Lost Universe

Meet the reincarnations of Lina Inverse (if you dont know who that is, you are behind the times) and some of the crew from the good old days of slayers.

Lost universe is not related to slayers, that is, except for name similarities and personality parallels.

This show is a comical space adventure revolving around three characters who are mercenaries more or less. In the show they are called Contractors i believe, they go around taking jobs so they can feed themselves.

There isn't really a plot in the beginning but as you get into more, secrets are revealed and plot comes out. dont expect a ... wowing plot, this show is for entertainment and a good time.

The animation is very good, and the use of CGI mixed in is done very well. The style is very typical anime.

Unfortunately i have only seen the dub version, but the voices are actually well matched and they did a good job. Although Millie can get annoying at times.

The characters are all very likable, they will definitely grow on you and you get some depth out of them, but not a whole lot. The farther in you go, the more serious things get from tone to actually story, but there is always room for the comic relief.

The ideas and concepts of the show are all very cool and interesting, the show just doesn't utilize them for an epic space show. despite that, this show is very good, if you liked slayers, you will definitely like this.

I picked this up after seeing the original Japanese intro several years ago and gave this a shot. Like most people, I saw this after seeing Slayers, Next, and Try.

This actually does take place in a similar (if not the same) universe as Slayers, with most of the voice cast also being the same. Not surprisingly, a lot of the humor style was the same but there was a lot more emphasis on an underlying story which is emphasized more later. It reminded me a bit of a Slayers Next style where bits and pieces are planted here and there while hijicks ... run awry...at least until near the end. One thing Lost Universe does better than Slayers though is it shows more sides to the characters.

The main characters are pretty well rounded out, except Millie but most of what you need to know happens later anyway. You start feeling for some of the characters though, and by the end of the series I starting getting kind of attached to some of the characters. The antagonists on the other hand range from dull to pretty messed up.

One big determining factor of how much a series impacts me is the ending. Lost Universe does a great job cleaning up all the loose ends and making the story and characters make sense. The ending is very bittersweet, while leaves questions, they're not ones that you need answers to. It's nice to see series that doesn't make you wonder if there might be a sequel or not.

What bugs me if anything is the art. The art is pretty rough, similar to Slayers but sometimes felt inconsistent. Sometimes I can't tell if there's more Yashigani than just ep. 4. I might just be bothered by the way the eyes are drawn. Of course, the CG sequences are dated, but can't be helped.

Another annoying factor is the voice acting, particularly for Kain. He sounds like a choked chicken and at times it gets grating to the ears, especially how many times he yells throughout the series.

Little nitpicks aside, I very much enjoyed the series. Check it out especially if you've seen and enjoyed Slayers Next and Try.

It's hard to believe this series is nearly twenty years old. The CGI looks on par with anime from the decade that followed it. Now before I start heaping praise upon this series I will point out my bias here. I'm pretty much a sucker for anything with space battles or sword fights, and this series has both. Looking back, this series helped create my bitterness about anime cliches. Because this series has none of them. It's not set in high school nor does it star high schoolers. It doesn't center on unrequited love. Not once did I call for Bright Noah. None of the ... characters are simply eye candy. And I don't have to endure some boy with a girl's name hollaring about justice, friendship or how they're gonna single handily rid humanity of it's enemy. It's just a simple fun space adventure. The key is it never alters it's tone. It's an action comedy (they were all the rage in the 90's) and it never forgets that. Every episode gives you the action and comedy. It's not perfect, though few things are. For starters very little is explained in this series, that's a mild problem for a sci-fi series. I had questions, and I'd like answers. I got a few, but not all. While the CGI looks good, the animation shows it's age. This might turn off viewers who don't have a sense of nostalgia for 90's anime. There's one other flaw I want to mention and that's the use of Noo as the principal villain. If you don't know who Noo is, watch Captain Herlock: The Endless Odyessy. I'm not going to spoil it here but needless to say Hal Jordan is over qualified to solve the problem. Watch it if you're out of new series to watch. You won't be blown away, but you will be entertained.