As someone who hasn’t been too impressed with the selection of anime in the past few years I’ve found myself frequently going to more “exotic” avenues to fill my need for DVD hoarding. Even so far as to go into the terrible world of non-animated purchases. The horror. However my current attitude makes me more willing to try out various random things as my budget isn’t already slotted for 20+ anime DVD purchases for the next two months. That’s what eventually brought me to Oban Star-Racers, an interesting fusion in every sense of the word. The show itself is a 2D/3D experiment of sorts and the show was created by a collaboration of French and Japanese creators with the French actually leading the project.
Synopsis:
In a nutshell, Oban Star-Racers is about a young girl named Eva who’s been stuck in a boarding school for most of her life. And not just ANY boarding school. The Stern Boarding School. With a name like that, it’s no wonder she eventually skips out in search of her father who happens to be a world renowned racing team manager, Don Wei. She quickly finds him only to realize that he has no idea who she is. Just as well as if she were my daughter I’d immediately inquire about those three spikes in her ear that she calls “earrings”. Well as you can imagine, her “reunion” doesn’t go quite as planned and she ends up making up a fake name and lying her way onto her father’s repair crew.
Unbeknownst to her, her father has been contracted by the President. Of where exactly? I don’t think they ever say. But thanks to the President, Don Wei is the most important man on Earth. You see, in this future world, mankind has met creatures from beyond the stars. Unfortunately for them, they weren’t the friendly type. A particularly nasty warrior race of aliens called the Crogs had their eyes set on Earth years ago but at the last minute before full-on invasion, a cease-fire was called or so the government would have the people believe. What really happened was that a strange alien visitor stopped the fighting only to have Earth promise to take place in some kind of event in the future for the fate of their planet. Well, that time has come and the alien visitor, known as the Avatar, has come to bring the representative of Earth to the games to compete. It turns out that these “games” are races and naturally, the government seeks out the best race manager on Earth.
Don Wei is forced to put together a racing team from the best on Earth. Some nerdy but lovable mechanics, a cool and confident pilot, an over-zealous and sometimes cowardly but kind co-pilot/gunner, and one stowaway. Eva, or “Molly” as she calls herself now to hide her identity, takes a cue from the “Plucky Teen Handbook” and manages to get herself a one-way ticket off-planet and eventually convinces Don Wei not to kill her and use her as a mechanic. From there, the Earth Team has to win their way against a slew of strange aliens and even stranger spaceships in order to reach the finals on Oban where the winner of the race will be awarded the “Ultimate Prize” which can be used to save the Earth from total enslavement.
Thoughts:
Okay. Just a few things I’d like to mention that might cause people some “concern” when thinking about this title. First off, there’s the Jetix logo. Now some people might not think anything of that at all but others might see it and go “Jetix? Really?” Jetix is a lineup of children’s programming that appears on Toon Disney and ABC Family. The Jetix logo tends to bring up images of things like Power Ranger reruns, cartoons like Yin Yang Yo, and more “female-oriented” shows like W.I.T.C.H. Don’t let that scare you. Secondly, the show has a certain “style” to it that people tend to notice. And by “style” I mean “human beings have no noses”. The French tend to like their animation quirky and other French productions have some of the same design methods. For instance, Cartoon Network’s Code Lyoko uses characters with very pronounced foreheads and Totally Spies……….I’m sorry. I was too busy looking at their incredibly long legs. Where was I again? Oh yes. No noses. Just go with it. You’ll eventually get used to it. If you must, just pretend they’re all related to Kuririn from Dragonball.
The show is gorgeous to look at. It’s a wonderful and sometimes seamless combination of traditional 2D animation and 3D magic. The backgrounds are also very varied and detailed as you slowly become accustomed to bizarre alien locales that use that 2D/3D fusion to produce some very impressive effects that you might not expect from a production like this. The creators also do a brilliant job with keeping the show interesting. Ignoring the plot to save the Earth and all the twists and turns it takes throughout the show, you’d think that constant races (which are pretty much close to one per episode) would get pretty dull. The visuals help you ignore that but the show does a good job of creating different types of races so that we don’t always have to deal with pod-racing style drag races over and over again. The straight race is still the major focus but a “special” race comes along at just the right time to break up the monotony. The music shouldn’t be ignored either as it features a great score done by Taku Iwasaki who has done such fan favorites as The Irresponsible Captain Tylor, Now and Then, Here and There, various Rurouni Kenshin OVAs, and most recently Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagaan and Soul Eater. The opening and ending themes themselves are composed by the legendary Yoko Kanno. For a show you might expect to be under-budgeted, the visuals and music certainly don’t suffer nor do they disappoint.
Something else that should be brought to attention are the aliens. We get a fairly diverse cast of styles and attitudes with the opposing racers that range from a noble humanoid prince atop a giant beetle (who happens to catch Molly’s eye on more than one occasion) to a shrieking crab monster who pilots from the inside of an organic creature. However, this is where the show truly shines. It does an excellent job of taking your conceptions of aliens and how you’d view them and turn them on their heads. With the exception of the Crogs, the show hammers the point that despite appearances these aliens are “people” too with their own reasons for joining this great race. It’s never quite as cut and dry and “good versus evil” and despite how “evil” these aliens may appear, they may have reasons more noble and honorable for winning the Ultimate Prize than the humans do.
The show barrels to its conclusion from the early episodes with plot twists and sudden shifts abound. Molly is very quickly taken from simple mechanic to backup pilot and the Earth Team’s only chance for victory. The secondary plot of “Molly” and her identity shoots to the forefront when she’s discovered but not by who you would expect. And the stakes for the “Ultimate Prize” change sharply as a race for Earth’s freedom evolve from peace treaties to miraculous wishes and finally end with a “race” that could not only protect Earth but save the entire galaxy from destruction. The entire 26 episode show has been released in 2 seperate collections of 13 episodes that you can find for about 15 - 20 dollars a piece. It’s not a “must-buy” but it’s definitely a diamond in the rough that deserves a look especially if you’re looking for something just a little bit different.
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