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A quick ramble on Hakugei.

First, Hakugei is not Melville's Moby Dick. It is not a modern interpretation of the classic novel, nor a space-age reimagining. Typical of the anime industry, the writers of Hakugei have merely appropriated high-profile elements of Melville's classic and have applied it, unnecessisarily but to interesting effect, to a space opera that reminded me in equal parts of Star Wars, Dune, Blade Runner, and, perhaps more so, of The Seven Samurai (indeed, I'm now convinced Gonzo's Samurai 7 was a remake of Hakugei rather than of Kurosawa's classic.)

So, does all this derivativeness make Hakugei a ... bad show? Nope. It's pretty decent, usually entertaining, and occasionally fantastic. While not exactly fast-paced, the writers do a good job of maintaining narrative thrust. The first half is a fun space adventure with stand-alone episodes that effectively build a believable, if occasionally unsettling universe as well as a collection of likeable, rag-tag characters. The second season is far more ambitious and has perhaps too many plot threads without the thoughtful writing to pull them together.

While the animation is lacking, a typical flaw of late 90s productions, and is occasionally too cartoonish for its own good, the art design is fantastic. This is especially true of the setting second half of the series which features a burned-out environmental disaster of a planet and some awesome neo-noirish spacecraft.

The characters are for the most part a positive element of Hakugei (the annoying android parrot and the "journalist" notwithstanding)- especially Ahab, a combination of the quintessential anime alpha-male and a prototypical wacko goofball. This is what I imagine most shounen brats would be like when they grew up. Ahab's crew is a fine, if typical, cast of characters. The only complaint with them is that they turn into something of a greek chorus of sophmoric slapstick comedy in the more complex (and grim) second season. Thankfully, the second season features a couple of the best villains I've seen in anime in a while.

Sadly, like many anime, Hakugei has some seriously annoying flaws that make it hard to recommend. The second season is downright schizophrenic in tone (cartoonish one second, melodramatic the next) - and much of its humor seems both dated and geared toward a Japanese audience (this added a bit of character for me, so I didn't mind too much.) It also simply fails to successfully address its ambitions in the second season - it's not necessarily a bad thing to want more when an anime ends but in Hakugei's case, a lot of plot lines are, not so much left hanging, as poorly managed. Still, the ending wasn't a bad one compared to many anime. So long as you don't expect too much (and it's Hakugei, so why would you.)

So, who would I recommend this to? If you just can't get enough of 90s sci-fi anime and have seen Bebop, Outlaw Star, Captain Tylor, LoGH, etc, but just want more, try Hakugei. Or, if you enjoy the occasional quality, oddball anime that seems to have disappeared from the radar (Neo Ranga, Shingu, Stellvia, Clockwork Fighters, etc...,) try Hakugei. But if you're looking for Moby Dick? Try yer Kindle.

A bit of a rabbit hole this...

Simply put, Neo Ranga is one of my favorite anime series and, though far from flawless, it gets my vote for most underrated series on this site.

Functioning somewhere between modern-day fable and social satire, Neo Ranga tells the story of the Shimabara sisters who live on a hill in a suburb of Tokyo, and of Ranga, a massive godlike creature (physically - part Godzilla, part giant robot) who comes from the sea to serve them. However, far from a simple girl-meets-sentient-mecha anime, Neo Ranga takes a wide-angle view of the story ... and is as much about Tokyo and its citizens as it is about the sisters. We are introduced to local merchants, crooked politicians, ambitious tv producers, opportunistic yakuza, a military excited to try out new weapons on Ranga, disanchanted youth, secret societies, etc, all of whom must come to grips with this seemingly omnicient power. Perhaps it's worth noting that this was a late '90s production with the fear of Y2K still looming large on the horizon.

Neo Ranga is very episodic in nature & often feels disjointed in its presentation due to its short episode length. This is very much a slice-of-life series (with very little that could be construed as horror, at least in the traditional sense), as the 3 sisters struggle through their daily existance even as a giant god sits in their backyard & half of Tokyo bears down on them for one reason or another. The sisters themselves are fairly archetypal (I'm sure a Freudian analysis would be valid here) as Ushio is generally idealistic, Yuuhi destructive, and Minami, the older, more pragmatic caregiver. That said, I didn't think the personalities were too overbearing or static - they came across as genuine characters, true to their ages rather than as allegorical puppets.

The other characters in the series were reasonably well-developed, - they felt genuine in their purpose and didn't seem to exist simply to push the plot in a contrivial manner. A couple of the more antagonistic characters in the 2nd half of the series failed to live up to this description, but otherwise, I had no qualms.

Through the 1st 40 episodes (41-48 comes later), the animation, art, and character design was remarkable. The style feels very much a product of its time. It lacks the smooth crisp lines of most Gonzo or Bones productions of today, instead relying on a gritty, realistic feel with occasional artistic flourishes - this anime has my favorite Tokyo-look ever. The girls themselves have typically massive eyes and sharp foxlike features - the rest of the characters vary from foxlike to potatolike depending on whether they are meant to be attractive. The god/mecha design also was excellent, though often very strange (which is what I like I guess) and at times, rather silly.

Sound production was great - the voice actors were well-cast and there wasn't anything in the anime itself that proved detrimental. The songs are certainly a bizarre set - the opening tracks rely on groovy "tribal" rhythms and chanting. Season 1's op theme is one of my favorite anime songs ever, a bit of a throwback to '60s and '70s b-movie exploitation themes. The 2nd season's op theme has more of a Ennio Morricone feel to it but doesn't work as well, mainly due to (purposely?) poor use of synthetic voice sampling. The endsongs left less impression, though I remember trying to avoid listening to the 2nd season endsong as much as possible (reminded me of Escaflowne's endsong).


The next paragraph mentions the last few episodes of the anime - not the story so much as the form and quality. I don't really consider that a spoiler but if you do - might wanna skip it.


Regarding episodes 41-48: I've seen a few ambitious anime series that simply don't quite know what to do with themselves down the stretch, usually a quality-drop is in order. However, I have never seen such a transformation in tone, pacing, and animation style as occurs with Neo Ranga in it's final episodes. Episodes 41-42 and part of 43 look as though they were produced by a completely different company altogether (production i.g. is my guess). Most of the humor is jettisoned and the story rockets forward into the bizarre and outlandish...perhaps incoherent. But what's really odd, is that it's not badly done. I enjoyed the end as much as the rest, I just felt I was watching a different show.

Overall, Neo Ranga is one of the most idiosyncratically enjoyable anime series I've seen, and at the end I felt it was as fully realized a world as I've come across in an anime series, with likeable characters who's actions & reactions, while in the shadow of the massive Ranga, made sense (until episode 41). Though perhaps hard to recommend - maybe too slow and goofy for most mecha fans and too dark and strange for fans of domestic comedy, but, if you're looking for something a bit different, curious, thoughtful, and self-aware, you might want to give Neo Ranga a shot.

Kirameki Project is an endearingly silly little show that manages to throw an old-school blue-collar mecha premise into a shoujo comic fantasy. Then it adds lots...LOTS of fan-service...lots considering its 13up rating. Due to all the skin, KP will probably appeal more to fans of Agent Aika, My Dear Marie, or other lightweight sci-fi sex-farces, rather than fans of mecha or shoujo. It is essentially a parody that, in my opinion, successfully develops, to the needs of this show anyway, 2 separate storylines, with 2 reasonably well-developed lead characters.

The characters in general are one of the stronger elements of the show, most ... of whom are likable cliches that most of us have seen dozens of times in other shows, but for the most part, they prove amiable enough here...did I mention fan service...anyhow.

The story itself is a bit of a throwaway that leaves a lot of unanswered questions, but I found myself not caring too much...you can read ANNs synopsis above to see how important the story is.

The animation, while not my favorite style, may be this show's raison d'etre (did I spell that right). I often felt the 3D CG mecha fights, obviously meant to be show-stoppers, were a bit obvious and didn't always fit in with the rest of the art...however, the comic timing of the physical gags was much to my liking and generally kept me smiling through most of the show...granted it's no Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi (thank God) but there was enough to keep me entertained.

The music was good all around, but I really liked the opening and closing songs...although admittedly, I think, they just fit real well with the animated sequences which I found funny enough to watch through all 5 episodes, a rarity for me.

Overall, I enjoyed the absurdity of it all. Not my normal fare but it was quite fun.