to call it, but it has nothing to do with Abh wardrobe, and many charcaters, who are indeed light-hearted in the original, are now reduced to comedic relief, like Seelnay, a maid from Crest whom Lafiel convinced to join her little rebellion, is now hired by Samsonn to manage the erection of Hyde Countdom antimatter generation plants - she's the "manager" of an antimatter plant management and maintenance company thanks to aid from the Royal House Kryb. Seelnay considered Lafiel to be on the literal edge of divinity - and in this adaptation she allows herself not only to annoy Lafiel, but to touch her, which is a big no-no in Abh culture, especially in relation to the Imperial Family.

Basically, Banner III is a rushed mess, which is beyond any comprehensiveness to an outsider, and can be hard to follow even to people well-familiarized with the story, which can clearly be seen by comments and criticisms on Banner III (simplest example being - many people think that by Banner III the Empire has won the war, which is as far from reality as it can get).

Densely packed with events and food for thought, the book this OVA is based on is barely present in adaptation. It's but a checking off of a set of checkmarks with a round of over-exaggerated impressions of characters, where maybe, maybe Jinto is more or less getting a proper amount of time to develop -- all the while in the book we could observe how anxious Lafiel becomes even during a short leave from her throne race, how Sobaash shows himself as a ship captain in a complex set of circumstances, how baroness Febdash manages to get as much as possible from running a first-ever squadron if new ship class under extreme scrutiny, how the Imperial economy and society reacts to the developments on the fronts..... Oh how much, how much is left out!

I'll put up a rather high score here, lower then I put in my own list, and far higher than this installation actually deserves. At least it delivers certain finality to Jinto's story in a more or less faithful fashion, - I guess it's worth something.

Edit: fixed typos and sentences, clarified some thoughts.