Outlaw Star

Original Title: 星方武侠アウトロースター
Romanized: Seihou Bukyou Outlaw Star
Literal: Gallant Way of the Stars - Outlaw Star

Plot Synopsis

In the distant future, humans have traveled to the stars and colonized the planets around them. But the spacelanes have become a throwback to the days of the swashbucklers, with a twist. There is the spacefleet, representing law, the pirates, representing chaos, and the Outlaws, who fit somewhere in between--some are altruistic spacefarers, others are opportunistic fortune-seekers.

Enter our heroes, a mechanically inclined kid and an older kid who's a crack-shot and even smoother with the ladies... but his real dream is to go to space. Their business is Starwind and Hawkins, and they'll do anything for a buck, be it bodyguard or farm equipment repair. Or both, as the case may be--when a beautiful client shows up asking for some hard to find hardware and physical protection, they jump at the chance. But they're about to get more than they bargained for, even if it is their chance to get off the rock and into the wilds of space--and a whole slew of adventures.

Quick Review

Rating: 3 / 5
Reviewer: Marc
Review Date: 2006-08-06

Outlaw Star is your basic sci-fi action series with some added magical/samurai/wild west flair. It's not wildly original, or of spectacularly high quality, but it's a solid, fun series with enough colorful characters and creative settings to put it a pace or two ahead of the generic space opera crowd. Its most noteworthy features is the offhanded way the setting combines magic and technology, and the very likable protagonist Gene--simultaneously competent and appealingly goofy (for example, he spends the first several episodes incapacitated with space sickness). There's also plenty of decent-looking action, and a quality dub cast.

Outlaw Star is solidly put together, generally fun to watch, and worth a shot for light space opera fans.

US DVD Review

The series is available on a number of DVD collections, all of which are characteristically quality Bandai productions, and none of which list much in the way of extras. It was originally released on three 2-disc sets, which were later also released as a reduced-price "Perfect Collection" box set. More recently still, a budget-priced "Anime Legends" complete collection in a different (and somewhat less snazzy-looking) box has shown up, and at least on the marketing material boasts of textless openings and endings, and some image galleries that the earlier releases did not. All the versions are in bilingual stereo, and to my knowledge none are of the edited TV version.

Content Guide

It's not all that bad, but some mature themes and violence push it into the 13-up range. The TV version is somewhat cleaner; these ratings are for the unedited version.

Violence: 3 - Not graphic, but definitely violent.

Nudity: 2 - A fair amount of exposed skin, but through clever camera work and proper positioning, you never technically "see anything."

Sex/Mature Themes: 2 - A bit of raunch early on, and some running innuendo.

Language: 1 - The dub is surprisingly frugal with the profanity.

Notes and Trivia

Outlaw Star is based on a 1997 manga series of the same name by Takehiko Ito. That series is, in turn, a spin-off of an earlier parody manga series, also by Ito, called Space Hero Tales ("Uchuu Eiyuu Monogatari," also known in English as "Future-Retro Hero Story"). The Outlaw Star anime series has its own spin-off TV series, Angel Links.

Outlaw Star was among the first of Bandai's series to make it to the Cartoon Network (originally airing in 2001), and as a result it's quite popular with the light anime watching public. It's worth mentioning that the TV version is slightly edited to make it more suitable for a young audience, and is also missing one episode (the obligatory hot springs episode, which wasn't significant enough to the plot to make it worth the heavy editing work).

Availability

Available in the US from Bandai on hybrid DVD in several formats: An "Anime Legends" complete box set, three individual 2-disc sets, and a "Perfect Collection Box Set" that combines those three sets in one attractive box. Was originally available on subtitled or dubbed VHS, two episodes to a volume.

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