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REVIEW: Wish Upon the Pleiades


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H. Guderian



Joined: 29 Jan 2014
Posts: 1255
PostPosted: Wed Sep 02, 2015 12:33 pm Reply with quote
Review pretty much nailed it.
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dtm42



Joined: 05 Feb 2008
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 02, 2015 12:36 pm Reply with quote
Ah, that reminds me, I have to go finish this series. I got about halfway in before putting it on hold but I always meant to watch the rest of it.
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Kimiko_0



Joined: 31 Aug 2008
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 02, 2015 12:36 pm Reply with quote
How is this series related to the earlier ONA? Sequel, or retelling, or ?
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dtm42



Joined: 05 Feb 2008
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 02, 2015 12:54 pm Reply with quote
^
I haven't finished the TV series, so take this with a grain of salt, but I believe it is a retelling of the OVA. From what I've heard there are some big differences in their respective endings.
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bassgs435



Joined: 21 Mar 2015
Posts: 263
PostPosted: Wed Sep 02, 2015 2:24 pm Reply with quote
Kimiko_0 wrote:
How is this series related to the earlier ONA? Sequel, or retelling, or ?

Basically the same way the Kyousougiga TV show is related to the Kyousougiga OVAs. Basically a retelling that uses the longer episode time and count to expand on the setting and characters
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WingKing



Joined: 27 Apr 2015
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 02, 2015 5:15 pm Reply with quote
Kimiko_0 wrote:
How is this series related to the earlier ONA? Sequel, or retelling, or ?


Adaptation expansion. The ONA basically feels like a prototype or pilot for the full-length TV series, which covers all the same plot points the ONA covers plus about ten times more (and changes a few details to fit the expanded story). The full series is so much more fully developed with its story and characters, not to mention so much better looking and sounding, that there really isn't any need to watch the ONA unless you're curious about it as a historical artifact.

I also liked the soundtrack for HnP, with its mix of quiet pianos and ambient, Tangerine Dream-like space music. Nothing to blow you away, but it added a lot to the atmosphere when you could actually hear it over the engine roars. I preferred the ending to the opening, and in fact I even imported the ED single.

Overall, I agree with Rebecca's review. I don't know if this will ever actually get a region 1 DVD release, but I liked it enough that I'd at least think about picking it up someday if it was cheap enough.
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TnKtRk



Joined: 17 Mar 2011
Posts: 183
PostPosted: Wed Sep 02, 2015 5:26 pm Reply with quote
WingKing wrote:
I don't know if this will ever actually get a region 1 DVD release, but I liked it enough that I'd at least think about picking it up someday if it was cheap enough.

seeing as Sentai licensed the show, a sub BD/DVD at minimum, is expected
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WingKing



Joined: 27 Apr 2015
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 02, 2015 6:22 pm Reply with quote
TnKtRk wrote:
seeing as Sentai licensed the show, a sub BD/DVD at minimum, is expected


True, but as a longtime magical girl fan I'm painfully aware of how small the genre's non-Japanese fanbase is, and I've been burned too many times in the past by the likes of Corrector Yui (which had its DVD releases aborted after only 18 episodes) and Mermaid Melody (which was licensed and even dubbed by ADV, and still never got a DVD release). So I never take the availability of any magical girl in R1 for granted anymore unless it is actually in stock and on sale as we speak.
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wastrel





PostPosted: Wed Sep 02, 2015 8:03 pm Reply with quote
WingKing wrote:
I also liked the soundtrack for HnP, with its mix of quiet pianos and ambient, Tangerine Dream-like space music. Nothing to blow you away, but it added a lot to the atmosphere when you could actually hear it over the engine roars. I preferred the ending to the opening, and in fact I even imported the ED single.

I also really liked the soundtrack, and also preferred the ED to the OP.

As for the review, I thought it was quite fair and accurate. As much as I usually completely disagree with ANN reviews for pretty much everything, I feel obligated to acknowledge the rare one like this that I find no problem with.
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Neko-sensei



Joined: 19 Jan 2007
Posts: 283
PostPosted: Wed Sep 02, 2015 8:07 pm Reply with quote
Quite agree with Rebecca's thoughts here, but I wanted to add that the main draw of the series for me was undoubtedly its attitude towards astronomy and space. Almost all anime, TV shows, and movies about space have the unfortunate effect of miniaturizing it: "oh, good, we've found the planet our target is on! We'll track her down in no time!" or, "We're stranded in interstellar space?! No worries, someone's bound to find us." But somehow, despite the literally magical velocities attained in Hōkago no Pleiades, the show consistently and wonderfully communicates that paradoxically pleasant sense of one's own tininess in the vastness of the cosmos that will be familiar to anyone who's ever actually paid attention in an astronomy class. My favorite shot by far is of the rings of Saturn, where the girls have gotten themselves lost. "It can't be that hard to find each other," they posit in a reference to the old sci-fi trope. But then our camera, starting in close-up, pulls out... and out... and out... and out, until the rings of Saturn fill our whole minds. We are shortly told that they are five Earths wide. I've never seen such an effective forcing of scale, and it's my suspicion that there are some serious space geeks among the production staff of this quite unusual anime.
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mangaka-chan



Joined: 06 Feb 2005
Posts: 283
PostPosted: Wed Sep 02, 2015 8:40 pm Reply with quote
I watched Houkago no Pleiades when it premiered and I have to say I really enjoyed the series, and agree with most of the reviewer's comments. There was enough comedy to lighten the mood and make you laugh without being ridiculous, and the characterization and relationship development was well written and made you care about the the characters.

I also have to echo the sentiment that the portray of space was very well done in this show. I've always been a science geek, and to see the planets, stars, and galaxies rendered in such a lovely manner put a big smile on my face, and really made me want to see a meteor shower for myself some day. The background music also worked very well within the context of the series, and I enjoyed both the OP and the ED.
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Kimiko_0



Joined: 31 Aug 2008
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Location: Leiden, NL, EU
PostPosted: Thu Sep 03, 2015 3:27 am Reply with quote
WingKing wrote:
Adaptation expansion. The ONA basically feels like a prototype or pilot for the full-length TV series, which covers all the same plot points the ONA covers plus about ten times more (and changes a few details to fit the expanded story). The full series is so much more fully developed with its story and characters, not to mention so much better looking and sounding, that there really isn't any need to watch the ONA unless you're curious about it as a historical artifact.

Thanks for the thorough explanation. That's exactly the info I was looking for Smile

What about the movie? Is that a sequel?
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dtm42



Joined: 05 Feb 2008
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 03, 2015 6:53 am Reply with quote
Kimiko_0 wrote:
What about the movie? Is that a sequel?


If you look at the encyclopedia entry for the movie you'll see that it was announced in 2013 but that no further information was ever given to us. The only info the franchise's official website has for the movie is two trailers that have animation that is suspiciously like that which we saw in the series. So it's possible that the project that was intended to be the movie was instead turned into the television series.
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Kimiko_0



Joined: 31 Aug 2008
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Location: Leiden, NL, EU
PostPosted: Thu Sep 03, 2015 3:04 pm Reply with quote
O-ho, I see. I hadn't added the dates together and thought the movie was something new announced after the TV series. Thanks for clearing that up Anime smile + sweatdrop
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TarsTarkas



Joined: 20 Dec 2007
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Location: Virginia, United States
PostPosted: Thu Sep 03, 2015 6:15 pm Reply with quote
Will have to take a look, but I have heard the ending was not believable.
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