What attracted me... was you, my 'enemy'.
For 100 years, a great war has raged on between the scientifically advanced Empire and a paradise of witches known as the Nebulis Sovereignty. This century-old battle sets the scene for a fateful encounter between two young combatants: an imperial swordsman, Iska, and the witch princess, Aliceliese. As sworn enemies, they vow to cut each other down to unite their worlds, and yet Iska finds himself entranced by her beauty and righteousness, while Aliceliese is moved by his strength and resolve. In the midst of a never-ending war that forbids them from being together, they have no choice but to destroy each other-or can they find another way?
Our Last Crusade or the Rise of a New World (キミと僕の最後の戦場、あるいは世界が始まる聖戦, Kimi to Boku no Saigo no Senjō, Arui wa Sekai ga Hajimaru Seisen) is a Japanese Light Novel series written by Kei Sazane and illustrated by Ao Nekonabe. Fujimi Shobo, under Kadokawa Corporation, has published seven volumes since May 2017 under their Fujimi Fantasia Bunko label. A manga adaptation by okama began serialization in Hakusensha's Young Animal magazine in May 2018. Both the light novel and manga have been licensed in North America by Yen Press. An anime television series adaptation by SILVER LINK. premiered in October 2020. A second season of the anime was announced on October 1, 2021, set to premiere in 2023, but was later delayed. It is currently scheduled to begin airing in July 2024.
Our Last Crusade or the Rise of a New World provides examples of:
- Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole:
- In the light novels, the Empire has no idea that Iska helped destroy The Object, which is why he suffered no legal consequences as a result. As far as the Empire is aware, Iska and his unit are merely off on mandatory leave, which is also why they can also get involved in the upcoming events in the Sovereignty Invasion as Sisbell's hired guards as long as they don't meet any other Imperial soldiers.
- The last meeting between Iska and Alice in the final episode of the anime does not take place in the light novels, as the events of that episode are immediately followed by Iska and his unit traveling to the Sovereignty as Sisbell's hired guards.
- Ambiguous Robots:
- The Eight Great Apostles of the Empire only appear on computer screens with their names and audio-only conferences, to the point that Risya outright wonders if they might be AIs. Even some representatives in the Empire's legislative assembly have asked the same questions. It's eventually revealed that they were human once, but took on mechanical bodies at some point during the 100-year-long Forever War.
- For a more specific example, the Saint Disciple Nameless. He has never been seen outside of his suit, which makes it uncertain whether it's Powered Armor or Animated Armor, and while he moves like a human and bleeds when struck, it's not clear if he really is just a man in a suit or a very advanced android. It's confirmed that at least his left arm is artificial.
- Animation Bump: The final episode received a major increase in animation quality for the big battle against the Empire's Object.
- Battle Couple: First fighting against the Founder Nebulis, then fighting the Empire's experimental weapon, and finally to a lesser extent facing Salinger the Demon. Every time Alice and Iska end up in an Enemy Mine situation, the two become quite an effective combination of melee and ranged attacks.
- The Casino: Upon hearing that the next mission is dangerous enough that her unit may perish, Mismis has the entire unit gamble at a casino in Jurak in the hope of winning big and buying an armored vehicle that could increase their chances of survival. Predictably, they fail to beat the house, though fortunately, Alice gives Nene her winnings.
- Compressed Adaptation: While all of the events from the first four light novels are covered, the anime rushes through them while cutting out many of the details and explanations. For example, the battle against Nebulis's founder is rushed to the point where she doesn't get a chance to pull out her staff to power up further, and the way Iska finds an opening to approach and defeat Kissing is left very ambiguous in the anime.
- Conlang: Serafeno Vocable, the Astral Spirits' language. It's a fictional language created by author Kei Sazane that appears throughout all of his works. It was first used in Twilight-Colored Song User, where it was directly tied to the story as the language used to perform Recitations (summoning).
- Contrived Coincidence: Iska and Alice's relationship develops through the fact that they somehow manage to keep running into each other in various neutral cities, despite the sheer improbability of it.
- Cut Short: The manga adaptation was canceled after Chapter 43, collected in 7 volumes. This meant the manga only adapted 5 of the light novel volumes.
- "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: The opening theme is sung by Kaori Ishihara (Nene) and the ending theme is sung by Sora Amamiya (Aliceliese).
- Dramatic Irony: Iska and the Eight Great Apostles both have a stated goal of capturing a member of the Sovereignty's Royal Family (albeit for greatly different reasons). However, what Iska doesn't learn until Volume 4 (while the Apostles never find out) is that they actually had one in custody a year ago, but it was the very same one that Iska let escape!
- Enemy Civil War: The Nebulis Sovereignty is divided into three major factions: the House of Zoa which is willing to use any means to defeat the empire, the House of Lou which focuses more on defense than reckless offense, and the moderate House of Hydra which is secretly plotting with the Empire to take over the Sovereignty. Even within the House of Lou, the three princesses have to compete for the throne. And that's not getting into the other factions, each of which wants to place one of their own on the throne as well.
- Enemy Mine: The Series! Seriously, Iska and Alice (and eventually Sisbell) spend a lot more time teaming up against greater threats than they do fighting each other.
- Fantastic Racism: The Empire has this against Astral Spirit Wielders and seeks to exterminate them.
- Fantastic Slur: Astral mages consider it a slur to be called witches or sorcerers, words used by those who oppressed them.
- Faux Affably Evil: The Eight Great Apostles sound polite and reasonable when reinstating Iska into the military, but make it clear that they still hold contempt towards him for his crime of freeing a child mage. The end of the first volume shows they know he wants to be an Internal Reformist, but they have no intention of letting him achieve his political goals.
- Forever War: The war between the Empire and the Nebulis Sovereignty has been going on for well over a century.
- Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Iska is a superhumanly fit swordsman while Alice is an ice mage.
- Hot Witch: All the witches are easy on the eyes. The most prominent examples are Alice and Elletear.
- Hypocrite:
- The imperial government hates astral mages for using what they consider a forbidden power, yet they want to use Iska to defeat them, despite him wielding swords that utilize astral power.
- The imperial government promotes meritocracy, yet rejects astral mages out of fear for their power rather than encourage them to use their power to contribute to the country.
- Millavair claims she hates the Heavenly Empire for the prejudice that her people suffer to them; but multiple people, including her own daughters, are quick to point out she's no better with her hatred for anything Imperial related.
- It's a Small World, After All: Iska and Alice have a Running Gag of running into each other while taking time off in neutral cities.
- Kill Sat: In the light novel's first chapter and final chapter of Volume 4, Nene uses a bombardment from a satellite weapon to scatter the astral mages attacking them and attack the Empire's Object robot. The anime changed it to a multi-missile launcher in the back of their jeep for the first instance, and a backpack-mounted missile launcher for the second.
- King Bob the Nth: Played with. Members of the House of Lou have a numeral after their names, but this seems to be more to do with which generation of the family that particular individual belongs to, rather than being the Nth person with that name to rule the country. To wit, the current ruling queen, Millavair Lou Nebulis VIII, has three daughters named Elletear Lou Nebulis IX, Aliceliese Lou Nebulis IX, and Sisbell Lou Nebulis IX, despite none of them being the country's monarch. That aside, not all of them are expected to ascend to the throne either.
- Knight Templar: At the end of the first volume, the Eight Great Apostles claim that they're exterminating astral mages because they believe this is what the planet wishes.
- Lord Country: The royalty of the Nebulis Sovereignty all have the last name "Nebulis". However, there are three royal families who all have their own last names (Lou, Zoa, and Hydra), which are prefaced before "Nebulis".
- Love Across Battlelines:
- Iska and Alice are pretty clearly falling for each other the more they spend time together off the battlefield, but their loyalties to their respective countries and the fact that they're both a bit Oblivious to Love pose strong obstacles for them.
- Sisbell is also pretty obviously infatuated with Iska as well.
- Magic A Is Magic A: Astral Power is essentially the magic of the series, having been dormant deep within the earth until about 100 years before the series.
- The Magic Versus Technology War: The Nebulis Sovereignty and the Heavenly Empire are the magic and technology sides respectively. The sovereignty is a country of astral mages while the empire can match them with high-tech weaponry.
- Maid and Maiden: Rin and Alice fulfill this pretty well, with the only oddity being that they're the same age. Despite this, Rin is every bit as stern and serious as any classical maid is, particularly when it comes to chaperoning her charge's love life.
- My Country, Right or Wrong: Iska and Alice may have similar ideals and recognize that their countries don't share these ideals, but their plans generally don't involve defying their country, since they believe they can gain power from the inside to achieve their goals. It helps that they also have loved ones within their countries, which means treason could end up endangering their loved ones.
- No Name Given: Downplayed. The full name of the empire is the "Heavenly Empire," but that's more of a descriptor and a type of country than a proper name.
- N-Word Privileges: While the astral mages of Nebulis hate being called witches and sorcerers, they reserve these terms for the worst astral mage criminals.
- Pragmatic Villainy: The Eight Great Apostles frees Iska and reinstate him as a soldier because they need him to defeat Aliceliese.
- Recycled In SPACE: Basically Romeo and Juliet but with magic, swords, and guns. However, unlike the two families, who cared enough about Romeo and Juliet to cease their conflict after their suicide, the two countries in this work see the protagonists as useful but expendable.
- Shoot the Hostage:
- Downplayed: After Iska admits to Alice that he planned to take her hostage and use her status as a bargaining chip to force peace talks between the Empire and Sovereignty, Alice merely huffs and tells him her mother wouldn't care if she was kept captive by the Empire and that his plan was doomed from the start.
- A straighter example occurs in Volume 2 after Mismis is taken hostage by the spy Captain Noro and flees with her in hand. Saint Disciple assassin Nameless throws a razor-sharp glass knife at them, but Iska blocks it since the knife would have killed both the captor and captive, which was Nameless's intention all along.
- Shout-Out: The OP sequence shows Sisbell has a Syrup plushie in her bed, and Episode 10 also shows an Oboro plushie. Both are from Bofuri, a show that Silver Link had animated earlier in the year 2020.
- Strange Minds Think Alike: One Running Gag has both Iska and Alice have the habit of saying the same thing at the same time.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
- Iska's unit is constantly being redeployed over the first three volumes to help in one place or another. By Volume 4, it is decided that they've spent too long on duty and are assigned mandatory leave.
- In the climax of the volume, Iska, Nene, and Sisbell are attacked by a Giant Mecha. Sisbell expects Iska to handle things easily, but is surprised when Iska has trouble with it because his training and weapons were designed to fight astral mages, not machines.
- Sword and Sorcerer: Iska and Alice, respectively.
- The Alcatraz: Province 13 where Rin takes Iska after kidnapping him and where Salinger is held is fittingly called Alkatroz.
- Token Good Teammate: From the Empire's side, it's Unit N07, especially Iska. The Sovereignty, on the other hand, it's Alice and Sisbell (and their attendants).
- Truce Zone:
- There are several cities such as Ain that did not pledge allegiance to the Empire or Sovereignty, and thus are de facto neutral. These are the only places where Iska and Aliceliese can meet while off-duty. This neutrality is taken so seriously that when Rin kidnaps Iska in one such city, it is highlighted that such an act could land the Sovereignty in diplomatic hot water if it was discovered.
- Downplayed with "independent states." While places like these also aren't formally part of the superpowers either, unlike neutral cities, they have made no declaration of neutrality and are open to negotiations to join one of the sides, such as the state of Alsamira which is leaning heavily in the Empire's direction.
- We Have Reserves: Iska and Alice have both noted that this attitude is the mentality in both countries where the war is concerned. The capture or killing of one of them by the other side is not enough to invite their side to sue for peace or even consider negotiations. This also extends to the Eight Great Apostles in the empire and the royalty of the sovereignty, as someone else will simply replace the person who was captured or killed.
