The story begins with Gene Starwind and his friend and business partner Jim Hawking. Jim is a child but don't think for a second that gene is Jim's father figure at all, Jim is the mature and responsible one who has to keep Gene in line. They run Starwind-Hawking Enterprises, a very loosely defined fix-it company, by which they mean they'll fix any problem you can pay them for. Gene mostly gets work as a bounty hunter, but he takes any job, especially if it's from a pretty girl, a fact which sets everything in motion. A pretty woman appraoches Gene to escort her back to her spaceship and he agrees. What Gene doesn't know is that she is Hilda the Outlaw and her ship is the XGP15A-II and Hilda needs an escort because she stole it and an android named Melfina from the Kei Pirates who want their stuff back and will kill her to get it. Unfortunately for Gene, despite his best efforts to protect Hilda, she is killed before she can explain anything. The good news is the spaceship has an AI named Gilliam, the bad news is both Gilliam and Melfina lack any memory of what exactly they are or why they were created and now the only person who knew is dead and Gene is now in possession of the two most powerful pieces of technology in the universe and he has no idea what to do with either of them except to travel around space in what he has dubbed the "Outlaw Star" and expand Starwind-Hawking Enterprises. Did I mention Gene has a phobia about space so this is the worst possible situation? And it gets worse, first he meets Aisha Clan-Clan of the Ctarl-Ctarl(a race of cat people who we learn can shapeshift into tigers and are also super strong in humanoid form) who wants to claim the spaceship for her empire, but fortunately isn't quite bright enough to actually succeed in stealing the ship.It doesn't help that Gilliam has imprinted Gene as the captain and refuses to permit anyone on board without captain's approval, so Aisha can't get on board until she gets accepted into the crew. Still, in typical feline fashion, she claims she succeeded in getting the ship and allows the others to stay on as crew, and anyone who shares their home with a cat totally gets what that's about, I know I do. Then there's Twilight Assassin Suzuka, who the crew first meets when Gene takes a job as bodyguard for Fred Luo, a flamboyant(read: super gay, particularly for Gene) and wealthy man who has access to the technology to maintain the Outlaw Star and trades it for favors, always hoping for something Gene won't give because he's in love with Melfina. Suzuka looks like a geisha samurai and wields a wooden sword and Fred is the first target she ever fails to kill and Gene is the only opponent who survives combat with her. They cross paths several times before Suzuka realizes the Kei Pirates are after him and she has her own score to settle with them and also joins the crew. So, with the crew assembled, we discover the truth is that the XGP15A-II was created by a govenment scientist named Nguyen(pronounced "Gwen") Khan in cooperation with the Kei Pirates, which means he can't just report the theft because it was never supposed to exist in the first place. So now we find out the truth, the ship was designed to find the Galactic Ley Line and Melfina is the navigator that can locate it. For most of the series, we're not sure what this means, but it's very important, enough that everyone is fighting over it. As Khan and the Kei Pirates fight over the fate of the universe, Gene and his crew are caught in the middle and end up going after the line just to see what the big deal is. For once I won't ruin the ending, but I highly recommend watching. It was released on DVD last year and advertised on Toonami. I leave you now with the ending theme, which is hauntingly beautiful, even more when you see the episode where Melfina sings it.
7th Moon
Friday, April 25, 2014
Outlaw Star
OMG! how did I forget to cover this one before? Okay, Outlaw Star was an awesome anime, though very underappreciated. It premiered on Toonami in the Golden Age of Dragon Ball Z and aired right after it. It was the anime that most inspired 7th Moon because it showed that sci-fi and fantasy could exist side by side. It is a universe where samurai, ninja, and taoist sorcerors exist alongside aliens, mutants and cyborgs, and nobody seems to think it's wierd at all. In fact, the story kind of revolves around an overlap between the magic and technology, which brigns us to my synopsis/review.
The story begins with Gene Starwind and his friend and business partner Jim Hawking. Jim is a child but don't think for a second that gene is Jim's father figure at all, Jim is the mature and responsible one who has to keep Gene in line. They run Starwind-Hawking Enterprises, a very loosely defined fix-it company, by which they mean they'll fix any problem you can pay them for. Gene mostly gets work as a bounty hunter, but he takes any job, especially if it's from a pretty girl, a fact which sets everything in motion. A pretty woman appraoches Gene to escort her back to her spaceship and he agrees. What Gene doesn't know is that she is Hilda the Outlaw and her ship is the XGP15A-II and Hilda needs an escort because she stole it and an android named Melfina from the Kei Pirates who want their stuff back and will kill her to get it. Unfortunately for Gene, despite his best efforts to protect Hilda, she is killed before she can explain anything. The good news is the spaceship has an AI named Gilliam, the bad news is both Gilliam and Melfina lack any memory of what exactly they are or why they were created and now the only person who knew is dead and Gene is now in possession of the two most powerful pieces of technology in the universe and he has no idea what to do with either of them except to travel around space in what he has dubbed the "Outlaw Star" and expand Starwind-Hawking Enterprises. Did I mention Gene has a phobia about space so this is the worst possible situation? And it gets worse, first he meets Aisha Clan-Clan of the Ctarl-Ctarl(a race of cat people who we learn can shapeshift into tigers and are also super strong in humanoid form) who wants to claim the spaceship for her empire, but fortunately isn't quite bright enough to actually succeed in stealing the ship.It doesn't help that Gilliam has imprinted Gene as the captain and refuses to permit anyone on board without captain's approval, so Aisha can't get on board until she gets accepted into the crew. Still, in typical feline fashion, she claims she succeeded in getting the ship and allows the others to stay on as crew, and anyone who shares their home with a cat totally gets what that's about, I know I do. Then there's Twilight Assassin Suzuka, who the crew first meets when Gene takes a job as bodyguard for Fred Luo, a flamboyant(read: super gay, particularly for Gene) and wealthy man who has access to the technology to maintain the Outlaw Star and trades it for favors, always hoping for something Gene won't give because he's in love with Melfina. Suzuka looks like a geisha samurai and wields a wooden sword and Fred is the first target she ever fails to kill and Gene is the only opponent who survives combat with her. They cross paths several times before Suzuka realizes the Kei Pirates are after him and she has her own score to settle with them and also joins the crew. So, with the crew assembled, we discover the truth is that the XGP15A-II was created by a govenment scientist named Nguyen(pronounced "Gwen") Khan in cooperation with the Kei Pirates, which means he can't just report the theft because it was never supposed to exist in the first place. So now we find out the truth, the ship was designed to find the Galactic Ley Line and Melfina is the navigator that can locate it. For most of the series, we're not sure what this means, but it's very important, enough that everyone is fighting over it. As Khan and the Kei Pirates fight over the fate of the universe, Gene and his crew are caught in the middle and end up going after the line just to see what the big deal is. For once I won't ruin the ending, but I highly recommend watching. It was released on DVD last year and advertised on Toonami. I leave you now with the ending theme, which is hauntingly beautiful, even more when you see the episode where Melfina sings it.
The story begins with Gene Starwind and his friend and business partner Jim Hawking. Jim is a child but don't think for a second that gene is Jim's father figure at all, Jim is the mature and responsible one who has to keep Gene in line. They run Starwind-Hawking Enterprises, a very loosely defined fix-it company, by which they mean they'll fix any problem you can pay them for. Gene mostly gets work as a bounty hunter, but he takes any job, especially if it's from a pretty girl, a fact which sets everything in motion. A pretty woman appraoches Gene to escort her back to her spaceship and he agrees. What Gene doesn't know is that she is Hilda the Outlaw and her ship is the XGP15A-II and Hilda needs an escort because she stole it and an android named Melfina from the Kei Pirates who want their stuff back and will kill her to get it. Unfortunately for Gene, despite his best efforts to protect Hilda, she is killed before she can explain anything. The good news is the spaceship has an AI named Gilliam, the bad news is both Gilliam and Melfina lack any memory of what exactly they are or why they were created and now the only person who knew is dead and Gene is now in possession of the two most powerful pieces of technology in the universe and he has no idea what to do with either of them except to travel around space in what he has dubbed the "Outlaw Star" and expand Starwind-Hawking Enterprises. Did I mention Gene has a phobia about space so this is the worst possible situation? And it gets worse, first he meets Aisha Clan-Clan of the Ctarl-Ctarl(a race of cat people who we learn can shapeshift into tigers and are also super strong in humanoid form) who wants to claim the spaceship for her empire, but fortunately isn't quite bright enough to actually succeed in stealing the ship.It doesn't help that Gilliam has imprinted Gene as the captain and refuses to permit anyone on board without captain's approval, so Aisha can't get on board until she gets accepted into the crew. Still, in typical feline fashion, she claims she succeeded in getting the ship and allows the others to stay on as crew, and anyone who shares their home with a cat totally gets what that's about, I know I do. Then there's Twilight Assassin Suzuka, who the crew first meets when Gene takes a job as bodyguard for Fred Luo, a flamboyant(read: super gay, particularly for Gene) and wealthy man who has access to the technology to maintain the Outlaw Star and trades it for favors, always hoping for something Gene won't give because he's in love with Melfina. Suzuka looks like a geisha samurai and wields a wooden sword and Fred is the first target she ever fails to kill and Gene is the only opponent who survives combat with her. They cross paths several times before Suzuka realizes the Kei Pirates are after him and she has her own score to settle with them and also joins the crew. So, with the crew assembled, we discover the truth is that the XGP15A-II was created by a govenment scientist named Nguyen(pronounced "Gwen") Khan in cooperation with the Kei Pirates, which means he can't just report the theft because it was never supposed to exist in the first place. So now we find out the truth, the ship was designed to find the Galactic Ley Line and Melfina is the navigator that can locate it. For most of the series, we're not sure what this means, but it's very important, enough that everyone is fighting over it. As Khan and the Kei Pirates fight over the fate of the universe, Gene and his crew are caught in the middle and end up going after the line just to see what the big deal is. For once I won't ruin the ending, but I highly recommend watching. It was released on DVD last year and advertised on Toonami. I leave you now with the ending theme, which is hauntingly beautiful, even more when you see the episode where Melfina sings it.
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