Original Airdates: 4/03 - 9/03
Demographic: Seinen
Genres: Adventure, Drama, Mecha, Romance, Sci-Fi, Post-Apocalyptic
Plot Synopsis
The year is 2356 A.D. - 189 years after a distant supernova caused a global catastrophe that wiped out 99% of the world population. To keep track on all space activities, mankind has built colossal space stations called "foundations" all over the Solar System. After passing the Space Academy entrance exams, Shima Katase embarks to the Earth-based foundation Stellvia to fulfill her dream of seeing the galaxy and to prevent another interstellar catastrophe from destroying Earth.
Personal Opinion
So when I saw the first few episodes of Stellvia, I was thinking... "This is WAY to cheerful to be a post-apocalyptic anime". Well considering the other post-apoc anime I had seen was Evangelion... I wasn't wrong to think so. So the first 8 episodes do a really good job of establishing the universe that Stellvia was situated in. By episode 13, here is what i noticed
- It had some really interesting characters
- A romance that nearly everyone would appreciate
- Plenty of character development
- A beautiful storyline and animation
- Limited by heartpounding action
Had it ended on ep 13... it would probably tied with Gurren Lagann as my favorite anime... Unfortunately... Stellvia took a downturn heading into the 2nd half... the characters that we were interested in suddenly started to get annoying. The romance goes nowhere. And the character development gets muddled in frequent crying outbursts.
The only thing that didn't go downhill was the animation and the action. The epilogue was also kind of anti-climactic.
Overall.. this anime would've worked really well if it were split into 2, 13 episode seasons.
As for my reccomendation... watch it for the first half, expect to be dissapointed by the 2nd half
1st half: 10/10
2nd half 6/10
Overall: 8/10
Similar to...
- Eureka Seven
For the same reasons listed above
- Neon Genesis Evangelion
Post-apocalytic... and Shima develops a "Shinji-complex" towards the end.
