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.
