hopeful_monster
Thousand Master
Said I'd get round to a review sooner or later, well here it is. Hadn’t heard much about this series before Other than it was good and it was a cross between ‘Lord of the Flies’ and ‘Hunt for Red October’, and it is. Good anyway, haven’t read ‘Hunt for Red October’, so can’t compare.
The basic plot places about 500 teenage students on a scrapped prototype wars ship with a living heart powering it. It follows Kouji Aiba, an average navigation student, as they have to fight various factions within the government, as well as various factions within the ship as well. While normally if you hear the words ‘average student’ in anime it means he controls the fate of the galaxy, or god in human form in this case it really means it. Average grades, no desire to fight (as he’d get the snot kicked out of him), and generally not the most assertive or charismatic of the characters. And since there are several dozen recurring characters there are lots to chose from it brings it Kouji’ averageness into greater prominence. While only 20 to 30 are really involved in the plot, many of the others are used to give an idea of what the pleb on the street (or should that be deck) is going through and how they cope with what is happening, (also it’s great fun playing ‘Where’s Wally’). All the characters are not static either, they all change as the series progress, from the captain to the guy who cleans the bog.
While there are the usual love dodecahedrons and comedic moments you find in anime there is a much darker tone than flows through the series than in most anime (but is not pitch black). It shows love as a hugely varied thing, with much darkness as well as light. It also brings up many comments on growing up, justice, inequality and number of other social issues with a mix of subtlety and in you face shock tactics that it keeps you guessing.
The animation is solid, but never makes you sit up a pay attention to it. Like wise the music is never mind blowing, but since I’m not the greatest fan of hip hop or techno, or whatever style music it is probably not the best judge. One thing of real note though is the fact that there are real extra’s on the R4 DVD’s. Not just a few ads and maybe a few production sketches, but translated audio drama's, Ryvius Illusion (Japanese web content from when the series was on TV I think), and AMVs.
Only major gripe about the series is the pacing, the first half is very action orientated, but with almost no explanation as to why anything is happening, then about ¾ of the way through almost all the questions and mysteries are given away in a recap episode. It’s almost as if they got so far then thought ‘Smeg, we haven’t said X, Y and Z. err sod subtlety weaving it plot lets just tell them’.
All in all it is very a good, realistic, gritty, maybe a bit sappy in places, but well worth watching. 8/10
The basic plot places about 500 teenage students on a scrapped prototype wars ship with a living heart powering it. It follows Kouji Aiba, an average navigation student, as they have to fight various factions within the government, as well as various factions within the ship as well. While normally if you hear the words ‘average student’ in anime it means he controls the fate of the galaxy, or god in human form in this case it really means it. Average grades, no desire to fight (as he’d get the snot kicked out of him), and generally not the most assertive or charismatic of the characters. And since there are several dozen recurring characters there are lots to chose from it brings it Kouji’ averageness into greater prominence. While only 20 to 30 are really involved in the plot, many of the others are used to give an idea of what the pleb on the street (or should that be deck) is going through and how they cope with what is happening, (also it’s great fun playing ‘Where’s Wally’). All the characters are not static either, they all change as the series progress, from the captain to the guy who cleans the bog.
While there are the usual love dodecahedrons and comedic moments you find in anime there is a much darker tone than flows through the series than in most anime (but is not pitch black). It shows love as a hugely varied thing, with much darkness as well as light. It also brings up many comments on growing up, justice, inequality and number of other social issues with a mix of subtlety and in you face shock tactics that it keeps you guessing.
The animation is solid, but never makes you sit up a pay attention to it. Like wise the music is never mind blowing, but since I’m not the greatest fan of hip hop or techno, or whatever style music it is probably not the best judge. One thing of real note though is the fact that there are real extra’s on the R4 DVD’s. Not just a few ads and maybe a few production sketches, but translated audio drama's, Ryvius Illusion (Japanese web content from when the series was on TV I think), and AMVs.
Only major gripe about the series is the pacing, the first half is very action orientated, but with almost no explanation as to why anything is happening, then about ¾ of the way through almost all the questions and mysteries are given away in a recap episode. It’s almost as if they got so far then thought ‘Smeg, we haven’t said X, Y and Z. err sod subtlety weaving it plot lets just tell them’.
All in all it is very a good, realistic, gritty, maybe a bit sappy in places, but well worth watching. 8/10
but because I felt something the whole way through. It might have been annoyance and frustration, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad to feel that way. It felt good being pissed off with the “bigwigsâ€