Story:
Starting with the story, this feels like a much longer anime that was chopped into smaller pieces. There simply isn't enough time to resolve all the plot threads and character arcs within 13 episodes. Furthermore, the plot is a jumbled mess, taking turns and spins at the worst of times. The set-up is sloppy as well, humanity has just lost a war against the machine men. Zero loses his own family to this war! Which only makes one question why exactly he's so gung ho about humans and machine men coexisting. Right away he seems to see the machine men as complete equals, there doesn't seem to be an ounce of contemplation on if humans and machine men should work together. The only way to explain this is that the machine men on his ship are "the good ones." Also this show is barley about Zero chasing Harlock, and is more just a collection of small stories of the Karyu's crew on some misadventures. It would have been interesting to see Zero and Harlock duking it out in a series of skirmishes in the stars, while the mysterious machine men plot to overtake the galaxy in the background. Simple enough of a plot (and would have worked better for the run time) but not even close to what we get. [spoilers ahead:] In the last three or so episodes, the Karyu, and a small combined fleet of pirate ships are defending the planet Technologica from the Hellcastle (a giant super bad space fortress, it's rather unimpressive) One of the main villains Zeth Vorder is absolutely dead set on destroying Zero and the Karyu. Why exactly? I'm not sure myself, Zero has basically done nothing the entire series and should be seen as more of a sore under the machine mans thumb than it's greatest threat. The only reason I can come up with is because he's supposed to be a super important and cool character, and the Karyu is supposed to be the best ship in the galaxy but neither make the cut. This show also suffers from having bad jokes wedged into serious moments, which break the already paper thin tension one might experience. Some episodes even feel out of order, with episodes 8 and 9 being the most confusing out of them all.
Art:
The art is pretty standard, with that distinct Leiji character art style. The characters certainly are interesting in design, Zero just looks cool, Harlock, Emeraldas, and others all have interesting designs but it's not enough to save this show. Sometimes the show stretches what animation means and just has a slide show of some pictures, or moves a picture across the screen in a clunky manner. At times it feels more like a moving comic book or visual novel than an anime.
Music, Sound:
Music is alright, sometimes the soundtrack is totally out of place and has an upbeat song at a dramatic moment, or no sound at all. The Opening is middle of the road at best, and feels more like it belongs to a fantasy title than a space opera. I watched the subtitled version, but the dub is alright.
Enjoyment Factor:
There really isn't much here in terms of "cool factor" to save this show. The space battles are underwhelming to say the least. Action is mediocre at best, and it's extremely difficult to care about these characters when you know next to nothing about them. I personally found myself constantly checking my phone and browsing online for better anime.
Cosmo Warrior Zero had a lot of potential to be a good anime with an extremely simple premise. However it fell short by a mile, and is a sour disappointment.
