Anime Meta-Review
Sol Bianca
Index's
Home
Alphabetic
Quality
Genre
People
Recent
By Date
Title Info
- type: movie
- grade: watchable
- Other elements of this title:
- This title has been commercially released in Australia.
- made: unknown
- Review created: A while ago, i'll revise it eventually.
- mod: none
It's fun being a space pirate in general, but an important requirement is to have a ship several levels of technology above those you want to prey on. No problem for the crew of this ship as, for some unexplained reason, all the high tech toys in this movie seem to belong to them. The plot concerns the five pirates accidentally stealing a stowaway. After some convincing he tells them that he has to get to a planet, but mentions that there is great treasure to convince them to take him there. Indeed there is treasure, but only because a cruel militaristic despot has seized control of twin planets and bled them dry. Are the crew of the Sol Bianca going to sit back when there is money to be made... ah, I mean wrongs to be righted? Of course not.
While this movie is beginning to look dated it is a fairly solid production. There are lots of well designed high tech gadgets (including the longest sniper shot in anime history) which are featured in multiple action scenes. At times the girls, yes the crew is five females, are a bit casual, but possibly only because they know they've got might on their side. The girls themselves are also interesting, although it is clear the designers ran into a problem. Considering how often they get shot at helmets would be a good thing, but someone in full armor doesn't have enough personality or sex appeal. Thus no helmets and attractive battle armor with convenient color coding is the rule. The characterisation is very agressive, with each female having a very clear role, this feels somewhat artificial which is not helped by naming them after months of the year. Still, these are strong archetypes which lets us quickly get a handle on who is who. In addition the child engineer and young computer expert are way cute, while the two gung-ho characters are fun to watch. A bit too short, and with too much unexplained, to really build up a great deal of depth this is still a very competently produced anime that is a satisfying watch.
The anime review gives it a general thumbs up in this review noting that it is too short to be really good. It also mentions lots of `added' obscenity in the ADV version (not what I watched, I think). There's a long, and packed with spoilers, review at Akemi's AnimeWorld who also notes the `casual' nature of the pirates.
Words by Andrew Shelton, Web by Ticti, Last Compile: Wed Aug 5 12:39:25 WST 2009