Featuring a wealth of imagination and creativity, ‘Outlaw Star’ is a triumph of 90s anime that provides a thoroughly entertaining action-adventure story that’s not only visually awesome, but surprisingly thought provoking.
Following the exploits of self-confessed outlaws and bounty hunters, Gene Starwind and Jim Hawking, their lives are changed forever when they decide to accept an offer from ‘Hot Ice’ Hilda, an infamous criminal who’s fleeing from an interstellar gang of pirates. Together the trio hijack an experimental spaceship along with its resident android, Melfina. Determined to find the Galactic Leyline, which is rumoured to hold a legendary treasure and the key to Melfina’s existence, their
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adventure into the depths of space begins.
The greatest strength of ‘Outlaw Star’ would have to be the creativity of the world in which the story takes place in. While space travel is one of the most common themes of modern literature, film and even anime, ‘Outlaw Star’ still showcases an intergalactic world filled with an inventive and colourful cast of spaceships, planets and aliens.
A lot of these original designs can be attributed to the artwork, and it’s especially pleasant to see that classic 90s style of hand drawn and hand painted cells that really goes to show the skill of the artists involved in creating anime of that bygone era. In these 21st century days of touch-up technology, the level of skill involved in creating an anime almost entirely by hand is a somewhat lost art. While some minor scenes appear a little bit sketchy, the technical skill of drawing and painting the spaceships, weapons and other forms of machinery is top class.
Spaceships are wacky and zany, with eccentric designs that defy any sort of aerospace science. While this seems strange at first it just goes to highlight the creativity and freedom of the designers, who aren’t afraid to defy our logic and create these crazy looking ships. After all, the series takes place far into the future, so they don’t have to be weighed down by what we know as science now. The designers have taken this to heart and gone in with an ambitious attitude. If you’re worried that you’re going to be watching a bunch of similar looking, gun metal grey shuttles fly around in space, think again.
There’s a diverse range of planets that Gene, Jim and their motley crew visit throughout their adventure, each of which feels unique. You’re not just going to the same place with a different paint job over and over again. You’ve got the outlaw paradise of Blue Heaven, the sprawling metropolis of Heifong and even the sensual hot springs of Tenrei just to name a few. With all of these individual planets playing a role throughout the series, the world of ‘Outlaw Star’ feels cosmic, not compacted. It actually takes time to travel between worlds even with futuristic technology and this is shown to some extent, which for some might be boring but I found it very interesting, as it’s important to establish a sense of enormity when creating a sprawling fantasy or sci-fi.
On a small side note, perhaps other sci-fi stories actually took inspiration from ‘Outlaw Star’? The world of Omega from ‘Mass Effect’ shares an uncanny similarity to Blue Heaven, both being havens for outlaws embedded into an asteroid. Not only that, the feline Cathar of ‘Star Wars’ share similarities to the Ctarl-Ctarl, an alien race that’s featured in ‘Outlaw Star’.
Speaking of which, the aliens also feel unique to the series, and again the designers have gone wild with everything from your typical human right up to a weird mind controlling cactus type thing. Each have their own traits and personalities, however it would’ve been nice to have a little more information about each species. I’ll focus on this a little later on in the review.
This leads into the characters of ‘Outlaw Star’, and with a large range of both minor and major characters, we’re treated to a good dose of diversity. The story mostly centres on Gene Starwind and Jim Hawking, who are a dynamic duo and are great to watch in action.
Twenty year old Gene is rough around the edges, filled with wit and a real charmer. An outlaw and bounty hunter by trade, he’s always bravely getting into close combat and fighting tooth and nail to protect what he cares for. While he may appear to some as a common thug who’ll do anything for money, deep down he’s a kind-hearted and looks out for his friends. There’s a certain level of sympathy that we can lend to him, as his traumatic past has lead him down the path of an outlaw.
Eleven year old Jim is the brains behind Gene’s brawn, and is often infuriated by his business partner’s carefree attitude. The son of a computer hacker, he’s a natural when it comes to maintaining technology and operating computers, keeping a close eye out for bounty listings and dealing with the financial side of the operation. He often strategises before taking on an enemy and shows a great deal of maturity and level-headedness. Jim provides a mature contrast to Gene’s recklessness, and even though they’re often at odds, they never would’ve come so far without being by each other’s side.
Joining the duo is the mysterious android known as Melfina, principled assassin Suzuka, outspoken Ctarl-Ctarl Aisha and the infamous ‘Hot Ice’ Hilda, all of whom are given a fair amount of screen time but strangely not all that much backstory.
And this is where my heaviest criticism of ‘Outlaw Star’ comes in. Everything feels very ‘in the now’ when it comes to the narrative, leaving you with a great deal of questions about a lot of different things. Gene is quite well defined and we learn a lot about him early on in the series, but what about everybody else? What did Hilda do to become such an infamous outlaw and how did she manage to steal the XGP along with Melfina in the first place? How did Suzuka become such a skilled swordswoman? Why does the mysterious alien race from the past hold knowledge of the Galactic Leyline? Where did Jim and Gene meet?
I imagine that a lot of these questions are answered in the manga and I understand that the studio probably had to make tough decisions when editing out content considering the twenty-four episode time frame, but you do feel like there’s a chunk of backstory is missing.
This isn’t to say that the characters, planets or aliens aren’t relatable or uninteresting, quite the opposite in fact, but more than anything it feels like a wasted opportunity, especially when it comes to fleshing out the Ctarl-Ctarl and lot of the other alien species. It would’ve been great to visit the Ctarl-Ctarl home world or even just learn more about the race, but really we don’t know very much about them at all. There’s such a diverse range of alien species and they’re not given very much influence on the overall flow of the world or its narrative. If anything the only piece of well-defined and featured backstory, other than that of Gene himself, was when the crew set out to find the wizards of Tenrei, who explain how the caster guns and shells that Gene and Jim are so fond of using came to be. Another could be the story behind Harry MacDougall, but even that is only mentioned in a passing conversation. Even so, a passing conversation is better than nothing at all.
Even with all that said, ‘Outlaw Star’ doesn’t disappoint and provides one hell of a good time. There’s not a single boring moment if you look past the very ‘present focused’ approach, and it’s very easy to get wrapped up with the characters in the deceptively simple story. With its level of creative diversity, technical artwork and strong male leads ‘Outlaw Star’ leaves you extremely satisfied and with a wide grin on your face by the end.
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May 17, 2014
Seihou Bukyou Outlaw Star
(Anime)
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Featuring a wealth of imagination and creativity, ‘Outlaw Star’ is a triumph of 90s anime that provides a thoroughly entertaining action-adventure story that’s not only visually awesome, but surprisingly thought provoking.
Following the exploits of self-confessed outlaws and bounty hunters, Gene Starwind and Jim Hawking, their lives are changed forever when they decide to accept an offer from ‘Hot Ice’ Hilda, an infamous criminal who’s fleeing from an interstellar gang of pirates. Together the trio hijack an experimental spaceship along with its resident android, Melfina. Determined to find the Galactic Leyline, which is rumoured to hold a legendary treasure and the key to Melfina’s existence, their ... 
Mar 9, 2014
Code Geass: Hangyaku no Lelouch
(Anime)
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Yesterday, I finished watching the English dubbed version of ‘Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2’ and now, I feel compelled to write this review. It only took me a few marathon days of watching hours and hours on end to smash through the fifty episodes of the two seasons, which for me is a feat in itself considering my hectic school schedule. Even so, every minute I was away from my computer screen, my life was on hold as this extremely addictive, thought provoking and visually awesome anime played on my mind. All I could wonder about was Lelouch and his impossible conquest against
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