Starship Operators

I finished watching Starship Operators last night and was really taken by how it ended.  My opinion of the show changed quite a bit this last disc, from seeing it as a decent show to being most definitely impressed.  The show does have some problems, which I’ll gloss over before getting to the good stuff.

Neither the Japanese dub nor the English dub is exceptional.  I normally watch in English, but switch to Japanese if the English is not good, except this time I had to switch back to the English again since the Japanese dub didn’t catch my fancy either.  A couple of episodes could have been used more effectively to build up some of the characters before taking them down and some of it will ask you to turn off your critical thinking circuit.  These things keep it from being an ”A” show, but wasn’t enough to keep me from being glad I saw this.

Starship Operators is a 13 episode science fiction series about a group of cadets who take their training ship to fight “The Kingdom” after it had taken over their home planet.  To finance their rebellion, the cadets sell the rights to their story to a reality TV-show producer.

There’s alot of things about the show that are different from current releases that add to its appeal.  First thing is it introduces all of the main characters in the first half of the first episode, instead of dragging out character introductions over five, six, seven, or eight episodes.  Dumping all of the characters in your lap can be a lot to keep track of and makes it difficult to get to know the characters, but it’s refreshing to break out of that formula of character introductions.  Another thing I found refreshing is the show is not a harem type show where every girl fawns all over a character.  There are romance elements in the show, but these elements don’t ask the plot to stop moving while it goes for a fanservice gag.  The romance elements that are there are more like background information about the characters rather than their primary goals. 

It’s very external storytelling.  We see the characters in pain, rather than hearing them think about their pain.  This avoids a lot of internal monologues where characters tend to dwell on their turmoil.  As such, emotional expanses are compact.  This is not to say it glosses them over, but rather you’re the fly on the wall.

I guess one of the things Starship Operators does, or rather doesn’t do, that I liked a lot was that I didn’t feel like the show was pandering to me.  Some shows just feel like the marketing department has taken over, telling them to give glasses girl extra time because the last survey shows 43% of anime fans voted girl with glasses as their favorite fetish.  The telling of this story feels a little more straight than that.  Sure it uses the reality show angle as a gimmick, but it incorporates it into the story itself and uses that angle to service the story rather than to service the fans’ cynicism, angst or libido. 

Starship Operators probably won’t be your new favorite show, but it’s a pretty good way to tide you over until you do find it.