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Basic plot introduction: a universe of cyborgs and starships with Flat Earth style "planetoids" depends on a central figure, the Queen of the Great Planet to radiate Galaxy Energy and bless all with peace and prosperity. When denied this due to the current Queen falling victim to old age, all manner of normal things: animals, plants, fossils, inanimate objects - are mutated into monsters of rather original design. The Princess Aurora is sent to the Great Planet to bring an end to this, and three brave cyborg warriors go with her, Kugo Jogo and Hakka. Thus begins our epic adventure to save not only the ... Earth, but the Galaxy.

Starzinger was renamed Spaceketeers for the United States' market, and this is the version that was overdubbed for the Yugoslav market and what I watched as a kid. Not much survived in my memory so I decided to watch the series. This review covers the original show (I have not seen Spaceketeers). It is one uneven show, with both strengths and weaknesses. But it certainly doesn't deserve to be wiped from existence, so I am perplexed by how it became as obscure as it is, considering it is a Leiji Matsumoto show.

Sure the weaknesses are easy to spot while the strengths only become apparent after a number of episodes, so if you know yourself to be impatient with anime and maybe value the smoothness of the animation over the work put into writing the characters and weaving the plot, this anime is probably not for you. The science is non-existent, scientific terms are thrown around and made to mean whatever, and generally any verisimilitude towards the natural world is missing. These are naive kids stories, imagine it as a story being told to a five-year-old. A definitive strength of the animation are the abstract landscapes of space, with vivid colours and strong strokes they give you impossible worlds. Otherwise the animation relies on repetition a lot, and styles of realism and caricatures will often clash. Characterisation can be very flat for most, only Kugo Aurora and select villains will be fleshed out, the rest will remain extremely simple.

However there are also strengths to Starzinger: the music and the drama. The funky tunes add a lot to a show built around action, however they too are used somewhat repetitively, to what you might or might not object. Finally, what I feel is the sole reason this anime might be worth watching is the character drama. Kugo is a hot-blooded warrior while Aurora is an idealist devoted to peace and universal well-being, and this conflict between our two main characters is what drives the plot for the first leg of it and remains to a lesser degree throughout. Always the difficult questions arise over what is the right thing to do, and these questions are underlined by personal experiences and grand tragedies. To build a kids show around moral dilemmas and tragic confrontations, how foreign! It is also worth noting that Starzinger bases itself on the Journey to the West, not unlike Dragon Ball or a number of other anime. And yes, on the topic of relationship dynamics, it is a reverse harem, with all three of our cyborg warriors pining for the Princess Aurora - I am told this is somewhat rare.

But I must tell you of Belamis. Rose of Versailles was a huge manga, and then it got its cult anime in 1979, after the conclusion of Starzinger. Belamis is a powerful rogue cyborg we encounter in episode 36. Kugo butts heads with them and they are rivals until episode 64. For episodes people are shocked to learn that this dangerous character driven by a passion for justice and a desire to prove ones mettle - is a woman. Big enemies to lovers and the obvious gender-nonconforming tag.

Also on the ending. In episode 64, our heroes have seemingly achieved what they had set out to do, but the abrupt news of new monsters is clumsily inserted at the end. Until episode 73 it is really Starzinger II, where things change a bit. Aurora and Kugo get upgrades, the Princess can now use Galaxy Energy and actually fight in battles, and Kugo gets some special circuitry that allows him a giant transformation, so at this point its an animated tokusatsu show. I found the actual ending satisfactory as the unspoken relations between the characters are finally stated and in a way resolved. For this final chapter of the story we get a clever bit of writing as the enemies scale in power as they exhibit more human traits - fighting alone cannot fix these problems, human interaction is necessary.

All in all, this is a show one watches for the character drama as the ideals of pacifism and the greater good are confronted with both a world that mutates everything into vicious monsters and the emotions that define our characters.

Do you know yourself? How can you tell? One thing is children remember very little of their first years, so if something important happened to you back then and nobody tells you about it later on, you could end up ignorant in your own affairs. This is one of those manga, with a family secret.
The art, the pacing, the plot all made it kind of work in what it was trying to do - showing you a heartwarming story that will maybe give you that bit of a push you lacked to get on your feet and get moving. Or did it? After the initial ... experience I at least felt a bit unsure about what I actually think of the story. But 7 chapters is quickly read anew, and my own opinion of the characters and their choices isn't all that interesting. What you need to know is that this is a story about chocolate, estranged family, and finding yourself. Being so short, if these three notions interest you, you can't really lose much by taking it up.

In the belief that any review, no matter how basic, is better than none at all, I will now direct the reader to my review of the Starzinger TV series. It is also very basic, but I don't see a better one on this site for Starzinger. The film, if it is to be called that at a length of 22 minutes, is simply the same as an episode of the series, just with better animation and the Toei waves at the beginning. So dramatic pacifism with space monsters. This time the monsters are something like dragons, and our warrior cyborgs are met with opposition ... from the people who are on a crusade to kill every last one of these monsters themselves as retribution for their fallen comrades. So again we have the moral quandary and the escalating tragedy that is not really seen in western kids shows.

Seems getting an English translation in the late 80s only made it harder to find this manga, as nobody bothered with a fan translation i could find, and the official publication by Viz only contains about 40% of the work. Anyway there are two things that characterise the manga Justy: good art and heavy melodrama. The art is good, no doubt about it, the artist has a good understanding of both the human anatomy and technical drawing, and knows how to exaggerate for dramatic effect while maintaining a high level of detail. However the story is obviously crafted in a way that maximises the melodrama ... and underlines the ridiculous levels of power held by the characters, primarily Justy. It is not a badly written story, just formulaic to a high degree. Also I have to wonder how much the story was altered by Viz, as the names were changed. And always the Japanese with their incest - I haven't seen this chestnut since reading Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: a found family scenario where a man and a woman pine for each other romantically but never pursue the romance just so we can ponder the tragedy of the situation, well that is dated. But yeah there is a lot of extreme esper action in space, i find value in Justy as an action adventure manga, and as I said the art is very good.

Seems the creators decided to aim for a different audience with the sequel - while the original had lots of body horror and yuri, Iczer-3 seems to be made for children aged about the same as the new heroine, which I figure to be 8 years. I just don't understand why they made that decision, as the show as is makes no sense. Why does our child heroine face off with a well designed dominatrix (Bigro) when said dominatrix isn't given a chance to play her role and is just flatly defeated? Even the psychology of the characters got a fair bit of attention, but ... the story is such that it doesn't matter. Nagisa is still naked in the giant robot, while her "partner" pilots it, just now this "partner" thing has zero sexual undertones, and good thing it doesn't given the young age of the new pilot, but why are all these elements there then? Other problems are the colossal starship with a total crew of five people, two of whom are non-essential staff. They also just fly around Earth with no real stated goals just to let the plot happen. All in all, the show had a good character designer, but not much of a story and no real understanding of what worked in the original. The animation is generally weak but shines at times during combat scenes. I don't know who I'd recommend this one tho as it doesn't really work for either kids or adults.

I don't really have anything to add as a review, the previous two reviewers summed up most things pretty well, just a couple of things. This is a kids show, but a Japanese one, meaning there is blood, there is death, and there is no "political correctness". I myself was surprised at how stunned I was to see these, so ingrained is the notion of the harmless inoffensive kids show in western society. Not that these are of such importance to the show, they are not, it simply is something the previous reviews didn't address. In the end, all you need to know is that ... this is a really good 80s real robot show with a versatile cast of well rounded characters who are on a dynamic adventure from start to finish. You might find it interesting to view the show as a commentary on power politics and corporate power in the late Cold War era, but you can just watch the show for the mecha adventure, it won't get you bogged down in highbrow politicking. And simply I must stress the overall quality of the show, the writing, the animation, the characters - chances are you will enjoy this show.

Is there really no review for this film? As I have seen it, I will write something, but calling it a review would be an overstatement. Plain and simple, this is a film with hardly any substance, no artistic message to speak of, a simple collection of clichés tied together in a tedious way. The animation is bland, automatised, simple linework and fields of flat colour between. If I felt particularly intellectual, I could probably find a connection between Japan's corporate feudalism and the soulless blandness of this film, but a few hours after finishing the film I hardly remember it, it is just that ... bland. So put this on a line of TVs being sold at a Christmas sale at some supermarket, as it is merely a symptom of the consumerism that defines most of what Christmas is to the wider public - I see no other use for it. Seriously, the original was bad enough at a duration under half an hour, this has basically the same plot and style and twice the duration - it is horribly padded for time.

TLDR: save yourself the 65 minutes you'd waste by watching this film, and have a nice day!

Performing classical music is stressful, and this makes a successful concert all the more satisfying. This is what we see in Gauche as he struggles to master his cello pieces, always facing harsh criticism from the conductor. There is a saying: if you want to learn something, teach it. Gauche is visited by animals while he spends his nights rehearsing at the water mill, and the ambiguity of these scene is the crux of this short puppet play. Is he dreaming? In any event, it shows emotional maturity on part of the creators how he first greets his visitors with fury and comes to appreciate ... their nighttime intrusions by degrees. As he helps these animals and gives them lessons, he himself progresses with his performing, until he is the one to give encore at the conclusion of the concert; even the conductor praises him. A simple heartwarming story meant for children, this work suffers a bit from poor production quality, but again, is it poor for 1963? The music is the best part of this feature, as is only natural given the theme. All in all, an enjoyable short film that doesn't have huge ambitions.

Few people have heard of Isabelle of Paris, and not without reason. In fact, I am convinced that if it was not for the cultic Rose of Versailles manga getting its just as cultic anime adaptation that same year, noone would have bothered making this show. But it was made and their inspiration is evident: the heroine of both shows is a woman stepping outside the confines of what is seen as proper behaviour by taking on a more active and vocal role in their own lives and public events, going as far as fighting with a sword etc. Both have a love interest who ... has been present since childhood. But the tone and structure of the two tragedies differ so much, only the location of Paris and the period of major turmoil termed a revolution is what stays the same.

The problem with Isabelle is firstly that they don't dwell on the story at large, but only move from point A to B and in this all characters are secondary to the plot; everybody merely reacts to events, the story is fragmented and lacks cohesion or a proper theme. It is also drawn poorly and animated in a bad way. When there's dancing, they skip frames but the wrong ones so the legs just teleport about weirdly. Even the title card wears the name Isabell [sic] where the two letters L are given in different typefaces. However the many action scenes can be entertaining; a good few feature a minor character named Karlov, a la Boris Karloff of old Hollywood monster movie fame. This is when it becomes clear that this is in fact the kind of cartoon where it is only natural that the antagonist has a clearly green face.

But where the show is strongest is melodramatic tragedy - dynamic and colourful still panes slowly moving across the screen as Chopin plays with great virtuosity! I do not joke, the still pane is an art, and Isabelle uses it well. But that is all. Our heroine is just a girl from Paris who survives all these turbulent and tragic events, without a proper story of her own. She isn't a great sword-wielding hero, nor a cunning spy, not even a rebellious youth who takes on the establishment or the patriarchy - other, also episodal characters more readily take on these roles. So in retrospect, Isabelle tried to tell the grand story of revolution and loss, but couldn't decide who's story to tell. And here we are with all these events that don't really make a story. But this is a short series - you can watch it before you watch Rose of Versailles, it will make you appreciate it more. Watching it after only made Isabelle look worse in comparison.

I ran across an OVA based on one of the shorts contained in this manga compendium, so I thought I might as well start with the manga, as it's not overly long. This was my first time reading Rumiko Takahashi, I certainly have heard of her more famous works but I've never thought to pick them up. This is a very silly collection of manga shorts, but also a few from the horror genre also. Question is do you enjoy romantic comedies and slapstick humor. Personally I can take it or leave it so my enjoyment of this manga was lukewarm. Certainly Takahashi knows how ... to use her characters, and these shorts are well made for what they are, but if you're not big on a romantic couple struggling to get past themselves and confess their true feelings, this will feel a bit repetitive and overly silly. Some aspects are recurring, and I'm led to believe serve as major elements in her later works that brought her fame: a comically strong heroine prone to outbursts of anger, her often inept and crude romantic partner who is also often prone to anger, mildly lewd appearances (spontaneous bikinis), and really silly plots involving aliens, time travel to historic Japan, folklore elements, and various school clubs that are so fondly represented in Japanese media. On just how silly these stories are: a space opera where both protagonist and antagonist are such comically strong women who make a habit of destroying their own space ships; a married couple who rejoice at the thought of having someone who so perfectly fights with them as they are in constant need of such an emotional outlet; a high school that is at war as the jocks and the nerds fight over possession of the stamp of the student council. The silliest is a series of shorts where secret agents fight against a secret organisation of manic litterers; it completely revolves around garbage and actually features the characters breaking the fourth wall. On the more troublesome side of thing, less often but still repeatedly the subjects of incest and a fondness for ones romantic partner as they appear in a prepubescent age due to time travel are brought up. I really didn't appreciate such light reading to feature such themes, but I guess there's just something inherently traditionalist and authoritarian about Japanese culture that predicates them to find satisfaction in the idea of incest for it's role in maintaining social order through aristocratic hierarchy. But I meander! It is but a silly little romantic comedy, you can take it or leave it; personally I could have done worse things with my time, but again it wasn't a very memorable experience.