September 13, 2003

Stellvia of the Universe Episode 22

"Each Separate Path"

stellviaoftheuniverse.jpgAh, the joys of picking up a series after episode twenty.

The character designs for the show lean over to the overly-cute side (I don't dig the super-huge eyes, but that's just me), and seem very Xenogears/Xenosaga-like. The outer space scenes are CG, but they're a little sloppy and cheap-looking. This show reminds me how I don't like the trend in anime that big battles with mechs, spaceships, etc. are all CG. Obviously, this saves money, but their CG techniques just do not mesh well with the hand drawn art. Cowboy Bebop, for example, did a much better job of matching the styles, through sparing (key word) use of CG.

The ship designs are interesting, but the way they bounce around spastically through space really borders on ridiculous. On the other hand, the one mech I saw in the episode looked pretty stupid. The arms and legs are a bunch of flat rectangles, attached to a round torso and head. Maybe "lanky" is the right word to describe it. Anyways, it looks stupid.

The plot of the show deals with something called the Genesis mission, which manages to be referenced about thirty times, but never explained (I'm guessing there have been many explanations of this in the past, so it's really my fault). With the absolute nothing that comprises what I know about this show's story, it still managed to seem interesting, and I'm actually curious about what will happen in the next few episodes.

Rating: B

Posted by Kei at September 13, 2003 06:39 PM
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