When people express a preference for Gun- over DieBuster they tend to be quick to point out the difference between inspiring have-a-go hero Noriko and naturally gifted numbskull Nono.

Speaking for the sake of my (marginally) preferred instalment I’d suggest that’s a mismatch. Nono is really equivalent to Gunbuster’s onee-sama. The emotional core of Diebuster is L’alc (Lark?).

Now then, we aren’t so insecure that our inspiration has to start of a complete clutz, are we?

L’alc may be a more realistic idea of the heroic figure than the anime standard issue - she’s the gifted, lofty, focussed expert. When the old chap says that heroes are always isolated, we know what he means in regard to L’alc, but that isolation is categorically not the territory of anime’s routine child hero archetype.

Which is not to say that L’alc is a better role model. I’d admit that she’s still less inspiring than Noriko. But Diebsuster, in presenting a hero like this, is subtly breaking the mould. L’alc is a hero who starts off in the supporting cast. She seems like a distant benchmark for excellence, someone to be surpassed in due course. Her triumph pleases me because it’s a triumph for every sub-character, the heroes who don’t fit the plucky dumbass role. She is sneering, smug. Diebuster presents that smugness as a clear fault, tears her down, then lets her climb back up through her own merits, so that she can be ready to look a Nonoriri straight in the eye.