Space Pirate Captain Herlock (Anime TV)
Picture: B- Sound: B- Extras: C- Episodes: B-
Beyond
what Warner Bros. Cartoon Network will allow, dozens of Japanese Anime series
are produced that only arrive on home video in the U.S. and Pioneer has been one of the
prime distributors over the years of the genre.
Now, they have been engulfed into the new Geneon Company and one of the
first shows they get to launch is Space
Pirate Captain Herlock (2002), from Leiji Matsumoto, who had worked on the
series that was released in the U.S. as Star Blazers and more recently did the exceptional music videos for
Daft Punk’s Discovery album. Those videos are even out now on DVD.
Herlock begins with a deadly betrayal in
space, then the title character returns out of nowhere. Additionally, magical/spiritual elements and
comedy are introduced and though they support the genre at hand, they also make
things predictable, but meeting expectations is the commercial thing to do.
The first
four episodes of the series are here as follows:
1)
Blues
of the Rubbish Heap
2)
For
Whom the Friend Sleeps
3)
The
Voice Calling for the Noo from Afar
4)
Yatharan’s
30-second Bet
This also
requires you really suspending your
disbelief and your mind to this world, which is dependent on a great leap of
faith from the audience. Most Anime
productions have poor yesteryear character designs that look like a bad cross
between the waning years of the old Disney and its many bad imitators. The squished-down characters look like they
are from the old days of TV, when the characters had to be resized to accommodate
how small TVs used to be. That will
always be the oddest carry-over to the genre.
Each
episode is dubbed a “voyage” and that is too grand an assessment. I will admit that the animation is better
than what we usually get, and color quality is not bad, but this is still an
affair for fans only. The lack of
character development is also odd, but typical of most shows in the genre,
making the audience do too much work.
Ask not what you can do for your Anime, ask what your Anime can do for
you.
The
full-frame image is not bad, and the more detailed artwork benefits as a
result. There is still a certain amount
of softness throughout, but that is more the transfer than the material, though
some of these shows have a softness that is intended. The Dolby Digital 5.1 is not strong in
subwoofer activity, but this is a TV series, so only so much can be
expected. The Japanese 5.1 has more
sound fidelity than the English 5.1 mix, which is typical of DVDs in the
genre. Except for the original Japanese
opening of the pilot show, which is odd, all you get are previews of three
other Geneon Anime DVDs.
Some of
the previews are set up like Music Video clips, while many of these shows have
theme songs trying desperately to sound like American feature films. This also points to the been-there-done-that
factor that has made millions in the U.S. not follow Anime at all, but there
are more than enough fans who see it differently that they will we watching shows
like this inevitably. This is not one of
the more violent series, but is still not for young children.
- Nicholas Sheffo
