| 03 April 2009
| Episodes | 26 |
| Director | Noboru Ishiguro |
| Company | Artland Studios, NHK |
This reviewer just finished the TV anime series Tytania. I watched the HQ release as fansubbed by ANBU and posted for torrenting. The series is based on novels published in Japan, not generally available outside Japan. I had no access to the novels, and my review is based entirely on the content of the torrented material.
The technical quality of the production is excellent throughout. The vibrantly colorful artwork is a mixture of human and computer work, with most of the space scenes computer generated and the character scenes cell animated. The sound track is clean, well selected and plays well as provided, the Japanese voice acting was appropriate and well characterized throughout, to my tastes.
This is a true Space Opera, or perhaps operetta. It is a costume melodrama set to Viennese chamber music and operatic singing. The common people of the worlds dress ordinary or modernistic garb and carry ordinary implements. The rulers of the Tytanian Empire, a space based aristocracy, style themselves in Edwardian Finery, and carry implements styled to match; Genteel killers. The Tytanian space platforms are formal gardens that carry on the theme of Edwardian gentility. The exteriors of their spaceships, on the other hand, are styled to inspire fear and terror.
The story centers on "Admiral" Fan Huylick, an everyman character of generally western appearance, who is promoted to "Admiral" by his employers as the incidental architect of the defeat of a Tytanian punitive expedition. Nobody told him he wasn't supposed to defeat the enemy.
As the story progresses, Tytania's relentless persecution of Fan Huylick becomes obsession, and transforms him from a little man in a world of giants, into the nemesis of Empire.
There were complaints heard, some even on torrent comment lines, about the pacing. I disagree. This story is mental chess, with lives and nations at stake. It is in the style of the court intrigues of Empire, and as seen in Samurai historical dramas. The side stories and the by play of the minor characters are not overdone or, to me ever boring. They illuminate and illustrate the humanity of people who otherwise would merely be posturing egotists.
The characters, the story and the action are almost always taken seriously. They are generally rendered in more or less illustration styles, and the action seldom becomes cartoonish. It is easy most of the time to maintain the suspension of disbelief. Sentiment can become intense, but is kept, barely, bearable. As in almost all Space fiction the action is telescoped, and full of the sounds and dynamics of aerial combat, but then who would want to watch the reality? Real space combat is in silent vacuum, and likely to take place at ranges of thousands of kilometers.
On the other hand, no one has yet found a substitute for an infantry landing. Whether you want to control, or merely destroy; both realities are illustrated in all their contemporary brutality.
I further endorse the somewhat improbably Edwardian styling, the admittedly clichéd fulfillment of the Space Opera category. As for knives, swords, and hand to hand fighting, those who seek to express their dominance, they are hardly likely to abandon physicality. It's just so hormonal. Also, if you had infinite resources, wouldn't you style things to your cultural ideal? With limitless wealth, why not style the interior of your spaceship as an Edwardian drawing room?
We tend to forget, but the Japanese have not, that Edwardian dandies ruled the greatest Empire known to history. I would expect to see this story do well when brought over here, provided they don't muck too much with the politics.
In summary I would rate this among the best classic Space Opera series I've seen, animated or otherwise, and worthy of fan support. If you find Space Opera entertaining, you should enjoy this. In the tradition of identifying everything with parts of the Hero's Journey, and fairy tales, you might call this a futuristic Jack the Giant Killer. Well, if you choose to watch it you'll see what I mean.
In the end, we see the foundations of Empire tremble, but they are not yet failing. Hence there is lots of room for more.
