CX anime reviews

[CX]

Moonlight Mile
Season 2: Touch Down
(14 episodes)

This series left me feeling frustrated, because while it definitely improved in terms of both writing and maturity, it still ended unresolved, and just as I was really starting to like it, too. Cuss words! You have no idea how much I hate it when a series does this.

This season picks up right where the last one left off, though it was nice enough to do a "previously on..." montage just to refresh my memory. Just to refresh yours, this series follows two main characters, a Japanese man named Goro and an American named Lostman. The two of them climbed all of the world's highest peaks together and on the summit of Everest they decided that they both wanted to climb even higher, by going to the moon. They both did this in an extremely roundabout way, Goro becoming a notable construction worker and Lostman becoming a notable Naval pilot. So by the end of season 1, both were in orbit with plans to head to the moon – Goro through the International Space Agency's project being constructed from the International Space Station, and Lostman through a secret military base run by a secret branch of the US military. The other notable thing about the show is that it was basically an excuse for Goro to get laid every episode, and for use to see how good at drawing breasts Studio Hibari is. Which is to say that they're pretty good, but I think they should seek other reference material since most of them looked porn star fake.

In any case, I was just interested enough to seek out the second season of this show, due largely in part to the unresolved storyline. Just as I suspected, the first season was just the set-up, but then the season titles probably should've tipped me off. The thing that took me by surprise, though, was that the second season was actually a lot better than the first. The writing was better, the story was more in depth, there was actually a little character development here and there, and best of all, the show even matured a little, so it wasn't basically Golden Boy in space. Oh, there was still fan service, but it was definitely cut back on, and it was to the show's benefit that it could concentrate more on the whole "going to the moon" storyline instead of just making weak excuses to get Goro laid.

There were still a few drawbacks, mainly coming from the insistence of the show that the vast majority of Americans are assholes. For instance, there was this Arab kid who helped to save Lostman as a POW back during the first season, and we get to see how he's doing in the US. While I could see the government giving him some grief being a recent immigrant from the MidEast and gathering up a bunch of rocket parts, not a lot else makes sense as far as the racism the kid faces from basically everyone. And really, at every point the show makes a point of showing Americans to be complete assholes, so that didn't earn it any points there. And while there are plenty of assholes in every country, and I've met my fair share of them from both the US and Canada, it's not nearly as bad as this show made it out to be. And this is coming from someone who tends to hate people in general. But there's plenty of anime that seems to have someone with an axe to grind when it comes to the US, so I try not to take it too personally.

The other major weak point of this series is actually the characters, though this is more a case of "too much" than any real lack of trying. The problem here was more that there were simply too many characters for any of them to get much of a chance to be more interesting than just some random extra with a name. While I like ensemble casts, this show only really got half-way with that. Unfortunately the show also picked up something of a spokesperson in the form of Maggy, a somewhat obnoxious young woman, at least in front of the camera. Apparently she's the host of a show that's all about selling the ISA's moon project to the public, and she just happened to take the form of an obnoxious, somewhat moe Japanese hostess despite not being Japanese. She even goes into space. Thankfully, the astronauts reacted the way most normal human beings would when exposed to moe.



Fortunately she gets better, for the most part. She's actually shown to be somewhat more normal when she's not on camera, and she even tones it down a couple of notches when she's in front of it not long after she gets into space. Of course this is also after she's revealed to be close to 30 and an aspiring journalist, so I guess they thought she should be a bit more serious to actually reflect that.

As for the story, big improvement over the first season, mostly because it's a lot more focused now. The ISA's heavily involved in colonizing the moon in order to exploit it. Just like in the movie Moon, they're after Helium-3 as a power source. So this multi-national project is named Project Nexus, and it's being pushed especially hard by the US. Since the last season, the ISA has been dropping crates full of supplies and building materials for the future moon base, and the first half of this season is mostly about building the Galileo, a large spaceship meant to take a dozen astronauts and even more supplies and building materials to the moon so they can start construction of the base. Naturally, pretty much everything that can go wrong does, and just as the new big ship is finished and the crew selected, a massive debris field messes the ISS up with everyone on it, and they lose several astronauts. They also mess up the space shuttle that is the only remaining means of getting back to Earth's surface, as the evac shuttles had been deployed earlier thanks to the most massive solar flare in recorded history. So, with the Galileo miraculously undamaged, everyone who's left (coincidentally 12) heads to the moon, including the obnoxious TV hostess.

Meanwhile, the other big element of the story is all the politicking going on. China isn't having any part in Project Nexus because they want to have control over the distribution of Helium-3. So to start things off, they launch what is initially believed to be an anti-satellite satellite, but what turns out to be two space fighters. Good thing the United States Space Force (*snicker*) already has its own fighters. Unfortunately for them, the Chinese space fighters are a fairly even match for them, which is why there's a ton of debris that messes up the ISS. Next China builds its own space station, and then quickly announces its existence in order to prevent the US from adding even more debris to Earth's orbit.

Unfortunately, while everything just kept building up, it became obvious in the last few episodes that most of these plot elements were going to go unresolved. And just as it was getting interesting, too. Hell, they'd even come full circle and actually showed what lead up to the opening scene of the series, though it didn't really make any more sense, unfortunately. Presumably since this series was based on a manga, they'd simply run out of material to adapt to screen, and had to stop. Or maybe the show just got non-renewed. Or both. But, just as with Zipang, whatever the reason this show had to just stop mid-stream like this, it's still disappointing. I suppose that's actually a mark in this show's favor, simply because it was interesting enough for me to actually care about what would happen next. This show was not only interesting, but it managed to hit some of the right notes in order to resonate with me during a few episodes. That pioneering feeling that goes with space exploration and all that, not to mention an episode that ripped off October Sky (they even called it "The Rocket Boys"). So I guess you could say this was something of a double-edged sword, and you should really be aware of that if you think this show sounds interesting and you decide to watch it.

Overall, this was a fairly decent series and I think it was worth the trouble I went through to find a fansub of season 2, since apparently no one has bothered to pick it up yet on this side of the Pacific. 8/10.

[CX]

Evangelion 1.11: You Are (Not) Alone
(2007 movie)

So apparently the people who made Neon Genesis Evangelion agreed with me that the show could have been better, and not just in the ending. Fortunately they've been given a pretty good budget and new technology has become available which will help them toward that goal. Now the only obstacle is in the writing – can they do better with this reboot of the franchise?

This first installation already shows some promise in that it is very well done for what is essentially a compilation movie. I've seen a few compilation movies, and the thing about them is that they tend to suck. A lot in terms of story and character development tends to get lost, and continuity can become an issue because most compilation movies try to use as much of the series it was based on as possible, and only do a limited amount of new animation as required. But to be frank, Evangelion was extremely slow in pacing and could stand to have a lot of fat trimmed. Thankfully, this translates very well in this movie, which is basically a compilation of the first six episodes or so of the original series. Not only does it look great, what with all the newly redone animation, but the writers actually did a pretty good job of getting all the important stuff in without really losing anything, and in getting everything to slow smoothly while doing so. In fact, if I hadn't seen the series, I probably wouldn't even notice where the story basically jumps ahead, or where something new has been added the way someone might with say the Blue Gender or Gurren Lagann compilation movies.

As for what's different this time around, a lot of it has to do with pacing. For one thing, there is no mystery made out of the existence of Lilith being kept down in NERV's basement. Misato just takes Shinji on an elevator ride and opens the door right up to show him. Another more noticeable difference is that Misato is a lieutenant colonel rather than a freshly minted major, and she's a lot more involved in NERV's operations. She actually seems to be on more equal footing with Ritsuko Akagi compared to the series. Other than that, there isn't a whole lot that's different from the first episodes of the series.

Now, for anyone who hasn't seen the series and has no idea what I'm even talking about, the story revolves around a child protagonist, Shinji Ikari. He is the pilot of a giant, mostly organic robot called the Evangelion Unit 01. There are actually a few of these, all with different numbers and slightly different designs, and all of them have child pilots. They all seem to be in the 14-ish age range, which is why some of the fan service in this movie and in the series it was based on is actually one of the many disturbing things about this show. Others may feel differently, but the whole jailbait thing isn't really something I feel comfortable with. That goes hand in hand with the way it is more than hinted at that Misato Katsuragi, his commanding officer, legal guardian, and roommate, might have romantic feelings toward him, and Ritsuko also seems to think this is okay, apparently. There's a similar problem in regards to Rei Ayanami, the first child pilot, and NERV's commander, Gendo Ikari. There isn't a lot of that in this first movie, but I doubt that'll really change much since the way Gendo has planned out Shinji's life and his growing romantic interest in Rei has remained pretty much the same. Which is another thing that adds to the "ick" factor, but that also comes out later one. Anyway, the main plot is that this secretive organization called NERV has to prevent the end of humanity by destroying these giant alien "angels" which randomly appear to attack whatever happens to be in their way on their way to attack NERV headquarters. They are all apparently trying to reach and bond with the "Lilith" creature I mentioned earlier, which will apparently result in the death of all life on Earth. There is something of a secretive plan going on in the background which frankly doesn't make a lot of sense, but it's part of the larger story as everything progresses. I have to admit I'm kind of curious to see how this is done in the rest of these movies.

The story moves at a fairly good pace from the beginning through to the end. We're introduced to everyone, Shinji is put through the paces and fights a few monsters, a lot of important plot information is told or shown to us, and all without seeming all that rushed and without too much exposition. This is a definite improvement over the series and bodes well for this Rebuild of Evangelion project. The last battle in this movie is actually one of my favorites, as it involves a very powerful and very strange "angel", which is normally shaped like a giant diamond, but can take on complex geometric shapes to defend and attack. Which actually brings me to what is probably the biggest appeal of both this movie and the series it is based on – the eye candy. The series was okay, especially for the time and in light of the limited budget the animation studio had. The movie, however, does a really great job. I have to admit that this is something of a double-edged sword where I'm concerned, because when the eye candy overshadows the story, that's usually a sign of a bad writing. That isn't especially the case here, though. The main weak point of this movie is actually that it is simply the introduction to a much larger story, so there isn't a lot to go on just yet. But, the writing isn't bad in this movie, and as I mentioned it effectively introduced us to quite a few characters and concepts while throwing in some action to keep things interesting.

As for the characters, again, there isn't much of a difference from the series. Shinji is still a whiny loser, and he really makes me hate the way anime tends to let us hear a character's internal dialog. I was kind of hoping based on something I read that Shinji wouldn't be as bad in the Rebuild, but I can't see any difference in this movie. The same could be said of Rei being the meek little robot girl, which I guess is supposed to make her mysterious and interesting. I know the way Shinji notices that she isolates herself and ends up reaching out to her is supposed to be the highlight of all this, but I just can't get over the ick factor. The fact that the two of them are so young makes it disturbing enough, but add the fact that Rei shares some of Shinji's DNA, and now we have an incest angle to make thing that much more disturbing. Gendo is a bastard, as always, and nothing highlights that better than when Shinji is pressured into piloting Unit 01 for the first time. I'm glad that Misato has a greater role within NERV in this movie, though. While she's just as messed up as pretty much every other character in this franchise, at least on the job she's presented as being competent and able. She's also probably the only character I really much care for outside of all the random crew people in the control room at NERV headquarters.

So I'm sure some of you are wondering one of two things: 1) how much different is 1.11 from 1.01, and 2) if I haven't seen the series, should I bother? To answer the first question, there isn't a whole lot that's actually added. I think it amounts to maybe about 5 minutes total of added scenes, and most of that is toward the beginning of the movie when Misato picks up Shinji during the first angel attack we see. To answer the second question, that kind of depends. If you’re willing to sit through what's probably some of the most boring anime you'll ever see, it might be worth it just to see for yourself what's considered to be an influential series. If you do that, I recommend that you skip the last two episodes and watch End of Evangelion instead. Myself, I didn't like the series. It was boring, and while some of the eye candy was cool, that didn't make up for the other failings of the series. I don’t regret watching it, but in some ways I think I'd have rather just seen the movies if they actually do turn out to be better than the series. So far, things are looking up. 8/10.

[Snorpenbass]

I've seen the various arguments for Evangelion, but really what it comes down to is that everything still adds up to the characters being completely unlikable to the point that watching the show became a chore. At least the movies have been a little better so far.

Oh, I'm not disagreeing with you there. I'm just saying the *intention* is to deliberately make them horrible people, unlikable and everything. Making them likable would be telling a entirely different story than was intended.

...that I don't *like* the kind of story they *are* telling is another thing altogether.

[CX]

The thing is, if the intent is to make the people the audience is watching unlikable, then why would anyone want to watch it? There has to be something entertaining there, and people whining isn't entertaining. Take, for example, Riddick from Pitch Black - there is nothing likable about that character, but he's still fun to watch because he was made something of an over-the-top bad-ass. He also had some character development aside from just being fun to watch as a human monster going up against alien monsters. That's the kind of thing that's lacking in NGE, and it makes me wonder then what was supposed to be entertaining there, or if watching people whine actually is entertaining to some people. I can't help but think that, much in the same way 2001 is remembered mainly for HAL killing off most of the Discovery's crew, NGE just gets remembered for the giant robots fighting giant monsters.

[Snorpenbass]

The thing is, if the intent is to make the people the audience is watching unlikable, then why would anyone want to watch it? There has to be something entertaining there, and people whining isn't entertaining. Take, for example, Riddick from Pitch Black - there is nothing likable about that character, but he's still fun to watch because he was made something of an over-the-top bad-ass. He also had some character development aside from just being fun to watch as a human monster going up against alien monsters. That's the kind of thing that's lacking in NGE, and it makes me wonder then what was supposed to be entertaining there, or if watching people whine actually is entertaining to some people. I can't help but think that, much in the same way 2001 is remembered mainly for HAL killing off most of the Discovery's crew, NGE just gets remembered for the giant robots fighting giant monsters.

That's just the thing, isn't it? Not all media is meant to be about *entertaining* the viewer. Sometimes it's made to make a point, other times to troll the audience entirely (anything by Uwe Boll), and then sometimes it's just made to entertain.

NGE was made in combination as both a way for the main creator to deal with his own mental health issues and as a vicious deconstruction of a certain genre of giant robot shows going back to the 1970's, in which heroes who were often meant to be likable were instead usually unlikable a-holes with ginormous egos and rampant misogyny and general misanthropy. The messianic biblical themes, the random mix of Buddhist themes with Christianity and pseudo-science, it's all mainly there to say to the viewer "No, you would probably hate these people if you ever met them in a somewhat real-world milieu".

Riddick, on the other hand, is there to entertain by means of over-the-top Hollywood violence, his foes are alien animals or nihilist neo-gothic Warhammer 40K rejects. It's apples and oranges in these two cases. Shinji isn't there to entertain you, he's meant as a very mean-spirited caricature of the average teenage viewer of the animes NGE is deconstructing as well as a cruel example in how to use trauma, stress and delberately induced psychoses to turn a teenage boy into a berserker killer.

NGE is a deeply flawed story, this is true, and it's not in my list of favorites at all (I dislike the depressing ones). But I think you might have gone into the viewing with the wrong expectations here, because NG is really not meant to entertain, it's meant to insult an entire genre and point out what's wrong with many of the themes and characters that were at the time common genre tropes of such shows.
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is, on the other hand, an attempt to say "What the hell, let's just entertain you". By the very same studio, even.

[CX]

And I actually viewed Gurren Lagann as a troll in much the same way I did Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt. I also found the trolling to be entertaining, because I'm that kind of guy. When it comes to NGE, the problem with it is that it still sucks. Even with everything that you and others have said to defend the series, that doesn't change anything with the series itself. It was still full of pointless whining that got really old, really fast, and unfortunately for NGE, that was the majority of the show.

As for Riddick, he was an example of an otherwise unlikable character who I enjoyed watching despite his unlikability.

And when it comes to shows that are making a point about anime's tendency to use child protagonists to fight military conflicts, use the same types of stories over and over again, and the people who watch this shows, Sky Crawlers does exactly that and is actually interesting and entertaining enough to watch, which is something NGE simply wasn't for me.

[Snorpenbass]

And I actually viewed Gurren Lagann as a troll in much the same way I did Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt. I also found the trolling to be entertaining, because I'm that kind of guy.

Really? It's pretty obviously meant in good fun, considering the basic message of the show is "screw nihilism".

When it comes to NGE, the problem with it is that it still sucks. Even with everything that you and others have said to defend the series, that doesn't change anything with the series itself. It was still full of pointless whining that got really old, really fast, and unfortunately for NGE, that was the majority of the show.

I think you misunderstand what I'm doing here. I'm not defending it. I just think it should be disliked for the bits that weren't intentional (the general badness, drawn out plot, and the cookie-cutter teen nihilist philosophy espoused by the creator, for example) rather than the few things it got right (the whole thing about teen giant mecha pilots having to be messed up in the head to be effective against Lovecraftian monstrosities that attack the mind).

In other words "We agree that it sucks, just not on which parts of it suck."

As for Riddick, he was an example of an otherwise unlikable character who I enjoyed watching despite his unlikability.

That's just it, though, Riddick is made to entertain, which is why you like watching him even if he's a dick. Shinji is made to make you go "What a whiny little shithead". In that aspect, they succeeded quite well.

And when it comes to shows that are making a point about anime's tendency to use child protagonists to fight military conflicts, use the same types of stories over and over again, and the people who watch this shows, Sky Crawlers does exactly that and is actually interesting and entertaining enough to watch, which is something NGE simply wasn't for me.

Sky Crawlers is good. But Sky Crawlers was made with the experience of NGE in the background (NGE is from the 90's, SC was made a few years ago). Without the deconstruction in NGE, you wouldn't have gotten SC.

[CX]

Really? It's pretty obviously meant in good fun, considering the basic message of the show is "screw nihilism".

Which is kind of a troll at the NGE crowd.

I think you misunderstand what I'm doing here. I'm not defending it. I just think it should be disliked for the bits that weren't intentional (the general badness, drawn out plot, and the cookie-cutter teen nihilist philosophy espoused by the creator, for example) rather than the few things it got right (the whole thing about teen giant mecha pilots having to be messed up in the head to be effective against Lovecraftian monstrosities that attack the mind).

In other words "We agree that it sucks, just not on which parts of it suck."

I guess I'm different then, because to me it doesn't matter if something was intentional or not in the same way that even if the writer intended one thing, but the audience read something else into it, what really matters is what the audience perceived. I've heard all the arguments, but just as with Abrams Trek and STV, none of the arguments actually improve the show.

That's just it, though, Riddick is made to entertain, which is why you like watching him even if he's a dick. Shinji is made to make you go "What a whiny little shithead". In that aspect, they succeeded quite well.

And in doing so they succeeded at making the show bad.

Sky Crawlers is good. But Sky Crawlers was made with the experience of NGE in the background (NGE is from the 90's, SC was made a few years ago). Without the deconstruction in NGE, you wouldn't have gotten SC.

I've heard that one, too, but again it doesn't matter. For one, my criticism of NGE doesn't equate with me wanting to wish it out of existence, it equates with me wanting it to be a better show, like I said in my review. For another, saying NGE influenced something else good doesn't make it good itself. And when it comes to Sky Crawlers, that movie was made specifically as a commentary on shows like NGE, so saying it was influenced by it isn't really saying all that much.

[CX]

Evangelion 2.22: You Can (Not) Advance
(2009 movie)

This movie marks the beginning of what are some much more obvious deviations from the series. It starts things off by introducing us to a new character, Mari Illustrious Makinami, a red-headed teenaged girl who seems older than the other Eva pilots. There's also the implication that she's using her masters as much as they are using her, whatever that means. There are a few other changes that I'll get into later, but the most positive one has to be Shinji. He still acts like a loser when it comes to Asuka (now with a different last name), but overall he's definitely a lot less whiny and useless. But I'm actually still kind of neutral in how I feel about this movie, and to be frank a lot of that has to do with the somewhat lighter tone the movie seems to take at times. It also doesn't help that the soundtrack went from the more dramatic instrumental/choir music to light J-Pop music that honestly felt inappropriately happy at points in the movie that should have been serious and dramatic.

The plot was also kind of "meh." I mean, it was okay, but not a lot happened overall. Mainly we got introduced to Mari and Asuka, and learned that Asuka was a self-important bitch all over again. Asuka showed up with Unit 02, bragged about it, and got to fight some more attacking angels that showed up. One of the highlights there was that all three of the children had to work together to kill one of them. Then one of the really major changes happened, because the Eva unit that turns into an angel isn't piloted by Shinji's friend from school, it's piloted by Asuka, so it makes it that much more dramatic, I think, when Shinji is made to attack her Eva and nearly kill her in the process. Actually, even the "dummy plug" auto-pilot from the series is different, too, and is a mechanical device inside the pilot's capsule, and it clamped down on his hands along with the controls in order to take out the possessed Eva, so Gendo literally had it use Shinji's hands to almost kill Asuka, though at the time he'd thought that it had succeeded. That kind of made it a little better, in my opinion, and I really felt for Shinji as he went ape-shit and actually attacked NERV headquarters.

This marks the beginning of Shinji really standing up for himself, and the great thing is that he kept on doing it. Another great character change was Rei, who actually showed some emotion and actually was somewhat proactive in trying to get Shinji and Gendo to get along as father and son, or at least she tried until the business with the possessed Eva. It actually made it a bit more poignant when it looked like she was going to sacrifice herself again and we'd lose all that character development, just like in the series. Fortunately, this is where Shinji standing up for himself comes into play, and he actually goes pretty far to save her after she was literally absorbed by the last angel attack of the movie. And by "absorbed", I mean the thing ate her along with the top part of her Eva, and then turned into something that looked an awful lot like the Lilith/Rei from the End of Evangelion movie. As for Mari, well, I'm not sure what to make of her yet. Basically she showed up all covert like (and Shinji even played along) and hijacked Unit 2 (Asuka's Eva).

I guess something seemingly new to me and worth mentioning is that there seems to be a lot more danger with using the Eva units, since apparently dropping down to the bottom of the pilot's capsule will turn the kids into angels, apparently, as will taking some kind of safeties off of the Eva units themselves that look kind of like control rods from a nuclear reactor. Apparently in rescuing Rei, Shinji damn near started off the end of the world, and while I vaguely remember that this happened in the series, I don't remember how they resolved it. As far as I can remember it was just resolved off screen somehow. This time, it's resolved by the appearance of that creepy kid, Kaworu Nagisa, you know, the one that made Shinji a slashfic writer's dream. Apparently he came from the moon, where Seele, the evil organization from the series, seems to have a secret base, where Gendo and his buddy both saw him out on the surface with no suit. So there's no subtlety this time around, and it kind of leaves me wondering what's going to happen next.

At least there was only one damn train scene this time.

This was an okay movie, though I would say that I feel slightly let down from the first movie. I'm still kind of looking forward to what might happen in the next movie, so hopefully that won't let me down by making Shinji go back to being a whiny, useless bitch. 7/10.

[Snorpenbass]

Which is kind of a troll at the NGE crowd.

True. Considering it was made by pretty much the same people (Gainax made both NGE and TTGL after all), it can be said to be Gainax going "No, no, no...you guys are as bad as those guys who thought Watchmen was good because of the sex and violence, here, have a show where we point out what we *do* in fact mean."

Sort of how Kurt Busiek has spent the last 15 years or so trying to undo the damage of the 90's in his comics.

I guess I'm different then, because to me it doesn't matter if something was intentional or not in the same way that even if the writer intended one thing, but the audience read something else into it, what really matters is what the audience perceived. I've heard all the arguments, but just as with Abrams Trek and STV, none of the arguments actually improve the show.

Ahhh, you're a "Death of the Author"-fan. Yeah, I find myself often on the other side of things. I can appreciate what a creator is trying to do even though they're failing at it miserably. Sometimes it's not even their fault entirely (see Enterprise...). I mean, even though I find Starship Troopers to be a pretty bad movie doesn't mean I agree with all those people who think it was meant to be taken seriously, it's obviously a satire of war propaganda with the "heroes" being in the wrong the entire time.

And in doing so they succeeded at making the show bad.

Well, I found it bad for *other* reasons. I kind of *liked* the part you consider to be what made it bad.

I've heard that one, too, but again it doesn't matter. For one, my criticism of NGE doesn't equate with me wanting to wish it out of existence, it equates with me wanting it to be a better show, like I said in my review. For another, saying NGE influenced something else good doesn't make it good itself. And when it comes to Sky Crawlers, that movie was made specifically as a commentary on shows like NGE, so saying it was influenced by it isn't really saying all that much.

If Sky Crawlers was made specifically to comment on NGE, the the makers of SC kind of missed the point, since NGE was trying to say the same thing (they just failed). I remember the makers of Hardwired (the post-apocalyptic cyberpunky slasher movie) made their movie because they thought Robocop was meant seriously and wanted to make a satire of it. In spite of Robocop clearly being a blatant satire. In that case, they failed for the very same reason Sky Crawlers maybe succeeded (sometimes thinking you're doing something first results in quality, other times it fails spectacularly).

[CX]

Sky Crawlers wasn't a commentary on any specific show, but on the tendency of so much anime, including NGE, for the use of child warriors and stories and protagonists who are essentially interchangeable and repeat the same story over and over again. In that way it's also something of a troll against the people who actually like those shows.

Ahhh, you're a "Death of the Author"-fan. Yeah, I find myself often on the other side of things.

It's not so much that I'm a fan of it as I've learned some hard lessons myself in this regard, and I found this to be a valid criticism of my own writing which I've since applied to others.

[CX]

Outlaw Star
(26 episode series)

Yet another space western, this series has a lot in common with the likes of Cowboy Bebop and Firefly. In fact, as it came before Firefly, there are a few things I wouldn't be surprised Joss Whedon may have borrowed from Outlaw Star, such as the way the mysterious girl Melfina is introduced – huddled nude in a somewhat fetal position within a box-shaped cryo container. That being said, the resemblance is somewhat superficial, and this series takes itself much less seriously than either Firefly or Cowboy Bebop.

The series focuses on protagonist Gene Starwind, and his 11 year old genius business partner and friend, Jim Hawking. They run a business together on a backwater planet when they are basically hired into trouble by outlaw "Hot Ice" Hilda. Outlaws in this series are basically just mercenaries rather than criminals, the "outlaw" apparently just supposed to go toward reminding us that this is a space western since the way Gene dresses and his six-shooter-like gun apparently aren't enough. The thing about the Outlaw Star universe is that there isn't a lot of actual law enforcement due to humanity being somewhat spread out among the stars, rather than confined to just one system. This goes toward making the setting something like the frontier of the old west, or at least the fantasy many people have of it. So with limited law enforcement naturally come pirates to prey on the interstellar shipping. There are mercenary groups which will protect shipping lanes for a price, but these are different from the outlaws, who will do pretty much anything for a price. Gene is the kind of womanizer that everyone seems to think Captain Kirk is, and the business he and Jim are running isn't doing to well, in part because while he dreams of being an outlaw and cruising space in his own ship, he spends most of his money on booze and women.

Pirates actually form very powerful crime syndicates, and the helpful narrator (the voice of Jet Black as it turns out) explains to us that this is actually how the absurd notion of having large grappling arms on ships in order to engage in combat came about. Apparently in order to solve this problem they hire on some scientist types, including mad scientist Nguyen Khan to create the ultimate weapon for them – an advanced ship controlled by a bio-engineered android, which is the previously mentioned Melfina. Of course this XGP15A-II is also supposed to be the key to the mysterious "Galactic Leyline", which is what forms the basis of the background plot that holds the series together. Hilda is an outlaw who knows about all of this, and wants to prevent the pirates from getting a hold of the prototype ship and/or Melfina. Her ship ends up getting destroyed, but she is able to make her way to the same backwater planet Gene and Jim are on, and even manages to hire on the two as bodyguards while she gets her next move ready. Not to spoilt too much, but unfortunately Hilda, the not quite good, not quite bad, outlaw, ends up not making it, leaving the prototype ship and Melfina in Gene and Jim's care. They name it the Outlaw Star, give it a snazzy paint job, and fight their way out of the firs big fight with the pirates. But, as cool as the ship is and the fact Gene has finally gotten what he's always wanted, it turns out that it costs a lot of money to keep a ship running, let alone being able to put food on the table for themselves.

After the pilot plotline is done and until the final couple of episodes, the series becomes largely episodic as Gene and Jim try to find work so they can finish fixing up the Outlaw Star into top condition as well as keeping themselves fed. Along the way, the main plot of the Galactic Leyline serves as an excuse for the pirates to make attacks on them, as well as for the powerful alien Ctarl-Ctarl Empire to take an interest and make a few attacks of this own. This helps to add both drama and comedy, and also gives the perfect excuse to introduce a couple new crew members to the Outlaw Star. One is cat-girl Aisha Clanclan (who is one of the few I'd put aside the whole anti-furry thing for) of the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire, and the other is the deadly assassin "Twilight" Suzuka. And yes, Gene totally uses both his Kirk-like charm and fighting skill on both of them as a major part of the reason they end up joining the crew. Oh, and then there's the hot springs episode, which is definitely not to be missed if you like a good excuse for some fan service along with a healthy dose of perverted comedy. And speaking of fan service, did I mention that Melfina is basically the navigation computer of the ship and has to do her job in the buff? Yeah, it's kind of cool actually, because she jumps into the big tank that holds her fully clothed and somehow ends up nekkid when the tank comes up out of the floor with her inside of it. In any case, it's all the episodes are pretty fun, and lead up to both the main plotline involving finding the Galactic Leyline, as well as Gene being able to get his revenge on the MacDougall brothers, who are outlaws that were hired to kill his dad when he was still a child.

As for the characters, there are many, and most of them are fairly interesting. Gene and Jim naturally get the majority of the focus, though Jim falls somewhat by the wayside in order to develop Melfina's character a bit more. She is every bit as afraid and confused as one might expect her to be, basically being woken up and told she's just a machine who is programmed to find the Galactic Leyline, which could potentially bring doom to the entire galaxy. Of course they end up making her and Gene something of an item, but to be frank this could kind of get to me at times because he tended to be an asshole to her. One interesting difference from the norm though was that the Outlaw Star's computer, Gilliam II, is also a character all of his own, much in the same way Rommy was for Andromeda. He's something of the comedy relief along with Aisha Clan-clan, though while she tends to be a kind of silly funny, Gilliam is more of a dry, witty kind of funny, and he really adds to the cast of characters. There are quite a few others who could have used a bit more development but really didn't get it, though. Some of the pirates seemed like they could have been a bit more interesting, but instead ended up being just one-dimensional villains. The same could also be said for Professor Khan (*snicker*), as well as for assassin Suzuka, who tended to be a woman of few words. Hilda was probably one of the most interesting of all the characters (and it didn't hurt to be voiced by Major Kusanagi), but unfortunately she was killed almost right away. On the opposite end of the spectrum was Fred Luo, long time friend of Gene and stereotypical bad gay joke. He really only showed up from time to time to help Gene out, for a price, and to act like a stereotypical effeminate gay guy.

Overall, this was a very fun and interesting series to watch. It had a fairly good cast of characters and an interesting plotline that kept me hooked as I watched, along with some fun filler episodes along the way. The pacing was pretty good, and I never felt bored while I was watching this series. I would definitely recommend this series, especially if you liked Cowboy Bebop and/or Firefly. 9/10.

[Distracted]

Cool. Sounds like a keeper.

[CX]

Definitely; you should give it a watch.

[CX]

Angel Links
(13 episode)

This series is supposed to be a spin-off of Outlaw Star, but it doesn't really seem like it. They throw in a cameo appearance for Fred, the stereotypically gay guy, in the first episode and it features one of the big lizard aliens that showed up in Outlaw Star, but that's about all it has in common with Outlaw Star itself.

It follows the exploits of one of those mercenary security forces I mentioned in the Outlaw Star review. Basically they help to protect the shipping lanes from pirates for a fee. Well, I guess this series wants to be like Gene Roddenberry's revised idea of the Star Trek universe where there's no money, because this security company does its work for free, just because. So I guess either the company is endlessly rich in order to be able to maintain their ships and keep them in top fighting shape and to pay all of its employees, or everyone just does it all for free, for no reason. This of course directly contrasts Outlaw Star, which made a point of reminding us that owning a space ship would actually be very expensive. But then, this company was apparently inherited by a busty 16 year old girl who apparently is just supposed to be competent at running this company and commanding the flagship of the company which goes out and fights pirates for free. Just remember, she's 16, and hugely busty. And a lot of characters make really crude remarks about that, especially in light of the fact she has a penchant for wearing a tight, revealing outfit. Japan, bringing us under-aged fan service since 1946.

Really, though, this series seems much more interested in showing off than in any kind of actual story. Or at least nothing seemed readily apparent in the first couple of episodes, which is frankly all I cared to endure of this series. Most of the time is spent showing off the ship, using a lot of the same shots of the ship landing or taking off from the water on the planet it's based out of. The first couple of episodes consisted of Meifon Li, the busty jailbait protagonist, going out to help random people with her ship. It went from mind-numbingly boring to just bad. This is a horrible show and you shouldn't bother watching it. 0/10.