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Sesho's Anime And Manga Reviews


Dec 30, 2009

Anime dvd review of Heroic Age: The Complete Series Part 1, Episodes 8-13. Directed by Takashi Noto. Series Composition by Tow Ubukata. Music by Naoki Sato. Published by Funimation. List Price: $59.98, Rated 13+.

The Argonaut continues to flee to the new human homeworld as the Azz-Azoth fleet under Nilval tries to hold off the Silver and Gold Tribe armadas. Things could get messy as Nodos Mehitak shows up to take down the Azz-Azoth. Meanwhile, Bellcross and Karkinos are still locked in battle. Their fight is not measured in minutes or days, but weeks! Like a rumble between two gods. Dhianeila's two scheming and arrogant brothers try to commandeer leadership of the human forces through bribery and extortion. They begin to move along their plan for all-out war against the Gold and Silver Tribes, with the ultimate end goal of recapturing Earth. Problem is that Meleagros, the scion of the family,  is a tad bit power hungry and isn't shy about sacrificing his own forces or even entire planets if it furthers the glory and power of him and his family.

I really love the epic space opera feel of Heroic Age. When we have fleets battling each other here, it isn't just a couple of ships on each side. It's thousands, if not TENS of thousands involved. And when you're talking about the insect-like swarms of the Gold Tribes, it could be MILLIONS! It's war the likes of which we reality-bound humans can hardly imagine. And then you have the jockeying forces of the politics within each tribe (except the Gold) as the humans try to decide the best course of action. There are even factions in the Vulcan-like Silver that believe the universe is big enough for Silver and Iron while others think the humans should be destroyed.

The problems I have with this show are two: one major and one minor. The first is that the battles between the Nodos lack any impact or drama. All the Nodos are completely rendered in CG and are not animated very well, moving very stiffly and awkwardly. They are supposed to be living creatures but they move like robots. The director should have looked at some of the old Evangelion fight scenes or Eureka 7 to learn how to handle this properly. Sadly, I almost wish to jettison the whole giant monster facet of the show.  

One minor complaint is in the character designs and costumes. The characters look too much like they fell out of a Gundam series, or even Fafner. The costumes of the humans are dull and boring with too much whiteness splashed with some second-thought colors.  It doesn't look like too much effort was spent on their uniforms.

My Grade: B+

Listen to my podcast review of the first seven episodes:

http://sesho.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=515827