Lt. Gen. Oohlala signing in for another report!!
Today's report will cover the anime space opera Outlaw Star!!
This anime followers Gene Starwind's & Jim Hawking. Gene [red head] is a 2o something womanizer who drinks too much & loves a good fight. Jim [blonde] is an 11 year old computer expert who takes of the money? Money? Yes, Gene & Jim run Starwind & Hawking, a company that fixes anything from tracktors to relationships; or so Jim says whenever he answers the phone. Now, i think it is sligtly weird that Jim, an 11 year old, is a business partner & the smarter one out of the bunch. Gene most does bounty hunts & physical jobs while Jim, as master mechanic as well, handles car repairs & such. Anyways, the story starts off with Gene taking out a bounty on his homeplant of Sentinel 3, a frontier town in some distant edge of space. Eventually, Jim gets a call about a customer, Rachel Sweet, who wants a bodygaurd and a number of high priced and rare mechanical parts. After Gene & Jim are chased down by the space pirates called Kei Pirates, who weild Tao magic, Miss Sweet reveals herself as Hilda, an outlaw who stole a very special ship and nagivation system from them. The ship is the XGP & the navigation system is a bio-andriod called Melfina. Gene & Jim, now a target of Kei Pirates, join Hilda & Melfina as they fly off into space to find the XGP. They stop at Blue Heaven for refueling, then leave for Farfallas planetary system, where Hilda hid the XGP.
However, once they get to the ship, the Kei Pirates [traking thier movement with a Tao spell] launch an attack. Melfina, Gene, & Jim are able to leave Hilda's ship and get inside the XGP. Hilda detonates an explosive in her tooth to save them from death by Tao spell. Gene names the ship the Outlaw Star ["Outlaws never go down easy, no matter what happens to them," is the last Hilda says before she dies, so i like to think of the name of the ship as a tribute to her] & leaves back for Blue Heaven. Afterwards, the Outlaw Star flys out in space to encounter varies peoples & experiences, eventually gaining 2 new members, Twilight Suzuka [an Ultra Class A assassin who weilds a deadly wooden sword who wears a very flattering white kimo outfit] and Asiha Clanclan [a catgirl (Kutarokutaro) who has the brains of a child but the strength of 10+ men]; all while trying to avoid the Kei Pirates who want their ship & Melfina back as well as a pair of thugs for hire who wante personal revengence on Gene.
I remember seeing this anime back when i was like 5th & 6th grade, so i was delighted when i saw the entire series on dvd at BestBuy [40$]. The show is awesomeliciousness, however after doing some research i found that, like in every anime in existance, there is a major difference between its American & Japanese version. Now, Outlaw Star ran on Toonami [which sadly is no longer running on CartoonNetwork] when i saw it on 5th/6th grade. As such, i do not really remember the exact difference from when i watched just a couple of weeks ago. However, according to the all powerful Wikipedia, the Toonami version had some differences.
To the right is a picture of Melfina's versions. In the original anime [left], Melfina is naked a good portion of the anime. The Toonami version [right, duh] has her wearing a bra & tight shorts. This is an understable atleration; after all the original was marketed an older audience while Toonami was pushing this on children. [This issue of differen audiences will be addressed in an upcoming report about the differences in anime from Original to U.S. versions]. Melfina is naked for a good portion of the show because when she is navigating the Outlaw Star, she is in giant glass tube floating in some liquid. While in here, she interacts directly with the ship mainframe & can guide the ship, detect enemy fire, as well as keep track of all coponents of the ships. From what i can gather this liquid as act a medium device betweeen the ship & her; Melfina cannot access the ship directly unless she is in that tube. Because of this, she has to naked, exposing the most amount of skin to the liquid of a better connection. While in the tube, her arms cross covering her breats while a metal casing around the tube covering her groin. But here, adding clothing is not so much of a bad alteration, it does not really take away from anything. I still like it better when she is naked because it makes more sense & that is how it was originally, but whatever.Another alteration was Fred Luo. He is an arms dealer who has a major crush on Gene [His bodygaurd tells Gene he only gets discounts & loans because his boss loves him]. Gene & Jim are slgihtly uncomfortable with this, as Fred drowns them in hugs & always sit extremely close to Gene. My favouite Fred scene is when Gene comes to him to ask to borrow to enter a space race. Fred says yes, if he something "special" for him. They look at each for a few seconds & Gene says "I'm not sleeping with you." It is funny as hell to watch [FYi: Fred wanted Gene to wear this frilly stupid outfit to promote his business the Outlaw finished the race]. However, for the Toonami, his amourous ways were toned down, again for the kiddies. This alteration does affect the show a little bit, since Fred's gay ways were a source of hurmour for the show, but Fred was a minor character so it did not really impact the show heavily.
The most dramatic, & stupid, alteration was the changing of violence. Now, it is common for animes in the U.S. & Toonami to edit out blood in animes. However, this went far beyond it. The show editted out the part where Hilda commits suicide to save Gene, Jim, & Melfina. The Toonami version makes it seem like she disappeared into the sun. Hilda is a significant character in the anime. She set up the stage where Gene& Jim meet up with Melfina & gain the Outlaw Star. She died with dignity, saving people. The Toonami took that out; i find it disgraceful for the character. Another thing was they attempted to edit out that Suzuka was an assassin, which is hard to do because she mentions it a lot. I do not remember the Toonami verion very much, but it is kind of hard to edit out her profession. Gene & Jim first meet Suzuka when she trying to kill Fred Luo, being hired by a rival weapons dealer. Jim mentions how uncomfortble he is whith her on the ship; Gene only saved Fred's life by making a pact with Suzuka that she must Gene before she can kill Fred.
In light of this, i suggest buying this anime on dvd; the dvd version is unaltered [they even show Aisha's nipples during a hot springs scene]. The dub is not bad, though no where as good as Lucky☆Star. There were a few sentences that i winced at, however the dub was goodl; each voice represented the characters well.
Overall, i give this action packed, western space opera 5 Lucky☆Stars out of 5:
☆☆☆☆☆.
Till next time, Galatic Groove Kittens,
This is Lt. Gen. Oohlala signing off!!
Where i got my info:
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