Okay, so I lied when I said posting was going to resume shortly. Oops.
Anyway, back over the holidays I was shopping at Best Buy and saw a box set of Stratos 4 going for a mere fifteen bucks. Since Steven Den Beste said nice things about it and the character designs were attractive, I figured it was worth that. So, a few weeks back I dug out the first volume and watched it with a friend.
And now, much later, I’m going to post a collection of random thoughts, mainly for the purpose of having a recent post up here. Potential spoilers for the first DVD after the cut.
- Steven Den Beste is really, really right when he talks about this series not making too much sense if you think about it too hard. Even setting aside the basic premise of the series, the method for dealing with the threat of comet bombardment seems more than a little obtuse.
- Apparently, the world of Stratos 4 - or at least the Comet Blasters/Meteor Sweepers organization - has very strict gender segregation policies, given that every pilot team we see is single-sex.
- At least from DVD 1, I have no clear concept of how the teams we see really fit into the organization. Okay, so we’ve got four person, two-plane teams… but the girl’s team is all made up of trainees while the guy’s team has two kids and two adults. And the adults wear a different uniform. And all the Comet Blasters we see are female, but the male kids seem to be competing to be Comet Blasters too…
- All save one of our core cast of four seem interesting and likable. Sadly, the exception is Mikaze, the apparent main character and the only one to have any real focus on her thus far.
- Why - apparently - don’t the male students have to work a second job too, anyway? Well, because they wouldn’t look good in Chinese dresses, but besides that…
- To quote my friend’s response to the announcement that there was no loss of life from a failed interception where the comet hit a small-seeming, populated island because everyone was evacuated: “No fucking way!”
- That leads into one reason why I’ve yet to get around to watching the second DVD: I’ve really low tolerance for characters that cause major disasters (and realistically, large loss of life) by being willfully stupid and disobeying sensible orders.
- I am fairly curious, however, as to how they justify Mikaze ever getting to fly again…
And that’s about what comes to mind right now. Hopefully when I watch the second DVD, I’ll get around to posting before I have a chance to forget the details…
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January 29, 2007 at 1:56 am
Steven Den Beste
Don’t give up on Mikaze yet; she gets more likeable.
I think the reason for the different uniforms is that at a certain point they redesigned the pressure suits. The teachers are wearing the old style because there was no reason to issue them new ones.
No one ever accused this series of being top drawer or of telling a tight and compelling story, but it isn’t bad, and the girls are cute, and there’s more magic to it than it first appears.
And the four otaku are going to be a bigger part of the story than it appears now. In fact, they get the best and most funny scene in the entire series. (I like those guys.)
The series is definitely worth $15, and I don’t think you’ll regret spending the time to watch the rest of it.
January 29, 2007 at 1:37 pm
Pete Zaitcev
Well, Averyanov crashed a Flanker at airshow in Paris, and he’s still the chief test pilot on Sukhoi. To be fair, he didn’t kill scores of people like those Ukrainian clowns. But Mikaze didn’t either, so…
And heck, giving big second chances is the staple of anime. Ever seen Stellvia? They forgive premediated murder there, let alone a small error of judgement as is the case here.
January 29, 2007 at 9:45 pm
Aaron Nowack
Steven:
“Don’t give up on Mikaze yet; she gets more likeable.”
Glad to hear it.
“The series is definitely worth $15, and I don’t think you’ll regret spending the time to watch the rest of it.”
I’m fairly certain that I won’t regret taking the time to watch the rest myself; it’s just that the ending of the first DVD rubbed me the wrong way and so it’s dropped lower in the queue of things to watch. I’ll get around to it eventually, I’m sure.
Pete:
“Ever seen Stellvia? They forgive premediated murder there, let alone a small error of judgement as is the case here.”
That is true. But as a watcher I’m much more forgiving of malice than incompetence. :)
(Didn’t the victim wind up cooperating in a conspiracy to cover up the crime or at least play down the attempted premeditated murder part of it in that case, too? My memory is fuzzy… I need to finish collecting the DVDs so I can rewatch that series.)