Anime: Starship Operators

THE STAFF
Starship Operators could have been a great space opera / sci-fi adventure if it was 50 episodes long, and had less humor. The basic idea is good but the way it is presented on screen makes you feel like it’s a 10 year old playing with his plastic space marines. Which makes sense if you take into account who made it.
- Animated by J.C. Staff, the studio that exists to make shitty adaptations full of retarded fan service.
- Directed by Watanabe Takashi, who has made nothing but silly stuff, such as Slayers, Ikki Tousen, and Shakugan no Shana.
- Based on the novels by Mizuno Ryou, whose only other known work is the most mediocre Record of Lodoss War.

SCRIPT
The story is about a team of youths fighting some generic evil oppressive empire with their ship, while the whole thing is broadcasted on interstellar channels so the kids can have funds in their war thanks to the sponsors. This is a good twist to the otherwise “magic money” trope that is so heavy in most teen adventures and basically it’s what makes the show seem more real than the average corny mediocrity out there. “Hey look, they don’t find money and food on space trees; they are paid for making a tv show.” And indeed, it is highly ironic and interesting how they are part of a real war and at the same time they need to make the whole thing enjoyable for the masses by looking all perky and interesting. Heck, even the otherwise out-of-place mini skirts all the girls are wearing are in this case excused as in-story fan service for the in-story male viewers. Smart meta-trick is smart.

So the basic idea of the show is to see it as a space adventure that has turned into a mass entertainment reality show. The war is real, the characters act as they feel like, and money still rules the world. From this description alone you are presented with one hell of an original and well-thought out idea. Too bad it wasn’t given the proper duration and directing…

The first thing anyone will wonder about the anime is its power balance. On one side we have an interstellar empire, armed with thousands of advanced warships. On the other we have some rookies with a single spaceship. How the hell do they manage to keep defeating the enemy? Oh sure, you might as well go asking why the good robot always wins in mecha shows, when the enemy army outnumber it by a few million times. If it was THAT silly then it wouldn’t strike as weird, but here we have a somewhat more realistic setting. It is not supposed to take things so childishly and instead provide a better sense or pragmatic approach. Heck, it clearly shows how many try to exploit the whole event, from firms, to politicians, to military that again makes you believe it is far more realistic than the Power Rangers. And that is the problem; it just pretends it is; the whole reality show/social-political aspect is used very superficially as nothing more than a fancy background decoration.

If there is something good in all that, is how each episode has something new to offer, or to present it from a different angle. It is not predictable, as it keeps introducing and expanding its ideas; as superficial as they may eventually be. There is simply no time to develop them past the introduction, and the final episode feels like they had to end an arc that would normally need dozens of episodes, in just 15 minutes. Politicians nag, generals revolt, the people rebel, shit blow up, and before you know it, it all ends. And along with it, the attempts to build up romances and interesting friendships all go to waste, with barely being told what happens to them afterwards. Well thanks for nothing.

CAST
See the series past that and you have yourself the usual stereotypical / idealistic / overhyped / awkward with one another’s feelings youths, piloting a spaceship that never seems to take enough damage or casualties to matter. Most of them are cute girls, doing silly stuff, and blowing ships for the lulz. They get a nice fleshing out but it is trashed by the completely light-hearted presentation. And seriously; those mini skirts just fizzle away all respect you may have had for them without them.

PRODUCTION VALUES
Somewhat standard for its time. They do their job nicely but don’t stand out for their aesthetic details, or the machinery, or the character figures, or the soundtrack. The action scenes are actually very well done, even if it all boils down to laser beams blowing stuff up.

LEGACY
It could have been good but it is handled like a parody of sorts and ends in a rush, leaving you with bad impressions. Not recommended.

Starship Operators is an astonishingly clever series, and as such, one I very much enjoyed.

Much of this cleverness lies in how it uses its conceit; many of the conventions of the genre can be followed precisely because this is a show about a show about a starship. Thus the mostly-female bridge crew with a male captain is because the series' producer demanded this, and later on the series gets away with what seems like the horribly contrived death of a character for no other purpose than inspiring angst - because that's precisely what it is. Even the opening music seems to gently hint at this - starting off with a "TV show opening" blare so generic it must be deliberate. We are reassured that this is indeed so a few seconds later, as the song shifts into something far more inventive and clever; meanwhile the ending theme manages to be perfectly emotionally pitched, heartrending without ever seeming false or melodramatic, and is used to devastating effect for the finale.

Said finale does what disappointingly few anime series seem to accomplish - provides a fitting conclusion to the plot. The final episode has real, interesting content and genuine drama without any of the contrived plot twists usually employed to achieve such. Nor is this an isolated incident - while the story does follow the conventions of the genre, the plot actually manages to provide plausible reasons why this shipful of cadets might change the course of a war; particularly striking is the final, epilogual speech, which manages to simultaneously acknowledge and dismiss this point. The whole thing is extraordinarily polished, and avoids all the usual pitfalls of the genre with consummate ease.

The same polish is evident in the animation; one big plus, for me at least, is the lack of any of the clash between traditional and CG animation often seen in spaceship series. Whether through advancing technology or sheer effort, everything fits smoothly together; animation is clean and well-detailed both inside the ship and out. Character designs initially seem slightly generic, but soon develop their own charm; this is a beautiful series on every front, with the only tiny flaw being occasionally indistinct voices for some of the more minor characters. Conceivably the show could be criticised for its characters, who are slightly light on personality and, other than the lead, develop very little, but this really isn't the point of the show; it would be rather unfair to demand more personal focus when this much plot is packed into 13 episodes.

Starship Operators is a tour de force; while nowhere does it do anything truly new (which would qualify it for masterpiece status), it has been polished close to flawlessness. Beautiful presentation combines with an astonishingly well-written plot, which manages some semblance of realism without the crippling boredom and unimportance this can all too often entail. With a series this short there is really no excuse not to watch it, at least for anyone at all interested in science fiction.

Starship Operators is primarily a space opera and as such follows the events through the eye's of the crew members of the spaceship Amateras.The story has an original twist compared to other titles for the genre because the crew members rebel and decide to take on the entire invading military estabilisement single-handedly in their state-of-the-art vessel. In addition, the young crew is corned into making a deal with a TV network in order to gain funds to finance their campaign by accepting to ...be filmed 24/7 - much akin to reality tv. [br][br]- ANIMATION - [br]The series typically uses CG to handle their spaceship animations, but it isn't overused and is pretty much reserved to animating their communication displays and panels. In terms of consistency, StarshipOperators does a fine job with crisp detailed lineart and fluid motions throughout. The character designs were also carefully thought, the crew are all easily identified and support their own unique personality. [br]Regretably there is actually few combat scenes. Mostly you should expect stills of the spaceships charging up their cannons and then short explosive bursts of CG.[br] [br]- SOUND -[br]Nothing memberable, except for the opening theme. A lot of dialogue. Hardily any background music. I do commend them for not putting sound effects in the space sequences, remember its a vacuum.[br][br]- CHARACTERS - [br]Expect some of the characters to only last a few episodes. This does mean that you will not engage much with the other remaining staff apart from the leading characters. Personally, I do not agree with the idea that mostly all the crew should be females with exceptional beauty. [br][br]- VALUE & ENJOYMENT - [br]Because of the nature of this anime, it's a typical 'spirit of youth shall prevail'. Although its a fine addition to the genre in its own right, I personally find the fact that an inexperienced crew can hold its own against an Imperial fleet with limitless resources, unrealistic. The Big-Brother reality tv mimic was interesting but you end up feeling that the political plot is secondary until the final episodes where all of a sudden things escalate without a decent plot development. It was well paced for 13 episodes and although climatic, leaves some room for sequels.

Starship Operators is a good sci-fi serie, with many flaws but also with some good points that can justify a watch.

Animation:
Quite good, but not really impressive. Characters have a plastic look that I don't find very appealing and that detract from expressiveness, and in a serie like this I believe a more realistic design could have served better the mood: weird hairstyles or colors don't go too well in a show that tries to convey a realistic feeling, but that's just my opinion... others may be not as bothered as I was.
The movement are not very smooth, but for most of the time you'll not notice 'cause this is not an action show: generally the stage is a room (the starships control room, the dimplomats office ecc.) where characters talk and take decisions, but in the few circumstances in wich you see some down-to-earth gunfight the stiffness became quite evident.
The CG is very well done when shows computer diagrams and battle plans in the tactic room, a little less so when shows battleships 'cause they give the impression of plastic toys... well, that's true, this is not really an issue in a starship. Don't expect StarWars-like battles: in this show they are more realistic and take place in hours or days, with long-distance shots between starship thousands of kilometers apart. But don't be frightened either: during combat sequences time is shrinked so you'll not die of boredom.
Another point in wich CG is used are the backgrounds... some are well done and quite detailed, others are really plain.
There is a certain amount of still shot and reused footage, but not so much that it became annoying.
I liked very much some of the shots of galaxies and nebulas, even though I know that the way they are coloured is fake... oh well, you can't always search truthfulness!

Sound:
Mmm... I don't have very much to say about the sound. Voice actors do their work without glory nor shame, background music goes quite well with the mood... well, you understand how it is.

Story:
Storywise, this show has some good point: it portrays in a quite realistic way the cynicism of the show businness and of the politicians, the way masses are used and pushed around by the ones that detain power and how even the best causes can be exploited. It will by no means open your eyes, because everyone sholud be well aware that things go this way in the world, but it gives the story a more realistic feel. The relism is somewhat enhanced by the "reality-show" approach, cause TV is flooded by the damned things and it's all too easy to imagine people rooted by the screen awaiting for someone to die live.
Some of the things that happens are too rushed or are built on very thin foundations: to make an example, the way the cadets accept to wage war against the invading Kingdom is too smooth, without any kind of pathos or conflict. There is more of that, but the way I would write about it could make it sound much worse than it is in reality, so I'll leave at that. And you must consider that this is a 13 ep serie, so many things had to be rushed to complete the story.
One thing that I have to point out is that Starship Operators suffer a litte from the "Monster of the Week" syndrome: not counting the Earth Federation fleet, who appears only at the end, all other ships have different design and "special moves".

Characters:
Leaving aside the character design, I think that they are a quite unimpressive lot. There is not a real development nor background for any of them (you can't count as background simply having been told that someone father died fighting the Kingdom...)and generally the relation between them are thin or baseless, built up in few minutes only to try to make you feel sympathy or compassion for someone. Needless to say, I could not became affectionate of any of them, so even the drammatic moments leaved me unmoved. But I have to say that this distance between characters and spectators goes very well with the reality-show idea, cause this reflect the superficiality of the contact through a tv screen, and maybe I would have liked less if they had tried to make me more familiar with the crew. And maybe even in this regard the shortness of the serie may count something.

Value & Enjoyment:
Well, I liked it. But certainly I will not count this serie between my favourites. I feel that you can't really justify the shallow characters and the jumps in the plot with having few episodes at disposition, when many even shorter series I've seen were better in both regards. But my review may sound much harsher than it is intended to be cause I do what I can with my english... so don't be deceived! You can surely give a chance to Starship Operators.

Synopsis
This anime centers on cadets from their planet's space force; when the anime starts they have just been given their final test and will return home to be absorbed into the space force. However, things have gone awry; their planet has been invaded and taken over by a foreign kingdom. They decide to fight back and win freedom for their planet once again.

Story
While the story is fast paced (alot happens in these 13 episodes), it is also very well thought out and directed. It is hardly ever predictable; there was only one episode where I saw the conclusion coming from the start - however I didn't really feel that it was necessary for the storyline; it just added a bit to the character development of a few characters. Luckily it wasn't detrimental either.
The plot is very interesting and involves the decisions and politics of alot of people, making it very deep and convincing. There is everything you really expect in a well developed plot: drama, love, death, treachery. It was very enjoyable.

Characters
This anime features quite alot of characters, however they are all easily recognizable and you get to know them relatively well in the span of this series. Most of the main characters have clear motives for what they do and how they act, and almost all if it seems natural - there were a few things that felt slightly out of character but over all, it was pretty well realized.
All the character's development through the series is very well depicted, and you can see a definite growth in virtually all the main characters despite the fact that there were alot of them and the series was only 13 episodes.

Animation
The CG looked like CG. It was mostly apropriate, like in the computer-screens and such, but some of it was frivolous and would really have been better made without CG. The design of the ships and such was quite nice however. Apart from the CG the animation was above standard - nothing particular in the negative department, but the characters and their movements were really natural and seemed to move apropriate to their circumstances.
There were not really any repeated frames that I could notice, which, when the standard of the animation is this good, is always a good thing.
The pan shots were few and far between, but when they were used, they were well drawn and they fit with the mood of the sequence.

Sound
The seiyuus' voice-acting was good; I didn't notice any discrepancies in any of the characters. The music fit the mood very well, and I did enjoy the OP/ED. At the end of the anime they bring out the OP again and it fits especially well in that scene. Superb. The special effects weren't awesome, but they didn't suck either.

Value
This anime is for those who enjoy a nice space opera, like to see good well-thought-out battles and want to see some political intrigue. In this last department it wasn't great, but in the two previous ones: space opera and battles; outstanding.

Enjoyment
I enjoyed this one alot and I really recommend it to everyone. It will have alot to offer for those who enjoy scifi and drama, and it will be perfect for those who love both these genres (like me).

[Warning: May contain spoilers]
[Note: I often reread reviews I've written after some time and may update and correct errors in the process.]


Story:
The story of Starship operators revolves around a group of space cadets that have bought a starship to protest against the forceful take over of their home planet by the Kingdom.

Character:
Surprisingly for a space anime, the story is very well woven together and character development of each of the important characters are given appropriate focus such that you feel they have enough depth to be able to relate to them. The only other space anime that I can think of with such good storyline and development is Vandread. Each of the important characters are well "categorized" and at several points in the anime, the skills of one of them are given emphasis to resolve the situation ahead.

From the little love story of Takai to the unfortunate series of events that befall Kouzuki Shinon and going through a rebellion of the ship's engineers, the characters gradually fall into place and eventually move towards the same goal. You never feel that something has been forced onto the characters to move the story forward.

Plus, the space battles are awesome. The combination of the Galaxy Network reporter telling the action and the fast paced inside workings of the crew is just a nice thing to watch! The technical details those operators give during battles are just so overwhelming and cool that it makes the battle seem almost realistic. In fact, everything in the anime seemed plausible to me, unlike some space anime where you just don't get it how it worked...(Gundam anyone...). Even the stuff displayed on the operators' screens were not just some garbage to populate the screen but according to me represented some actual ongoings in the ship's control and state, which was definitely cool.

As for the ending I'm not sure if I should be happy about it or not. It's not a flashy ending like you'd think you'd get from an action packed anime but fortunately it does not leave you scratching your heads either. I guess I should just be happy that the situation got resolved in a "politically" correct way.

Sound:
Well this is space, not much sound in there BUT the background sounds of the ship and the battle are really nice and add to the whole experience quite nicely. The OP/Ending in the anime are also nice to listen to; smooth and slow going, but nothing really extraordinary. Voice acting was also well done and the emotions of the characters were appropriately conveyed.

Animation:
The anime is extremely very well done, especially the ship Amaterasu, which has been from what I see, modelled in 3D. They have done an excellent job in the 3D integration within the anime so much so that you don't feel that the 3D is out of place. Characters are very well detailed and drawn and nothing has been left out.



Overall awesome animation and drawings.

Value/enjoyment:
If you liked Vandread, which had an extremely good story line and character development, you should definitely check Starship Operators. The enjoyment is almost guaranteed. I enjoyed this anime so much that there are some episodes I've rewatched more than 4 times.
Plus you get to watch the Amaterasu in action, which has to be the coolest and most realistic spaceship I've yet to come across in an anime. =)
Finally I think it's worthy to note that Starship Operators does not contain epic large scale battles "à la" Banner of the Stars (another very good anime in the space opera genre) but focus more on individual battles, with about 5 being the most number of ships engaged in a battle simultaneous on screen.