Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Outlaw Star
|
Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4 Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | ||
|---|---|---|---|
|
zrdb
|
|
||
|
Hot Springs Planet Tenrei-I remember the first time I saw this episode many years ago and I almost literally laughed my ass off. This is up in the anime comedy hall of fame along with Dragon Half and Elf Princess Rane as the funniest anime I've ever seen. I got my Anime Limited bluray set a couple of years ago and recently rewatched it-the series is just as good if not better than I remember it.
|
|||
Takkun4343
 Posts: 1499 Location: Englewood, Ohio |
|
||
|
And here I thought it was impossible to discuss Hot Springs Planet Tenrei without mentioning that Toonami skipped the episode during the show's weekday run.
|
|||
|
|||
|
AkumaChef
Posts: 821 |
|
||
|
I thought the review of the last few episodes was more or less spot-on, especially the part regarding how some of the Anten seven were so underdeveloped. I think it's a great example of how inconsistent Outlaw Star is. Compare the treatment the show gave Leilong/Shimi (ep. 15) or Hanmyo (ep. 20) with...well....any of the rest of their fellow assassins. Episodes 15 and 20 are among the most memorable of the entire show because of those characters, meanwhile the other five members are essentially forgettable.
That makes me surprised to read in the conclusion that Nicholas considered Trigun to be more memorable anime, as it suffers from a worse case of the same malady--members of the antagonist group having little to no backstory, depth of character, or screen time. Some of the Gung-Ho Guns only appeared for a few seconds before being vanquished, and if I remember correctly at least one appeared so briefly they didn't even get dialogue. I don't mean to turn this into a Outlaw Star vs. Trigun bashfest debate as I enjoy both shows, but I did find that particular comment to be a bit odd. |
|||
|
|||
Themaster20000
 Posts: 863 |
|
||
|
Episode 25 reminds me of the final dungeon in 90's JRPG. Everyone is just going through these fights with undeveloped villains. It really is bizare how they decide to tack on some motivation for Suzuki at that point. That would've had an impact if you revealed this mid show and they had a fight earlier.
|
|||
|
|||
tojikomori
 Posts: 71 Location: Minnesota |
|
||
|
This was a lot of fun to watch and read along with, and it finally got me to watch Outlaw Star, which has been on my list for decades. An old friend was obsessed with the soundtrack and sneaked the OP & EDs into a mix tape she gave me – and I do mean a cassette tape, and not ironically. It's been a long time. (But in a testament to that soundtrack's catchiness, I could still recall those songs, even before I started watching.)
Mostly agree with Nicholas' wrap-up: the show has a handful of high moments, and I love a lot of the design and background art throughout the series, but very few of its episodes really hit the mark for me. Emphasizing that point on design: the galactic leyline itself was the star of this finale. It's a tremendously wacky and grotesque contraption, and much more satisfying than the episodes' fights. I've always seen Outlaw Star compared to Cowboy Bebop, but I think it's closer in spirit and tone to something from the Leiji Matsumoto universe. Sure, OS and Cowboy Bebop both took inspiration from Matsumoto’s spaghetti-western-in-space idea, but Outlaw Star’s road story antics and its hyper-cosmopolitanism seem much closer to Matsumoto. I was reminded of the comparison again in this finale, with its Tochiro-like ensoulment of a ship's computer. |
|||
|
|||
|
lossthief
ANN Reviewer
 Posts: 1393 |
|
||
Trigun certainly has issues with its story pacing and the overall development of its villains, but it makes up for it by having a really well-realized central arc to Vash himself, and that has helped me think fondly of it even as the other issues come up on rewatch. OS doesn't really have anything like that to speak of, which would be fine if the episodic stuff was more memorable or consistent, but since it's not it left me with little to hold on to once the show was over. |
|||
|
|||
|
AkumaChef
Posts: 821 |
|
||
Thanks for the explanation, I get where you're coming from now. No doubt that Trigun developed Vash a lot more than any of the characters in OS. |
|||
|
|||
LinkTSwordmaster
 Posts: 381 Location: PA / USA |
|
||
|
I'm a little late to the party but I was able to go and watch an HD remaster of Outlaw Star a few years back and my adult self was shocked to see it hadn't aged so well since originally viewing it during its Toonami run when I was younger.
I love the characters and the style of everything to death (if I ever need to start crying on command I just need think of the ending songs to each episode, they're so beautiful with the art and everything....) but there's an exact and specific moment where the show feels like it drops the ball as soon as the initial plot with Hilda transporting Melfina starts to fade into the background. The show is magic in those initial moments though. I wanna say it's the episode #13 with the cactus that I full checked out and they completely lost me. The show sort of starts to recover a bit in the last arc but it feels rushed and the show ultimately never recovers the potential and magic it starts off with. Too often it feel like everyone is just running around aimlessly and nothing of particular importance is happening - no greater mystery is being solved. This here is my prime #1 series that I desire a modern remake of. Second place being The Big O. I'd argue Outlaw Star is a victim of the binge era of TV - it's better as a weekly episode you catch 5 minutes in than a near-20-something-episode continuous story. If they were to reboot it, pace it out proper and just steal every possible aesthetic they could from Cowboy Bebop, they were so close to having something amazing the first time around that a second chance at perfecting it would be amazing just to see the characters reunited again. In spite of it being one of the greatest wastes of high-quality potential I've seen, I've never been able stop thinking about it, even for a minute when anime is on my mind, even more than Bebop in some aspects. |
|||
|
|||
Wrangler
 Posts: 1346 |
|
||
|
Its a shame. The series looked like it was preparing for sequel series of another 25-ish episode. i for one like the long-form of story telling this series, Bebop and Trigun did. It's lost art, along with scifi, and balance between catering too much for fanservice and actually telling a story worth revisiting.
|
|||
|
|||
|
AkumaChef
Posts: 821 |
|
||
That was a huge disappointment to me too. And when we did get an in-universe spinoff--Angel Links--it ended up being beyond disappointing (at least in my opinion). I felt the same way about Bepob as well...there was just so much wasted potential there. Both Bepop and Outlaw Star were loaded with great characters for whom we only got to see a small glimpse of yet we learned nothing about their past and then at some point they just leave or the show concludes without any further exposition. |
|||
|
|||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group