Lost Universe

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.

For a spinoff based off Slayers, Lost Universe was a bit underwhelming for me. Lost Universe basically starts off being a comedy/ adventure series in its first half focused on the missions that Kain and Millie partake in as trouble consultants, a number of which being a bit on the bizarre side much like Slayers. Unfortunately, the comedy here felt a bit flat for me as it didn't really seem to be poking fun of anything other than the quirks of the characters (Millie's bragging of being the "best in the universe" and Kane's obsession with his cape) and the nutty situations they dealt with, ... which were more obnoxious than funny for me. Slayers worked for me in the comedy department because it was poking fun of medieval fantasy/ adventure titles with its major characters quite aware of a number of the cliches for which they were dealing with. Lost Universe lacks that charm and it was what led me to take a while to get around to finishing the series without putting it on hold in my stockpile.

The second half held up my interest a little better as it explored the major conflict in which Kane deals with in the form of the crime syndicate Nightmare and their gathering of other Lost Ships like the one that Kane is in possession of. It provides a reasonable amount of fleshing out on Kane's character and explores what led him to seek revenge on the syndicate. The series would slowly unveil the motivations of the syndicate and the nature surrounding the Lost Ships they desire.

Still though, the major characters representing Nightmare mostly fulfill stock archetypes you would expect in conventional sci-fi titles serving either as mooks for their boss, desiring planetary/ galactic domination or wanting to flat out destroy everything that exists, making them quite shallow and not so interesting in motives or personality like Xellos or Rezo from Slayers. Not to mention it seemed like the series had quite a bit it was trying to explore yet so little time to provide reasonable substance. The final episodes of the series noticeably rush through their revelations and conflicts without any solid buildup, had some details on prominent characters left unexplored (Millie's past and how Raily came across some major information for later in the show) and seemed to lack a proper ending as it was hinted there would be more to Kane's adventures beyond this show.

The drawing style for Lost Universe is similar to Slayers, which shouldn't be of much surprise to Hajime Kanzaka fans since he created both shows. The animation for the series tended to be quite inconsistent at points, especially as I've heard that this series ran through a number of different art directors throughout the show's run. Close-up shots of characters made use of a bright color palette on occasions yet reverted back to a more subdued color tone in medium and far camera shots. There were some occasions where I seen scenes where the details of characters and scenery take a hit quality-wise and they were back to par in the next scene. Animation sequences with spaceships quite often switch between use of traditional hand-drawn animation and subpar CG animated renderings of the spaceships. I can forgive the CG animation considering the early use of the technology for a TV anime, but not the inconsistent quality that I could notice with the title's animation throughout its run.

Overall, I was quite disappointed with how subpar Lost Universe was as I was quite entertained with much of the Slayers franchise. While this series has some decent elements with its plot unveiled in its second half, the flat comedic delivery, inconsistent animation and lack of time to fully explore its world and characters were major issues for me with Lost Universe. I wouldn't consider this too memorable compared to the other TV anime titles that make up the Slayers franchise.

If you're expecting this series to be on par with The Slayers... it's not.

This anime is a revenge story with Kane Blueriver a swordsman who wishes to kill his enemies. However like The Slayers it tends to shift between serious & comical scenes, yet the comedy in Lost Universe was a personal flop to me. Most of this is due to the lack of likeable characters & the smaller roster compared to Slayers. In this series we only have 3 protagonists who aren't that interesting. Kane passes of as the would be son of Lina & Gourry but for the most has this running gag ... of being obsessed with his cape. Milly Nocturne has the egotistical nature of Lina but none of the charm. Lastly there's Canal Vorfeed who just comes off as supportive & energetic but doesn't offer much.

Lost Universe is simply too long to tell its story with events being delivered slowly with cheap gags, poor action & boring characters. As a fan of The Slayers, I expected too much from this series. The anime does deliver some interesting sci-fi but could explored better in other animes. There are also some references to Slayers Try but isn't really noticeable (its the lost ships names).

Overall the anime is a very poorly made version of The Slayers. I'm a fan of English, Spanish & Japanese dubs but the English version took A LOT of liberties with its dialogue giving itself a dub that's so bad that it might be good. I would recommend watching The Slayers, Cromartie High School, Binbogami Ga & Gintama for great comedy anime.