Forum - View topicLost Universe (TV).
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MaxSouth
Posts: 1363 |
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Lost Universe (TV) Genres: adventure, comedy, drama, science fiction Themes: space Plot Summary: Kane Blueriver, a trouble contractor, is being hunted by a criminal syndicate named Nightmare because he pilots the Lost Ship Swordbreaker, the only hinderance to Nightmare's plan to spread the dark lord Dark Star throughout the galaxy. Kane, along with Millie, a girl who dreams to be the "best in the universe," and Canal, Swordbreaker's AI, vows to defeat Nightmare, who, besides having a sinister plan, killed Kane's grandmother many years ago. ---------------------------------- (I diligently browsed through all of the sixteen pages of forum search results on Lost Universe, and found no proper general thread about it, so lets make it here.) Concept/characters/story: 1) the anime has not just one, but few prominent elements coming from Star Wars (though, to be fair, some of them are, of course, did not originate from Star Wars either, they are much older than that), and other key elements come from elsewhere, too. So it is a mix of borrowed concepts. This is a weakness, but besides originality issue, is not necessary bad overall because result also depends on quality of execution; 2) first half of the anime is silly fun, and the second all of sudden becomes serious -- those parts do not fit each other well. If this anime, as it is claimed, took Slayers as model, authors had to arrange the story so both silly/comic adventure and serious staff would be spread evenly. But as it is we just have authors having story for only 13 episode anime, but they had to stuff it with another 13 filler episodes to use 26-episode quota -- typical for the time. If this anime would have been ordered in the latest years, it would only get 13 episodes; 3) if there is eternal fight between spoiler[light and darkness, and darkness has a lot of evil spaceships to support it, then why the light is not even a "light star", but just a spaceship, and does not have good spaceships to support it]? 4) there is no point for old main evil guy in spoiler[spreading "darkness", death] in the universe, no benefit to him. He has already achieved spoiler[power, nearly conquered universe]. Not a lot of sense behind what he is doing in this anime; 5) strange that the good spaceship spoiler[does not know what triggers awakening of evil dark star and allows main lad to go there to fight] near in the anime finale; 6) bad long-yellow-haired guy at first was presented as having pride, not killing main hero lad. But then shown to use tricks to wear the lad out so he would be easer to subdue or kill. This inconsistency is questionable; 7) silly plot with long-yellow-haired evil guy at certain point leaving battle scene instead of killing/taking over exhausted/passed out main hero lad; 8) yellow-hair girl like main hero and vise versa, and she has lived on the spaceship for at least eight months, but they did not have sex, at least casually? Not quite believable. Besides, even without yellow-hair girl, spaceship creates cute physical hologram, so it is not clear why the lad does not have sex with it either. Maybe he has serious medical condition that makes him impotent or he is not interested in women altogether? 9) by the end it turns out that during whole series authors were flirting with spoiler[incest] relations; 10) closer to the end of anime the main hero lad becomes worried about the safety of yellow-hair girl. But in prior episodes they both risked their lives together many times, and were perfectly fine with it. So this plot turn makes no sense; 11) bad guys in many early mostly do no even have weapons, which is ridiculous; 12) three main characters are super cute, loveable for the most of the time. Main lad, for a time, gets questionable near the end, though; 13) the ending is not typical for happy-go-lucky or stupid happy-end attitude; it is appreciated. Setting: 1) Most of "scientific" part of "sci-fi" genre here is nonsensical, but sometimes shows pays respect to physics and common sense, so it is not completely ridiculous; 2) people age in this anime, though there is no need for that in such an advanced civilization. Aging comes from pre-programmed number of division cycles initial cells have. With genetical engineering and counter-cancer measures of superb science, ageing should not exist; 3) in reality lasers do not utter sounds, and their beams do not have colour (since it would mean loss of energy; thus invisible infra-red spectre is used); 4) of course, there can not be sound in space, unlike how it is depicted in this anime; 5) robots are not invented in the most of this anime (if they were, whole story would not happen); 6) apparently, depicted advanced civilization devolved into using 3.5" floppy disks; 7) glass in almost unbreakable already currently, but not in the advances civilization of this anime; 8) somehow a person of advanced civilization knows language that no computer knows, which is ridiculous; 9) super computer can not figure out way to make good food? 10) too much talking in the cockpit, no need for that in an advanced spaceship; 11) no need for manual weapons handling that yellow-hair girl does either; 12) children, regular otherwise, are shown being able to jump to the height of a basket (basketball game), which is impossible; 13) children winning in basketball against experienced teens, which is basically impossible (even with the very best training by main hero lad). Visuals/animation/style: 1) as with basically all old anime, the level of details is low. However, this anime has one of the first cases where 3D graphics does not look horrible; 2) a lot of dirty colours, greenish-grays, dark-blues, and others from typical colour palette of old anime; 3) it is said that this anime is related to Slayers. However, only in visual style. Eyes of characters have angular design -- it looks outdated, but cute; 4) graphical design of main hero's eyes sometimes randomly changes in several episodes -- so quality of animation is not consistent; 5) eyes in profile have curvature in wrong direction -- thankfully, this bad habit of character design is thing of the past by now; 6) lower jaw of characters mostly does not move when they talk; Music/sound/actors: 1) some of typical old-anime goofy sounds; 2) one good sad melody theme (though never presented as strong as it could be). Other music is mostly unnoticeable; 3) all three main characters have really cute voices, plus police officer. Older evil guy's voice is also as great as ever. All mentioned voices are famous in the field, and it is a pleasure he hear actors play those roles. Summary: Not original, poorly thought-out, longer than necessary project. However, the ending is much better than expected, with some honesty and relative realism in how such story could have ended. Also, main characters are cute, especially girls. I hate useless, annoying and violent female characters, and there was not such thing here. Thus, this project deserves "Good" rating. Last edited by MaxSouth on Mon Apr 06, 2015 5:05 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Boomer
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Thanks for the review. I have considered checking this out for years. The first time I heard of this anime was after seeing a trailer for it on one of my old ADV volumes of Robotech. I found the visuals and general old-school look of the show to be quite captivating but never got around to watching it, and my appreciation of goofy space adventure stories has waned to the point where I am not sure that I actually want to invest the time to see the whole thing. In style, it appears similar to the Dirty Pair franchise and Nadesico. I am also reminded of the more recent Coyote Ragtime Show, which I am watching right now and really enjoying. Who knows, I may actually overcome my reluctance and jump into Lost Universe someday.
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MaxSouth
Posts: 1363 |
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As I found out through a lot of painful anime watching, main criteria are:
1) whether you get greatly annoyed by something in the show (depends on how serious the show pretends to be), 2) and whether you are bored to death about what is happening (or unhappening) there. This show was neither of those cases, so the description of "Good" rating that says "worth seeing" is exactly accurate. You can experience pleasure watching it. |
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Chiibi
 Posts: 4828 |
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Lol "Slayers in Space"
I've been a long time fan even though I haven't finished the series. I totally shipped Millie and Kane though so what Max South said made me happy for a change; also Max, this is a show targeted at KIDS; of course they can't have sex, you doofus. 
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Raftina
 Posts: 3282 |
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Why is your taste in romance so consistently terrible? The ship should obviously be Kane x Canal.
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Chiibi
Posts: 4828 |
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EXCUSE YOU!? I am so not letting that one slide. My taste is consistently awesome. Why is yours so consistently terrible, sir? 
I really hope you're joking too....otherwise you just stepped on a major landmine. You do not want to start anything with the shipping queen. *devious grin* I will chew you up and spit you out, my friend. Canal was a bitch and I didn't like her in the eps I saw. |
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