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Tenamonya Voyagers

       
                 
                 
 

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Title Info

  • seen: 1-4 of 4
  • type: OAV
  • grade: watchable
  • Other elements of this title:
    • This title appears to be an unsuccessful pilot.
  • made: 1999
  • Review created: Sun Dec 10 20:20:50 EST 2000
  • mod: none

There are some video's that are undeniably brilliant and some that are the opposite. And then there's things like this which make you wonder if it isn't someone's strange little experiment.

The story takes place in some version of the far future. Mind you this is another example of a `rusted' future. Sure there's spaceships and mecha, but there's also crime, poverty and many people making their livings in the shadows. In particular two young girls, one just having passed her teaching degree and one on a student sports scholarship, suddenly find themselves on the street. The school has gone bust. Even worse this school is out in the galactic wilderness, and both of them have nothing like the money required to get back to earth. Along the way they meet another young girl, who claims to be a student, who joins them on their quest to return to earth.

Mind you, she's actually keeping a little secret. It seems that three powerful criminal organizations exist in this future. And they all wield immense power. In fact their new companion, paralaita, used to have a rather central role in one of the groups. Used to have in the sense that they'd now prefer her dead. Meanwhile the space police, led by another earth exile (largely for being frighteningly aggressive) also want her. Both for her own crimes, and as a potential witness against the criminal organization she was a senior in. The fact that earth is outside of inter-stellar justice playing no small part in her desire to go there. And thus the stage is set for an attempt to travel across the universe on absolutely no money at all.

It's quite an interesting concept really. Sort of like seeing a sci-fi future from a very low angle. This is reduced somewhat because the show is played for laugh's and action, with realism and intensity being pushed aside. It also has a couple of problems. While the world appears interesting and detailed it flashes by pretty fast. Likewise while the characters are interesting they're not that well balanced. The teacher basically ends up as comedy relief (along with one of paralaita's accomplices met on the way) while the jock yells at paralaita as she acts like a true career criminal. It's not very balanced and as the show gets wilder and wilder this problem becomes more obvious.

Indeed the final episode, in which they're trapped in a ship (stolen) in which the heating fails tested my resolve. This is because, it being hot, they of course dress up in the most minimal (strange) outfits for an almost complete episode of fan-service. Meanwhile, in order to try and give the jock a use, they have a `baseball' interface to the starship. Whatever charms it had, this show swings wider and wider as it goes. But not to worry, all of a sudden it announced, "and suddenly it was over" and the series ends. Ouch, whiplash.

Likewise the show does have some action segments...including some silly but impressively animated mecha battles. Mind you, once again they have to cheat, with paralaita having a tool available only to the senior most members of one of the crime families. It looks like a credit card and basically super-powers any machine beyond the bounds of both physics and belief. As such the police female, who's damn cool, really has no chance of victory.

The animation is clearly pretty modern...with interesting design both for characters and worlds. The opening, complete with brass marching music, is hilarious but disconnected from the actual show. The character movement, and action, is skilled and watchable. Mind you the level of detail is relatively low, suggesting that this was not on an immense budget. It also seems willing to engage in visual jokes, which are fairly amusing, but give the over-all show a very uncertain sense of style. The voices seemed fine, but a bit extreme at times, and the music was also fine.

Overall it's well produced and has some interestng elements and good scenes (especially at the start). But it's fairly playful and wanders around a lot, without being really funny enough to survive as a comedy anime. Likewise the `cute girls' element, for some reason, fails to catch. Certainly there's plenty of girls, but perhaps not nearly enough cute?

       
                 
                 
       

Words by Andrew Shelton, Web by Ticti, Last Compile: Wed Aug 5 12:39:25 WST 2009