Starship Operators

An example of how deceiving poster can be. What kind of admirer of the Golden Age of Science Fiction, especially Heinlein's juvenile science fiction novels, would suspect in an anime hiding behind a poster with kawaii girls a plot worthy of Robert himself? If you look at the poster you’d probably suspect that it’s another miserable harem in the space opera genre (which is certainly not) with swaying "oppai", lusciously slobbering pseudo-romance, giant humanoid mecha, extremely imbecile behavior and stupid motivation of characters, as well as close combat within line of sight (sic!) in outer space. However “Starship Operators” (I just wanted to write “Starship ... Troopers”), minus the kawaii girls, is genuine early Heinlein - here you also have space cadets - young geniuses who are growing from boys to ..., or rather, from girls to women, very believable political intrigues and realistic battles in space (perhaps, minus the latter, which turned out to be too "epic"). Battles here are not conducted by meaningless giant humanoid robots and not even in the line of sight, not to mention the crazy massive frontal assaults, but through tactics and maneuvers, radars and sensors, calculation and timing, with the study of the enemy's weaknesses, to each of which an individual approach is applied (it seems that the author of the original used real naval battles of the Second World War as inspiration) and, of course, luck - everything is like in Heinlein's stories, where the heroes prevail by the means of reason and calculation. It's really interesting to watch the battles here. However, even the actual matriarchy with kawaii girls is suspiciously reminiscent of the matriarchy of Free Traders from the "Citizen of the Galaxy" of "early Heinlein ", while "late Heinlein" even more so was a great admirer of matriarchy.

The plot here is without fillers and sagging - as it fascinates from the very beginning, from the moment when the ship was "seized" by cadets inspired by a small group of conspirators (through its ransom through a sponsor) in protest against the surrender of their home planet, and keeps in suspense throughout the journey of this team through battles, political intrigue and betrayal, attempts to find allies and simply a port in order to replenish supplies and repair the ship. The enemy acts not only by military means, but also through psychological and political manipulations, trying to undermine the morale and deprive the "pirates" of any outside support. The heroes, with a few exceptions, are not at all perfect, but not repulsive either - including the captain who panicked from time to time in battle, but who at the same time is a good and responsible administrator who forces himself to behave with dignity and uses his inherent caution to identify weaknesses in "constructions"of his brilliant executive officer; his beloved cold-blooded and manipulative politician girl, whose fears and real feelings only rarely give out through involuntary tears; a good man - the chief engineer, nevertheless committing stupidity (I suspect that in this scene the genre of "mecha" with its "humanoid giant robots" and "heroically" hysterical attacks is subtly ridiculed), apparently out of a desire to show off in front of Sinon (it’s worth notion that the enemies are shown to be quite humane - they were retreating and did not even want to shoot at the "heroic" engineers, having done so only when absolutely necessary). Even a cynical and sneaky TV show producer turns out to be capable of an heroic act at the end (however, hardly out of philanthropy). Basically, the characters are revealed qualitatively - through their actions rather than through words.

Political intrigues here do not cause irritation by absurdity, as well as heroes by being stereotypical. Perhaps there are no unequivocally positive and negative characters and "forces", but the ship's crew is written "nicely" enough to arouse the viewer's empathy. And, yes, some favorite heroes die, most often as a result of "heroism" (sometimes unreasonable) - there is no place for victories with hysterical screams of mentally retarded “heroes” that flooded modern anime. But there are no senseless "murders for the sake of murders" of characters, as well as stupid self-sacrifices (except for one, quite expected). Of the characters only Sinon sometimes causes irritation as she is too unnaturally ideal and ingenious - but for the virtual "embodiment of Amaterasu" it is perhaps forgivable ) So you certainly shouldn't judge this anime by the cover. I would even say that the cover is simply deceiving the viewer by mis-positioning Starship Operators. Those who admire serious, thoughtful anime with a good storyline, may be turned of by the cover, as it at first turned me of. For the admirers of "kawaii" and actual space opera genre like Star Wars, this anime simply might be a disappointment. This is for such incorrect positioning I will lower the score - after all, girls will be uninterested in the Starship Operators as well as those boys at which the positioning is aimed at, while the target audience may pass by deceived by such a poster. But, perhaps, there is no other reason to lower the assessment - 9 out of 10.

Ok, to start off, I would like to point out I am not fond of writing reviews, but I just felt like it for this one, mainly because I sat through whole show with only a few short breaks.


STORY:

When I first read description for this show, I thought to myself: "Just like Infinite Ryvius", and I was partially correct. But only partially. Story about young kids fighting whole kingdom on their own, being rejected again and again is nothing new, but it's the way story was told that made it enjoyable. It may not be the best story ever, but I find it to my ... liking.


ART:

Another show I noticed similarities with is one of my favorite shows "Crest of the stars". Now, what I expected from this show was something similar in terms of graphics and style. What I got pleasantly surprised me. From the first shots of Amaterasu to nicely done space battles, this show had it done really good. However, biggest flaw was when there were people on screen. As fan of GBA games, I couldn't help but notice how some characters act like they're from video games, moving only image, but no visible movement of arms, legs or anything else. It just felt funny :) Other than that, it was good.


SOUND:

Whereas I prefer a little "faster" music, I must admit, I was once again surprised how well music was composed into all the action and emotions. However, I did get slightly annoyed by music sometimes, when it was playing, and there was no need for music whatsoever. But, putting that aside, great soundtrack.


CHARACTER:

Well, I don't really know how to describe characters in this show. They are consistent, but than again, they are so hard to understand sometimes. Not that that's bad, but it's just silly. One moment a person is doing something one way, other moment that same person is doing the same thing completely different way without any explanation whatsoever. Where this show did shine was love/romance part. There is enough of that in this show for emotional ones, and still not too much for those of us who like to see some emotions and love, but not to get annoyed by those things.


ENJOYMENT:

Well, I did say I watched it with almost no pause at all. However, that doesn't mean I enjoyed in it as much as I wanted to see how it ends. It's a good show, quite enjoyable, with quite a few flaws here and there, but not a bad not nevertheless. If you like space drama, something where you get to see both emotions and action, but not too much of either, look no further, you will find both here. If you look for one or other, look somewhere else. This isn't a show for you.


So OVERALL:

Yeah, even though grades for this show vary in my opinion, I felt like a 6 would be fair. As I said before, this is clearly not for everyone. Some will find it boring, some will find it lacking action. I find it to be rather good while it lasts. And don't take it wrong, me giving 6 to a show is in no way telling this is a bad show. It just didn't have THAT something other shows had, that have greater marks in my book.

But, if you're asking yourself should I watch this or not, my answer would be simple. Give it a shot, you won't feel sorry for that.

I’m sure there are interesting and well-done strategy-focused and/or politics-focused SF series out there. This is not one of them. The soundtrack is pretty good. That’s… that’s about it. The art quality is cheap looks-nice-at-first-glance-and-only-first-glance. And then there are the boob and miniskirt uniforms, the few characters with rather ridiculous anime hair, and the lack of movement or expression outside of really bad mouth animations on most characters that make this look like a bunch of screencaps with moving lips. There’s some cute guys in it and at least one sweet romance? If you want to watch a really low-quality version of a strategy space ... navy game, that’s… about all the story you’re getting. Also no, the sweet romance is not the protagonist’s.

The first real dialogue we get is between an asshat captain(?) and the primary protagonist and it’s arguably sexual harassment and honestly it’s all downhill from there. Also the dub isn’t the worst I’ve ever seen but given the bad script and arguably shoddy animation, the dub acting is just… bad. And is frequently poorly synched up.

I liked this back when it was one of the few anime series I’d ever seen. It was shiny and neat and like a cool video game and the romances were nice. How times change. If you want good science fiction series with a focus on relationships interspersed with ship battles and/or politics focused, watch “Suisei no Gargantia”, “Macross Frontier”, or “Gankutsuou”. “Casshern Sins” is also a pretty good SF series with some fun battles to watch and a focus on philosophy (arguably).