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The Irresponsible Captain Tylor
(26 episode series)

This series is basically one big parody of space operas, though in the same kind of light-hearted way that Galaxy Quest is a parody of Star Trek. More than acknowledging the many clichés inherent in the genre, it insists on calling all of them out, always to humorous effect.

What we have here is the very same basic set-up one might see in literally any space opera. We have Earth's fleet of ships, usually flying under the banner of some kind of federation, fighting a conflict of some kind with an alien enemy. In this case the enemy is shown as a worthy foe, with a lead antagonist who is simply an honorable soldier of an empire led by a sympathetic empress, a teen-aged girl with the mantel of responsibility forced upon her by the assassination of her royal parents. We have the "real" enemy manipulating the young empress in a power play. We have our heroes, a band of misfits with the odds against them, including their own devious and power hungry superiors. Actually, considering the effort that was actually put in to the set-up, this might not have been a bad series if played seriously .... just like every other space opera. Oh, it might have been one of the better ones that managed to stand out, but I feel that this series true strength is in the fact that it rakes everything you would expect from a space opera and starts to play it straight, only to turn everything completely on its head.

For instance, we take our main protagonist, Justy Ueki Tylor, who for all appearances is a moron. He's the exact opposite of what is expected of a good soldier, let alone a good captain. He's impossible to upset or get down, even when members of his own crew try to kill him or his own superiors try to get his ship destroyed by sending it on impossible missions. His main strength seem to be dumb luck, though there are moments that he shows at least a certain kind of intelligence, even if otherwise he seems oblivious to anything going on around him. It's just enough to make one wonder at times if he really is just lucky, or if he ever actually plans anything out. In fact, this is lampshaded by other characters all the time.

As for the crew of the Soyokaze, an old, decrepit, run-down destroyer no one wants to be on, they are somewhat more typical of the cast of characters on most other space operas. There are the professional warriors and the bad-ass marines who make their own rules. Except to an extent they all pretty much suck compared to the rest of the fleet, making their assignment to Soyokaze more fitting than they would like to admit. Later, after they get over their depression and that whole trying to kill each other and the captain thing, this becomes a source of pride for them, and a way to kind of stick it to the rest of the fleet, which basically represents the typical space opera.

The "plot" of the series is almost exactly as one would expect from a space opera, with an ongoing war between the protagonists' United Planets Space Force against the Holy Raalgon Empire. They have battles, and we do see some characters we never really know die, but that's about where the "typical" aspect of the plot ends. Because really, nothing makes much actual sense. Aside from Tylor and his crew constantly escaping by pure luck in every absurd situation they find themselves in, even the war itself doesn't make much sense in light of the relationship developed between Raalgon Empress Azalyn and Captain Dom. Azalyn in particular doesn't really live up the supposed barbaric reputation of the Raalgan, even if most of her subordinates do. Later on, they actually manage to take a trip to Earth themselves and saw that humans weren't really the horrible enemy they imagined. This after a battle that both sides "won" by simply not firing on one another, making it pretty clear that neither side really wanted to fight each other all that badly.

But again, this pretty much just illustrates the purposeful ridiculousness of the series. If anything, the above is calling out the same kind of illogical plotlines that can develop in serious series. But Captain Tylor is not a serious series. If anything, I would categorize it as a comedy with some "drama relief" because when there is a dramatic moment involving a character death or say the capture and brainwashing of a main character, this is pretty much in leading up to a punch-line of some kind.

Naturally, the series calls out the obvious clichés like all the fan service, a possible relationship between the male captain and his female first officer, and the captain getting sexual offers from practically every woman he comes across, except the one he really wants, naturally. Actually that last on in particular is pretty good, because while Tylor can sweet talk even a female computer into letting him have what he wants, what he wants usually isn't actually sex, and he really doesn't ever have sex, at least that we can be sure of. So in a way, he's both like Captain Kirk's pop culture stereotype, and the exact opposite at the same time.

The series does start off a bit slow at first, even if it does quickly become apparent that this isn't a serious space opera thanks to Tylor, so you'll have to keep that in mind if you decide to give this series a watch. I would recommend that, by the way, and I'm rating this series an 8/10, mostly because of the aforementioned slow start and how at times things could get a bit repetitive. Otherwise, this series is well worth a watch by any sci-fi fan who doesn't take themselves too seriously. So if you liked Galaxy Quest, you'll probably like Captain Tylor.

The Irresponsible Captain Tylor
(10 episode OVA)

Whelp, they did it – they done managed to ruin this comedic franchise. The ending of the series proper was perfect for the series itself, with the crew rejecting assignment to a brand-spanking new "cool" ship and sticking with their old Soyokaze, literally tearing their way out of the scrap dump and ramming the shiny new ship out of space dock to take its place. While there was something of a sequel hook, in a lot of ways I wished they'd just left well enough alone.

So is the OVA bad? Well, not really. Actually saying that they screwed up the series would probably be unnecessarily harsh. More, I'm just disappointed. Much like Desert Punk, Burn-Up W and Burn-Up Excess, what started out as a light series, heavy on comedy, turned into something more serious. What makes the Captain Tylor OVA a bit different is that this change was more gradual and didn't involve a lot of character deaths. Instead, things just got more dramatic and less comedic. So basically this fun parody of typical space opera became a typical space opera, and thus effectively ruined the very fitting ending that the series proper had.

What frustrates me more, though, is that the OVA actually starts out with pretty much more of the same as far as the series proper had been. The shooting war between the United Planets Space Force and the Holy Raalgon Empire has ended and both sides are kind of taking things easy. Naturally something new pops up, the Raalgon come up with some new weapon and the Soyokaze has to save the day in some audaciously unconventional way.

But here already there are some indications of the more serious change in tone, just for the simple fact that Tylor actually has a plan, even if it isn't readily apparent what it is. For a while things seem normal, the show actually teasing us a bit about whether or not Tylor actually has a plan, but then things take a more serious turn. Dom beats the crap out of Tylor because he made Azalyn cry for a reason that is explained a bit later, and a bit later on he nearly destroys the Soyokaze and kills Tylor despite orders from Alan to let them go unharmed. Then he abruptly decides to stop and everything seems okay again.

There isn't really much of a mood swing though, mostly because while there is still comedy relief, the OVA never really goes back to the same light tone the series proper had. Instead, things slowly built, with seemingly unrelated stories focusing on different supporting characters and some new threat that has made itself known. And that's pretty much how the show slides into becoming a more typical space opera. There's a lot of political maneuvering going on, betrayals happening, and it all plays out like a show that's taking itself seriously. This made me feel uneasy, and left me feeling disappointed.

The OVA does end on a somewhat light note, and yet at the same time manages to end on a serious one thanks to the drama of the political plotline that got added along the way. On top of that the OVA leaves things hanging, with a much larger sequel hook than before. As this OVA came out in the mid-'90s, I'm not seeing that happening because it probably would have been done already. Actually I have mixed feelings about that, because I actually am somewhat interested in seeing how things turn out. What can I say, I do tend to like space operas, and the OVA is pretty much a typical space opera in a lot of ways.. On the other hand, the much more serious tone the OVA took on doesn't fit with the series, or the point of what Captain Tylor was all about, really, which was to be a parody. So in some ways, I'm actually glad that nothing further has been added in order to continue that trend. But then I'm annoyed things were left hanging ... well, you get the idea. Wink

In any case I'm afraid that I'm going to have to rank this lower than the series. 6/10.

Durarara!!
(26 episode series)

Brought to you by the same company who brought you Baccano!, this is pretty much the same type of show, only not quite as scattershot in its storytelling. The opening titles even helpfully name all of the show's many characters for you, and show you relevant scenes from previous episodes it's going to pick up one or more of its many storylines from. The only catch was, for me at least, it was easier to keep track of the storylines than the characters, although part of that may be because when I watched this, I was on some pretty serious pain medication to help me recover from some surgery. Of course in Baccano! I could never keep track of all the characters either.

The story mostly follows Mikado Ryūgamine, seemingly an average high school student from the country who's just moved to Ikebukuro in Tokyo, Japan in order to attend an academy one of his childhood friends is at, along with a female dullahan named Celty Sturluson, who's in Japan looking for some head-I mean, her head, which was stolen from her some 20 years ago. She now exists in Ikebukuro as an urban legend – the black, headless rider who rides a black motorcycle at night with no light and no sound, except when it brays like a horse. There's also a cluster-frak of other characters, including some of who are larger than life, like the guy who can toss vending machines around like toys and punch a guy out of his clothes. There's also a group of four otaku (including on yoai fan girl) who seem to have not much else to do but sit around in a riced out van all day.

I'm not going to lie – when I started watching this show, while I got all the meta and referential humor in it, I just wasn't really interested in Mikado and his friends, or in his fish out of water story. It wasn't until the show focused more on Celty that I got more interested, though to be fair, a lot of the characters also had something to like about them. And while there is a story, this show seems to mainly be about having fun. Not that that's a bad thing, exactly.

The story itself was about how basically everyone had some secret about them and how everything intertwined together, mostly due to the effort of an information broker. He ended up in possession of Celty's head, and he had convinced herself that she and other dullahans were actually the same as valkyries from Norse mythology, or to but it another way, like a grim reaper. He was convinced that the only way to make Celty's head wake up so he could see what happened was to manipulate the many different parties in Ikebukuro into conflict. So then along the way we learned things about the different characters and about the different groups involved, such as the dollars gang and the yellow scarves gang, that were twists on what was initially told to the audience about them. The narrative tended to set all of this up and reveal it in a very round-about way, which I have to admit kept things fairly interesting to watch, though this could also be a bit frustrating. Thankfully only one episode went out of its way to tell its story out of chronological order. Of course a side-effect of having so much going on is that, like so many other anime, there was a wealth of expositionary narration just to explain everything to the audience. This was somewhat offset by making the narration from the limited perspective of some of the different characters, but I've never been a huge fan of narration.

As for the characters, they and the large amount of humor are pretty much what make this series. There are way too many characters for me to have any real hope of going into, so about the best I can tell you is that none of them were really bad in the sense that I wish they hadn't been in the series. There was a creepy woman who loved her brother in, you know, that way, and even a magnificent bastard who loved to manipulate everyone, nut no one I really hated. Actually most of them had a humorous side of them as part of the show basically just being about having fun with itself. Kind of like how Celty, essentially an invincible eldritch abomination, was afraid of some unusually aggressive motorcycle cops. Probably the only annoyance I got was from Mikado and the large-breasted high school girl he had a crush on, and how their little ... relationship was basically the same as every other socially awkward "romantic comedy" type thing you usually see in the moe crap that's been making up most of the anime coming out of Japan lately.

So while this was a fairly fun anime to watch in many ways, I wouldn't really count it among my favorites either. It's worth watching at least once, just for the fun of it, but I'm guessing only the more seasoned anime fans would like this one, because people who are new to anime probably wouldn't get a lot of the humor. 7/10.

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
(14 episode series)

And this is pretty much one of those shows that manages to both annoy and entertain me at the same time. That and be confusing as hell.

What I liked about this series is that its story was actually kind of interesting. It revolves entirely around an a-typical high school student, Haruhi Suzumiya, who apparently has the power to destroy and re-create the world. She is odd to say the least, and treats people like objects. She also seems to enjoy molesting people, or at least one person in particular. Still, I can't help but laugh at the idea that the world actually would revolve around such a self-centered individual. Then there's the other aspect of this series I like, which is the comedy. There is definitely plenty to laugh at, whether it was intentional or not. The antics of Mikuru Asahina in particular were both funny and annoying, although the whole moe-blob thing was intentional and even lampshaded early on. Her patheticness and cutesy little voice somehow managed to make me laugh and annoy the hell out of me at the same time, and that's something, I guess.

As for the story, as I mentioned, it was somewhat interesting. It wasn't hugely interesting, but it was interesting. I wasn't really interested by the thought exercise that revolved around Haruhi and her mysterious capabilities so much as what was going on as a result of it. I guess I just found the strangeness of it all to be appealing.

Then there were the characters. Kyon, the narrator, was pretty effective as someone the audience could relate to. He was pretty much an everyman, though he probably took all the weirdness that was going on around him and the expository explanation that was given to him by all the other members of Haruhi's SOS Brigade a lot more in stride then most people probably would. He also seems to be something of a ladies man, because it seems like every female member of the SOS Brigade seems to be attracted to him on some level, and the feeling seems to be mutual. I mean, he even seems to have something for the emotionless robot girl, Yuki, and right back at him, I guess. His attraction to Mikuru is kind of the obvious 'ship, being as she's the designated Ms. Fanservice and all. Hell, even the only other male character in the SOS Brigade, Itsuki, seems like he has a thing for Kyon. Then there's Haruhi herself, who also has a thing from him, although he doesn't seem to make up his mind about her until the last episode in a moment I'm sure everyone was supposed to think was cute. I just laughed, personally, the cliché of it all. I will say, though, that Haruhi really wasn't all that interesting herself in my opinion. Her appeal was mainly in her eccentricity. She actually seems like someone who could use some psychological help, but luckily she's a funny kind of crazy instead of a scary kind of crazy. Except of course that she can apparently destroy the world.

That does beg the question, though, why don't they just kill her? I know that she's not visibly a threat, and while she's amoral and likes to treat the moe-blob like she's a doll, it wouldn't really be the most humane thing to kill her, but it would be the pragmatic thing to do if she's really such a threat to humanity. Of course, this is a comedy, and I wasn't supposed to think of that, but I really am a horrible person. Wink

I guess this was an okay series, and while it's not a favorite by any means, it was okay to watch. Mostly it's just fluff with a bit of philosophizing and plenty of comedy. The series was apparently broadcast out of chronological order just to make things a bit more confusing I guess, and that's the order I watched it in. I know there's some argument among fans about whether it's better to show in broadcast order or chronological order, so if you watch this you'll pretty much have to decide for yourself. Either way there are guides online you can look up to help you watch it in whichever order you decide to. I think the main argument for watching it in broadcast order is that it presents everything the way the people who made it intended to have the information in it revealed. Things might make more sense in chronological order, though, so it's up to you which argument is better. 7/10.

Murder Princess
(6 episode OVA)

There isn't a whole lot to say about this OVA, I'm afraid. It's kind of fun, but at the same time, there's no getting by the fact that it's pretty much just a typical medieval hack n' slash anime. There is a bit of a twist in that it's made abundantly clear that this is actually a post-apocalyptic setting, with humanity having reclaimed civilization only at the level of Western Europe's Middle Ages. So while there are knights and kings and the like, there are also scientists, androids, and cyborgs.

The plot is still fairly typical, though. Naturally there's some heavy-handed message about how humanity should just die already, since it's just in our nature to be destructive and fight each other, as explained by the big bad as to why he wants to end it all. Of course, one of the characters who ends up sacrificing themselves in the name of saving the world gives the optimistic view that maybe humanity will "get it right this time", not that it has a second chance. The end of the series doesn't really make it look like there's much hope of that, as it ends with warfare and the Murder Princess earning that name. Really this is a case of forgetting the message in favor of making the title character a badass, and I can't say that I much care in this case, probably because I never really took this OVA seriously.

The greatest strength of this OVA was that it was hard at times to tell if it was trying to be serious. At times it did, but at others it was like the OVA was playing up its own absurdness. That's the aspect of it I liked. Then again, even if this wasn't the case and the OVA was trying to be entirely serious, I still had fun laughing at the absurdity of everything. And by that I don't just mean the two main characters switching bodies, I mean everything from the insane hack 'n slash combat to the monocle-wearing scientist villain, not to mention the two cutesy little killer robot girls. The one with the meek little voice and the machine gun arm was particularly funny. Monica Rial also fits well as the voice of the title princess, though I have to admit part of that is the fact she's playing another ambiguously lesbian character, which she's done before.

Which does bring me to another thing I liked about the OVA – the growth of the relationship between Princess Alita and Falis, who have actually switched bodies. It is a little ambiguous as to whether they have romantic feelings for each other, but that's the way I interpreted it. The nice thing here is that it wasn't played up too much while actually being a bit sweet. At least I thought so. Of course there's the weirdness of them being in each others' bodies, so if they do it with each other, they'd actually be doing it with themselves, really. I'm sure that'd still be fetish fuel for some, though. Wink

In any case, the fun I derived from this OVA was mainly that I could just watch and laugh at its over the top nature. It has weird creatures and cute little robot girls fighting with each other or for or against a hot action girl, high pressure blood splatter, and pretty much everything that's fun to make fun of about anime, like it or hate it. That being said, this isn't really what I'd consider a good show, it just isn't really a bad one. It's worth watching once. 6/10.

Neon Genesis Evangelion
(26 episode series)

I'm sure some people reading this review are going to be upset, because frankly, I didn't particularly like this series. Mostly it suffers from "too fraking long and drawn out" syndrome, but there's also the fact that there isn't really a single character who doesn't have some form of mental or emotional malfunction, and there's so much whining that I've pretty much decided to call this "Emo-gelion."

Now let's get something straight up front – I do like it when a work goes into some depth to explain things, to set them up, or to give me a sense of mystery. Evangelion does do this, and I liked those parts of it. The mystery about what exactly all the angels were trying to get at inside NERV headquarters is eventually revealed, leading to more mysteries about what exactly Lilith is and what will really happen if an angel gets there, as well as why it's being kept secret. After all, the characters are always complaining about their budget being too small for them to effectively protect this mysterious creature/thing/whatever, and how the world is going to end if an angel ever touches it, so why not just explain this to the bean-counters so they can get more money to do their jobs? Instead, everything is kept secret, even from most of the people working at NERV, including Misato Katsuragi, who is a major and the operations director of NERV. In a way, though, that makes things a little more interesting, because the nature and origin of the Eva units is slowly revealed to us, as well as just what "second impact" is, and why the world seems to be a lot warmer than what it is. There is a bit of a disconnect, though, in that while it's said that basically half of humanity has been wiped out and the above-ground city appears to be in ruins, there seem to be no shortage of people that we see, anyway, and nothing ever seems to disrupt or change the "normal high school" we see various characters attending.

Which bring me to my next area of discussion, the characters. Now most of them might have been somewhat interesting just because they had some rather complex backgrounds, and this usually makes for some complex characters. For instance it was somewhat interesting to learn that Gendo had changed his last name upon marrying rather than following the tradition of having the wife change her family name. Even though Gendo is a complete bastard, it still says something about his character and gives some indication about hoe he felt about his wife, which also goes to explain something about his relationship with Rei Ayanami. Well, sort of. Anyway, the real problem here is just the shear amount of characters who are completely messed up. I like ensemble casts, and this is one, and the series does try to pay each of them some service, but there's just too much malfunction. In the end, that's all that I really got out of this series. Finding out that Rei acts like a robot because she's basically a genetically engineered clone isn't much of a revelation, and to be frank I saw that one coming even without spoilers. Finding out Asuka is a bitch because she had a messed up childhood and a horrible mother doesn't really make her any more sympathetic. Finding out Misato is a slut because she had bad parents didn't really do a whole lot either. The fact that there is just so much of stuff like that kind of cheapens what it might otherwise do for a character. Misato was a somewhat interesting character, even if she was somewhat stereotypical and accounts for a lot of the fan service. The thing is, by the time the series gets to her background, I really wasn't in a mindset to much care anymore, because the series had already gone into so much with so many other characters. Hell, Asuka might have been a bit more sympathetic even if she'd been the only completely messed up one, though she also would've had to cut back on the whining. Then there's Shinji, who is pretty much just completely pathetic. He whines a lot, seems to have no will to stand up for himself, and when he finally gets a bit of development and starts to tell people off, he ends up going right back to being a whiny loser. There were even some indications that Shinji might swing for both teams at one point, but by then I just didn't care and could pretty much only laugh at it.

Actually, I have to admit that I was somewhat surprised at how character-oriented this series was. I was pretty much under the impression that this was just another giant mecha series, but while in some ways the series did revolve around the mecha, in others it really didn't. Which, ironically enough, makes it like a lot of other mecha series that I've seen, though to be fair they were probably influenced by Evangelion. There were plenty of aspects of this series I liked, which I described above in a bit more detail. I liked the build up of mystery, I liked the ensemble cast vibe, and I liked how complex the characters were, even though this turned out to be something of a double-edged sword.

Which brings me to the main reason I could barely stand to watch this series – the constant whining. I'm already pretty biased against anything that uses internal monologue. To me, having the character mentally explain everything to the audience is a cheat, because part of the fun of a good show is trying to guess what a character is thinking and/or feeling. That actually made Gendo somewhat interesting because he never really had any internal monologue to conveniently explain everything for us. Everyone else, though, had tons of it, especially the children. Whether it was to whine in voice only while we watched them curl into the fetal position, or to enter a strange mental world, pretty much all of it was purely exposition and it all really got on my nerves, in no small part just from the shear fact that 90% of it was to whine about something. Yes, I know that the creator of this series was off his meds and depressed at one point and he put a lot of that experience into making this series, but to be frank he went overboard with it. It would have been a lot better had only a few characters been messed up/depressed instead of basically everyone, but that isn't all. Shinji in particularly is a pathetic loser and I lost all sympathy for him because of it. Characters can be sympathetic because of something messed up happening to them, and Shinji does have a bastard father who basically robbed him of a childhood, but my god the whining. Not only did it seem somewhat disproportionate, but to be frank, I really didn't need to hear all that, and all the time given to have him whine using internal monologue was ridiculous. And making him a complete push-over didn't make things any better. I mean, it could have, maybe, if there had been some development from that point that actually stayed with him, but he pretty much was just always the whiney push-over and nothing else. Another way this could have been better would have been if Shinji had actually interacted with any of the other characters who could have maybe helped him to get over some of the issues he had, even if it was kind of in a messed up way, like they almost seemed to be doing with Misato but never really went anywhere with it. In any case, all the time given to have the characters whine to themselves is what killed my enjoyment of the series. There actually were times I shouted, "do something!" at the screen, and I got more than a few laughs from the rest of the people watching this with me.

Then there are the other aspects of this series that didn't make a lot of sense to me. Like why were children needed to pilot these giant mecha? I mean, they very briefly mentioned an excuse at one point, but I never really felt that it was explained. How is it that the mechas themselves were able to combat the invading alien "angels" when no conventional weapons could touch them? I get that it had some technological reason, but again, I never felt this was explained very well, so all we really got were giant monsters beating each other up, played entirely straight. Occasionally they used guns, too, and I have to admit that this is just an area in general I've never gotten the whole mecha design, because to me any guns should be built into the machines rather than just making them giant guns they can use. In this instance it makes a little less sense because we watched all kinds of conventional military attacks being thrown at these angels by the time NERV steps in, and they're shooting what amounts to conventional weaponry at them. The big laser gun was about the only thing that made much sense as a separate weapon that might do something to these extremely hard to beat invaders, though making it a giant sniper rifle made me laugh a little. Then there's the cause of all their problems, Lilith. It is apparently what touched down in Antarctica and caused "Second Impact" (on another note, was there a "First Impact?") and what is drawing all these alien "angels" to it. If they touch it, it is said all life on Earth will be destroyed. How and why? What is the nature of this threat? If they just shot it into space and away from the planet, would all life on Earth still be destroyed? Would shooting it into the Sun eliminate this threat? If not, why not do either of those and save everyone the trouble? You could still make an interesting show out of that, after all that's basically what Argento Soma was about, except the only reason all life on Earth was going to end had to do with the size of an approaching "angel" and not for any mystical, quasi-religious reason.

Oh, and what was the deal with Pen-Pen? I mean, they mentioned he was a genetic experiment of some kind, and I realize he was basically only there for comedy relief, but did they ever mention what the reason for his creation was or why Misato was able to adopt him?

Which, I have to say, the comedy relief really helped keep this series watchable, and I will say that I think it was fairly well balanced. The show was depressing enough as it is, but the comedy relief made it so that it wasn't completely depressing, you know, like the Battlestar Galactica reboot, which is how this series easily could have been with all the depression that was being focused on as it was. It was also nice that they didn't go completely overboard with the comedy relief, much like the recent in name only reboot of Star Trek, or so many examples of it I've seen in other animes.

So to be fair, Evangelion does have many strong points which I hope I covered. The problems I have with it are the overwhelming negative aspects which I also described. You also might notice I haven't mentioned the original series' ending up to this point either. While I'm going to be reviewing The End of Evangelion separately, I'm hoping that it at least does a better job than the last couple of episodes of the series, which made no sense at all, and frankly didn't even fit with the rest of the series aside from just the general weirdness factor. The only other thing I'll really say is that if the series hadn't wasted so much time with the whining exposition, and the flashback clip episode, they might have had a bit more time to give it a better ending. Having some budget left over to animate it probably would have helped, too, but that's another matter.

I could see why this anime is liked by so many anime fans; I just don't share their feelings for it. I will say that I am somewhat interested in the storyline, to the point that I want to see The End of Evangelion and that I'm somewhat interested in seeing if the Rebuild of Evangelion movies are any better at telling it. But there were still a lot of times that almost made me want to stop watching, so much so that only the fact I was providing the speakers for my local anime club to watch this kept me there. That and the fact I had some friends there riffing it with me helped. I don't want to insult anyone who's a fan of this series, and please don’t be if you are, but I can't rate this series very high. I just wouldn't recommend this for someone who hasn't seen it unless they're just curious to see what the big deal is, and this comes with ample warning of the boring depression aspect of it. 6/10.

There's not really a reason to argue about liking or disliking NGE at this point since it has been done a million times over. Especially since it seems that the main reason you didn't like it is because you rejected the mood in it, which shouldn't be a problem to anyone. It is however hard to make a show about broken people without it being depressing.

I will however adress the little things that didn't make sense to you since they were apparently important enough for you to include them in the review. The thing is, most of them where explained in the show and if you had liked it more you would've probably find the explanations.

In the case of Shinji and Asuka, they could pilot Evas because the souls of their mothers were in them. That is hinted upon since the beginning and explained either in the last episodes or in EoE. Rei has the soul of Lilith so that might be the reason she can pilot her unit, although I don't remember if that was fully explained. Of course if we don't consider the plot, the reason is the same as with all the other mecha series that have teenage pilots.

The reason why Evas can defeat Angels is because they also have the AT fields which they use to neutralize the AT field of the Angel. This is seen in the second episode and later explained in more detail. The reason why the positron cannon worked is because it was simply powerful enough to breach the AT field unlike any conventional weaponry except nukes.

What caused the second impact was an experiment on the First Angel, Adam. The truth behind the Second Impact was a big part of the plot in Episodes 12 and 21.

About the hows and whys of Angels and their goals, a bit is explained in episode 24, some bits in the EoE and complementary material. However it never really troubled or mattered to me and it doesn't seem it mattered to Anno either, because they were just plot devices anyway. You can look at it this way - we never got the explanations about the Monolith in Kubrick's 2001 either. It was there, it did its role for the narrative but didn't have much of a meaning beyond what was shown or implied. That being said, the reason why Lilith wasn't shot into space is revealed in the EoE, not that NERV has the technological capability to do that in the series.

There's always at least one person at each forum I post my reviews at that takes exception to me not liking NGE. Rolling Eyes

I hate to break it to you, but it's no 2001, or anything else by Kubrick. Don't get me wrong, it tries to be deep, but when you get into it, which others have done in a lot more depth than I have, it just doesn't hold up, mostly because it hangs itself on a philosophy that doesn't make any logical sense. Watch JesuOtaku's review of it - she goes into it in a lot more depth than I care to.

Yes, I know about the Evas somehow being powered by the souls of their mothers, but I'm saying that doesn't make much sense and that it's basically an excuse to have children act as soldiers. Yes, I know this is supposed to be dramatic, but I'm saying that this didn't do it for me. Why? Because of the number one reason I don't like this show, which I made a pretty big deal of in my review: the whining. Some people have made the argument that this makes the show more "realistic," but I argue that any realism is offset by the annoyance generated from it.

As for Second Impact, yes, I know what caused it, and in fact I mention it in the sixth paragraph of my review, followed by a question about First Impact.

So you know what, I didn't like NGE, and since I'm reviewing pretty much every anime I've watched, I wrote a review saying so. I don't particularly care if others have done reviews of it or not, either.

The End of Evangelion
(1997 movie)

Right up front here I'm going to warn you that this will probably be one of the most spoiler heavy reviews I've written to this point, so if you don't want to be spoiled, just go right ahead and skip this review.

Now that that's out of the way, I have to admit that I really don't understand what this movie was about. I mean, I know it's an alternate ending to the series, and that they are essentially about the same thing. I get that while NERV and SEELE were both apparently working to destroy the attacking "angels" and keep them from reaching Lilith that they were apparently always planning to begin "Third Impact" all on their own, apparently. What I don't understand is why. It's obvious that the people speaking through the black monoliths in that weird conference room were keeping that bit of information to themselves, too, because while they told the Prime Minister that NERV was planning on ending the world in order to get the JSDF to attack it, they apparently left out the part that they were planning on doing the same thing. Actually the only reason they seemed to have it in for NERV, or more specifically Gendo, was because Gendo wanted to do it in a slightly different way so he could be reunited with his wife. And yet they had the JSDF kill everyone in sight. I don't understand that either, but since I was technically in the military at one point I know from experience that most of the people in it would probably pretty resistant to the idea of killing fleeing and defenseless people and children, let alone acting so nonchalantly about it. Of course why Gendo didn't better prepare NERV headquarters when he knew an assault was coming is another thing that doesn't make sense. There was one guard at the entrance and that warship they had in the big lake underground ended up only being used as a big thing for Asuka to throw. Then there's the fact that the SEELE people had all the EVA pilots marked for death when they apparently needed Unit 01 to initiate Third Impact.

Of course, maybe I missed something. I still don’t get why any of them wanted to end all life on Earth and turn every living creature into Tang to begin with. In fact I was pretty much under the impression that they were trying to prevent that. There was a lot going on, though, so maybe I just missed something. Which, while I appreciate complex stories and all, I just didn't understand this one.

I also don’t get the characters. Shinji is a whiny bitch and I never sympathized with his character. During this movie, he basically curled up into a ball after he'd finished jerking off over Asuka (which the wiki article almost makes sound like it he had no choice in the matter). Misato, being awesome even if personally she's as fucked up as the rest of them, saves his ass, and apparently also has some kind of messed up feelings for him. Why she'd want such a pathetic loser is beyond me, but then he's also still a child technically, and that's a little messed up anyway. But I'm getting off track here. What I was getting at is that he's such a pathetic loser in this movie that I really wanted Misato to pistol whip him, because while she was risking everything and ended up dying to save his ass, he was pretty much just being a whiny emo bitch, crying about how no one understood him and how he didn't really want to live. Then there's Asuka, who's just a bitch, period. And she also apparently wants to die, because at the end of the movie, when Shinji is reliving his weird dream of choking her to death, not only does she not resist, but when he can't do it she calls him pathetic. And then there's pretty much everyone else. In fact, the only people with the will to live seem to be the random supporting characters who have always been there to provide us with whatever technobabble needed to be expositioned to us for the episode. Of course, we did get to see that Gendo was pretty much the same kind of whiny emo his son was, he just apparently held it in better. In the end, though, pretty much the only characters I cared much about as characters were the supporting characters who actually wanted to live. Well, there was that awesome fight scene Asuka had against the "production line" EVAs, that was pretty cool. Especially with as hurt as she was she was able to move her disemboweled and unpowered Unit 02 on hate alone. I couldn't help but think a bit of Khan's death scene at the end of The Wrath of Khan as she reached up into the sky, constantly repeating, "I'll kill you."

As far as the actual end, I can't say I much understand that, either. It apparently had something to do with Shinji's acid trip after he was absorbed by that huge Lilith/Rei ... thing. (Vera!? Wink

) As in the original ending that showed us just how much it sucks when a show's budget runs out, Shinji apparently spontaneously decides to live and whatever the hell was going on ends, and Lilith/Rei literally falls to pieces. Then Shinji, Asuka, and Rei spontaneously turn from Tang back into people, conveniently with clothes. Asuka seems to have gotten the short end of the stick, though, as she apparently has still lost her eye, and apparently her split arm is still split and only being held together by a bandage wrap. Apparently the implication here is supposed to be that anyone can turn back from Tang if they want to, but I'm still left wondering just what it is I watched and don't really understand the vast majority of it.

Actually, I don't really understand why people liked this show all that much. Most of the characters aren’t really what I'd consider likable, which would require being sympathetic or at least being somewhat badass to offset a lack of more normal likability. I know some people probably do find them likable and/or badass, but the only main character I really liked all that much was Misato, even as messed up as she was. Pretty much all the other main characters just grated on me, Shinji most of all. Asuka was pretty much only cool during that short period she was kicking ass before she was impaled and eaten. Otherwise she was a prima donna and a bitch, when she wasn't busy being a whiny loser like Shinji. While the movie thankfully didn't have any extra time to get too boring, most of the series was. I guess there were the fight scenes, but really that isn't enough to carry a show any more than fan service can. I am somewhat hopeful that the movies will be a bit better, as the first one seemed to be somewhat of an improvement, but as for the original series and this alternate ending, I really didn't much care for it. The only thing The End of Evangelion has going for it is that it was better than the odd clip show that was the original ending of the series. 5/10.

Note: Since I've written this I've learned that apparently Seele and Gendo were adherents to s religion that all life on Earth was a mistake and had to be returned to primordial ooze or something like that. It doesn't improve the score any, though, especially since the show failed to convey this and only learned about it by reading about the show later on.

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.

thanks for the post !

No problem, glad you like my reviews. Cool

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.

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.

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. Wink

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.

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