And that's saying a lot. I am not a committed fan of Japanese manga/anime type entertainment but actually found myself caring about the plight of the characters here. I've read the novel a dozen plus times & saw the 1997 film in a theater on release week. It was a riot. Total strangers hi-fived each other on the way out then went drinking together to rave about the experience to anyone who would listen. Got the video the day it streeted and came to know every line, cadence, beat and explosion. It's a party movie aimed at low attention spans and exactly the movie we deserved at the time.
This is different, a thoughtful and surprisingly low-key adaptation of the source material for Japanese television with some understandable alterations, lots of J-Pop schmaltz rock, and big weepy Manga eyes. Still far more faithful to the book than the 1997 movie, whose filmmakers must have studied this presentation for ideas - It even opens with a football game & high school dance, and our protagonist is likewise motivated by his yearning for the gal of his dreams. There is none of the rightist philosophical discourse which flavors the book. The series' futurist Utopia has none of the contradictions which flavor the 1997 film. The "bugs" are also transformed into Manga movie monsters, organic plasma spewing blobs with lots of whispy tentacles, and quite lethal enough to be worthy of the Mobile Infantry. They will do.
Yes, it shows the powered armor. LOTS of powered armor in fact, which is cool to finally get to see though the design employed has more in common with the Shogun Warriors walking angular Swiss army knife contraptions than the 9 foot tall ape like shells which encased the novel's heroes. Not that it's a problem, and the big payoff for devotees of Heinlen's novel will be the sequence saved until the final episode as the armored Starship Troopers are finally strapped into their re-entry capsules, fired from the Rodger Young, and do battle on the enemy's home planet in an impressive display of cartoon carnage. The entire sequence takes about 12 minutes but was worth every second leading up to it.
Viewers can of course skip the other five installments but by doing so will miss the journey Johnny Rico goes through learning how to control both his powered armor and his grief at the loss of his mother to the alien menace, whatever they are supposed to be. If the series has a weak spot it's that Johnny's romantic aspirations for Carmen Ibanez continue being his motivating factor long after the novel lets go to allow Johnny to focus on learning how to be an effective soldier. Yet the damnedest thing is that I found myself caring about not just Rico but his squad mates as well, suddenly realizing that they are likely facing their own deaths and understandably unnerved. They can only rely on their training, their technology, and each other against overwhelming opposition, a difficult notion to get across on a cartoon yet it somehow manages to. Only the most ruthless and adaptable survive, which is itself right out of Heinlen's Social Darwinism, no classroom lectures required and nothing lost in the translation. War will still be Hell.
The series has yet to surface on a DVD, an almost unforgivable oversight on the part of whomever holds the rights. How do you say "Get the lead out and press this already" in Japanese? The series deserves to be seen, especially considering the brainlessness of the (more or less) abysmal live action direct to DVD franchise which followed up the 1997 film. Here is a thinking person's alternative, and tracking down a fan-subtitled version of the complete six episode series took about three minutes. Look in the obvious place, you shouldn't have to spend a dime and that's a shame. I'd like to reward whomever was responsible with a purchase and have a hard copy on the shelf with the others so I can watch it again at whim -- Nice work!
This is different, a thoughtful and surprisingly low-key adaptation of the source material for Japanese television with some understandable alterations, lots of J-Pop schmaltz rock, and big weepy Manga eyes. Still far more faithful to the book than the 1997 movie, whose filmmakers must have studied this presentation for ideas - It even opens with a football game & high school dance, and our protagonist is likewise motivated by his yearning for the gal of his dreams. There is none of the rightist philosophical discourse which flavors the book. The series' futurist Utopia has none of the contradictions which flavor the 1997 film. The "bugs" are also transformed into Manga movie monsters, organic plasma spewing blobs with lots of whispy tentacles, and quite lethal enough to be worthy of the Mobile Infantry. They will do.
Yes, it shows the powered armor. LOTS of powered armor in fact, which is cool to finally get to see though the design employed has more in common with the Shogun Warriors walking angular Swiss army knife contraptions than the 9 foot tall ape like shells which encased the novel's heroes. Not that it's a problem, and the big payoff for devotees of Heinlen's novel will be the sequence saved until the final episode as the armored Starship Troopers are finally strapped into their re-entry capsules, fired from the Rodger Young, and do battle on the enemy's home planet in an impressive display of cartoon carnage. The entire sequence takes about 12 minutes but was worth every second leading up to it.
Viewers can of course skip the other five installments but by doing so will miss the journey Johnny Rico goes through learning how to control both his powered armor and his grief at the loss of his mother to the alien menace, whatever they are supposed to be. If the series has a weak spot it's that Johnny's romantic aspirations for Carmen Ibanez continue being his motivating factor long after the novel lets go to allow Johnny to focus on learning how to be an effective soldier. Yet the damnedest thing is that I found myself caring about not just Rico but his squad mates as well, suddenly realizing that they are likely facing their own deaths and understandably unnerved. They can only rely on their training, their technology, and each other against overwhelming opposition, a difficult notion to get across on a cartoon yet it somehow manages to. Only the most ruthless and adaptable survive, which is itself right out of Heinlen's Social Darwinism, no classroom lectures required and nothing lost in the translation. War will still be Hell.
The series has yet to surface on a DVD, an almost unforgivable oversight on the part of whomever holds the rights. How do you say "Get the lead out and press this already" in Japanese? The series deserves to be seen, especially considering the brainlessness of the (more or less) abysmal live action direct to DVD franchise which followed up the 1997 film. Here is a thinking person's alternative, and tracking down a fan-subtitled version of the complete six episode series took about three minutes. Look in the obvious place, you shouldn't have to spend a dime and that's a shame. I'd like to reward whomever was responsible with a purchase and have a hard copy on the shelf with the others so I can watch it again at whim -- Nice work!