Arei no Kagami: Way to the Virgin Space

This sci-fi feature was screened at a science fair in 1985 Japan as a means to promote learning about space and the universe. Nowadays it’s little more than a 1980s space fantasy feature, but it still makes for an interesting watch.

Anybody who knows sci-fi anime writer Leiji Matsumoto and his works can recognize the hallmarks in this piece: an elegant long-haired lady, a young boy companion, a world torn apart by conflict, a journey through space, a cosmic phenomenon, and a prayer for peace. However, it’s done in an original and interesting manner and the story carries enough dramatic and philosophical weight to tie ... things together. It has the potential to be a better story if it could have lasted longer.

The animation is above average, given that it has some adequate computer graphics (in the 80s such VFX were still unrefined). The music is the main draw here, with two vintage 80s songs that are great to listen to.

All in all, it’s a brief but curious little relic that represents the 1980s and its love for space fantasy.

History.
The action takes place in the future. Two character named Maya and Meguro, travel in space. But suddenly they find on their ship a hostile robot-androyd who wants to capture this ship. After a while, they realize that they have nothing to share, and they have one common goal - they want to find the edge of the universe. And so our heroes fly to a distant planet Arey to find the trurh.

Opinion.
What immediately caught my eye it's the most stupid expressions on the faces of the protagonists. Perhaps the only exception is cute inhabitant of the planet Arey which instead face was imprinted ... heart (and it looks like suspiciously a cartoon character Valley). To be honest, I was expecting much worse. Cartoon scored a good panache for these years, and even there are computer graphics, but the plot came out mediocre, you can even say it was weak. The chip that "it's all a dream / vision" disappointed. Pleased that no one still has not died. This futuristic philosophy work demonstrates the different points of view on issues of morality, religion, truth, the essence of human life.

In general, the product of a single view. It will not please everyone.

Nothing particularly interesting to see here - just another in the long line of story ideas that came from the mind of Leiji Matsumoto, and there is not anything in this little short that we haven't seen him do before.

You have the potato-headed naive boy (one of Matsumoto's stock characters), you have the gentle willowy tall female with long hair (the second Matsumoto stock character), plus add an android man to the mix. The three of them head off to the very edge of the universe to explore beyond, until they reach the gate and are basically told "Nope! ... You are too war-like!". (Not so much a spoiler, because there's more after that).

More or less, this is yet another vehicle for Matsumoto to bang our heads about for being cruel, bad, awful human beings that battle and kill each other -- a theme that he harps on a lot. Yeah, we get it already. If he could get beyond that mental story roadblock of his, maybe an interesting story could be the result. This isn't it.

Oh, and there's also some gnarly 1980's computer graphic animation, too. Just to show what as "state of the art" for computer animation at the time.