Anime: Uchuu no Stellvia

Review
The world has just faced a major catastrophe. A distant supernova unleashed a wave of destruction that caused a electromagnetic chaos in the Earth's surface and fired the red alert to all nations. The worst of it: this was only the first part. A second, more powerful, wave is coming in the near future, so humanity must put aside their differences and work together to avoid the imminent doom.

This is Stellvia background. Awesome, if one might say. You see, instantly you recognize there is no "enemy", just a force of nature making humans cooperate and work towards a common goal. This offers an outstanding chance for character development and intriguing political events. Anyway, sci-fi awesomeness was the early 2000's major strength, and the starting idea of Stellvia just works to fortify this.

However, as we know with the 2010's shows, a strong premise doesn't mean a show will be a blast. And Stellvia may be one of the rarest of its age that somehow failed to deliver quality upon its starting idea.

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1. It's about Katase
   Protecting the Earth from the next wave of the supernova is no easy feat. In order to train people for that, the unified alliance built Foundations, orbiting space stations to train new astronauts in the many tasks they are expected to perform during the most critical moment. Katase Shima is a new recruit, a cheerful girl ready to learn the tribulations of her important task, as well as meeting new faces and maturing as a person.
   
   The character design
   Stellvia's character designer is Uno Makoto, the guy behind Love Hina and Gravion (and later Witchblade and Dragonaut). He makes either comical characters or super-big breasted woman. His choice for this show is, fortunately, comical characters, which means we have all the super-big eyed teens, colorful clothing, cartoon faces, and so on.
   
   Although the design is not exactly bad, it doesn't resonate with the setting at all. Adding to that are somewhat average robot designs and a background work that just manages to be ok. Well, you could expected all of that if you take notice of the studio: Xebec. These guys had some awesome jobs with the recent Break Blade, Yamato 2199, and a few others, but back in the early 2000's their only glory was Love Hina, which is not something to brag about when it comes to animation.
   
   A coming of age tale
   Stellvia, despite its heavy premise, is in fact a coming of age tale, showing the events of a young girl as she joins the space training program and make friends, tackle with serious relationship, and learns about the responsibilities she has. Although this could work well with the "incoming doom" idea, Stellvia does so in a way that this is basically a school anime in space.
   
   It had the strong points
   A school setting can always be very disappointing, and in many moments Stellvia grows boring as many shows with such setting does. When it shines, however, it does at a great level. First of all, Stellvia manages to mix bits of shounen stuff into this slice-of-life. Katase is in fact a prodigy when it comes to commanding the "mechas" of the space station, so she aces in this task and becomes an ace in the incoming task of handling the supernova wave.
   
   Second, the show accomplishes its objective quite early and tries grows out beyond that, introducing new challenges to explore the "grown" Katase and her new relationships, although it hardly succeeds in that. Finally, it always manage to be quite emotional, making good use of the big-eyed comical characters despite still not mixing well with the setting.
   
   But not an awesome execution
   Stellvia, however, is only "great" when it comes to its ideas. It never manages to explore its cast to the full potential, neither it succeeds at giving us twists and powerful events involving everything it has. It can grow boring at some parts, contrasting with the excitement you get when a new element is presented in the show. This "tease" and "disappoint", mixed with the slice-of-life typical moments, makes Stellvia a quite love-hate show for most of its parts.
   
   It leaves a lesson
   Regardless of how good its execution or idea is, Stellvia teaches an important thing to all shows out there: you can deliver a tale without a villain. Its idea of cooperative work, also explored in shows like Planetes, can create awesome and intriguing events without the need of the "good versus evil" and "hero versus villain" that dominates all shounens out there. And best of all, it doesn't need to be a serious and mature show to succeed at that, it can be light, emotional, and even a bit comical.
   

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Comments
I can't help but have mixed feelings about Stellvia. At first its idea is quite interesting and different from the industry's standards. The lack of stupid villain, a fantastic future that is not exactly out of the possibilities, even the damn high-school at least makes sense in the context of the tale. It is a sweet coming of age of a happy girl growing as she learns from friends, schools, and some other harsh experiences.

Yet... Stellvia never really breaks the barrier imposed by its formula. The character design works against the thrill of survival and the imminent danger, the comedy sometimes cut away with the drama, and the overall production is sub-par.

Anyway, those who want a space drama but are in for some cheesy school elements may find that Stellvia is a decent combination of the two, although not exactly excelling at neither. If you are, however, looking for a solid drama or a more typical shounen space opera, then perhaps you better leave this to the sidelines.

Animated by Xebec, aka the studio which never made an above average show in their whole lives. It is directed by Satou Tatsuo, who has made lots of mecha shows, most of which are unorthodox but otherwise slow and usually anti-climactic (Martian Successor Nadesico, Gekiganger 3, Shingu, Lagrange). So you kinda know right away this is not going to be a masterpiece.

Stellvia is a show that doesn’t know what it wants to be. Although to its core it is the coming of age tale of a teenager girl, it throws that premise amongst a rather complicating and confusing sci-fi setting that expands to philosophy, humanitarianism, and the end of the world. It eventually loses itself amongst the weight of it themes and gets crushed by a lot of themes that were never developed as they could have.

The story is about Earth recovering from a devastating space phenomenon that caused tremendous damage on its surface. Since a second wave is expected to appear after a few years, mankind comes together to prepare for it and manage to survive. Thus the beginning of the show finds all people in peace for centuries, as they build shields in space and train their young to pilot robots that will take out any debris the space event will leave behind. One of those youngsters is Shima, who gets a big vase of rock candy and goes to space to train as well.

A big part of the plot is about her interacting with her fellow pilots and crying… a lot. The whole thing about saving humanity ends up being nothing but an excuse to have a plot somewhere in there and fancy robots doing stuff. Despite the serious premise both slice of life and sci-fi end up being too light for their own good, as the first is unremarkable in its presentation and the later is just a vague objective. Eventually the most memorable scenes of the show end up being her crying, eating rock candy and OWNING EVERYONE WITH HER MAD SKILLZ! You see she seems frail but eventually becomes a top pilot who blows meteorites with her eyes shut and her hands tied behind her back. How the hell she does that; I don’t know; it is supposed to be an inborn talent. She even gets herself a boyfriend, believe it or not!

All that happen in the middle of the story by the way and the rest appears to be what follows after the destruction is prevented. At this point the expectations are really high as the story left open several interesting windows for continuation and further analysis. Despite the average slice of life, we got to see how she slowly matured to a more secured person, she is now famous worldwide, she has a boyfriend, she has a jealous best friend, mankind no longer needs to be friendly and cooperative with each other and then hostile aliens appear… WOW there is something really good cooking here! The series can very easily turn to an amazing space opera full of betrayal, death, civil war, and pondering about the folly of mankind!

… And none of that happen. The rest of the show is almost like a rehash of the first part, where she again needs to train, her relationship is hardly looked into, the world has forgotten her, the jealousy part never occurs, the aliens never make sense or do anything major, humanity never tries to get violent again, and I wonder WHAT THE HELL WAS THE POINT OF ALL THAT??? Surely, all the good ideas in the show were not only presented light but also never developed further, ending up to a soup of a plot. The cast is also nothing remarkable past the main three teenagers, who are again nothing worth remembering because of the simplistic things they do.

The production values are nothing worth remembering either; the soundtrack has a good opening but dialogues and BGM are forgettable. The robots flying around in space (and not fighting because there is no fighting in this show) is cool all things considered. The characters are drawn too simple, with huge eyes that makes those crying scenes to feel ten times more overblown. They obviously went for semi-moe here but because they don’t blush or eat cake every ten seconds the result is plain passable.

In all, it is an average to boring series. It had potential to be great but gave up and just went for beers and more rock candy.

And now for some excused scorings.

Kids in space school, saving the solar system from impending stellar fragments.

Animation

Generic. Very little detail to the characters. The space ship designs are uninspired and look like tonka toys. Backgrounds are the same, cheap Saturday morning cookie cutter junk.

Sound

The intro is good. Has space sound effects. Voice acting average. Whoever did the main character could cry very well. Background music unnoticeable.

Story

Mankind pools it's resources after near obliteration 189 years ago. Genius children pilot experimental robots in times of crisis to save the earth. The heroin constantly gets depressed and cries, at one point for 6 hours during a mission. Her friends cheer her up till her next break down. Repetitive. Kids have breakdowns, but she had one every month. Forgiveness of a murderess student, with no real regret. Character interaction minimal and constantly avoided any deep story telling.

Character Development

Some characters develop relationships, most without reason. As previously stated main girl cries almost the entire time, because she thinks she isn't good enough, then excels, then thinks she isn't good enough. This happens over and over the whole series, till the viewer just wishes she'd give up and let someone who isn't a cry baby handle it. It's like they tried to develop her, but decided on an infinite loop of self dejection and then recovery.

Value

The only reason I watched the whole thing was, because I almost always watch what I start watching. Really unless you want to watch a whiny child whimper for hours....none.

Enjoyment

Pile of suck. This is another example of the off the chart high ratings for a show on AniDB, that is absolutely awful. Give me Card Captor Sakura or Sailor Moon or Pokemon over this. None of those which I would rate as an 8. But they're ok and I'd still watch them 2 times in a row then have to watch this once, heck 4 times in a row!

FIN

Uchuu no Stellvia takes the tired old teenagers-save-the-world-with-giant-robots story in a refreshing new direction. It's a cute story with a lot of teenagers that actually act like teenagers, not adults. Despite it's flaws, Stellvia is well worth the watch for the mecha fan looking for something different.

Animation: For a 2003 production, Stellvia is really impressive. Backgrounds, for the most part, are detailed and nice to look at, most notably the views of the Stellvia station and Earth. Character designs are crisp, clean, and colorful, with only a few inconsistent character designs. The most impressive visual aspect of Stellvia is the prevalent CG seen in all of the spaceships and pretty much everything that takes place in space.

Sound: First of all, the OP and ED are amazing. It was remarkable how well the lyrics of the OP, Brilliant Road, reflected the main character. The OP will occasionally pop up as BGM, and it was extremely effective at getting the viewer involved in what was happening. The great OP and ED can't make up for the slightly above average BGM used in the more mundane situations, however.

Story: The story is interesting enough, in spite of being a little cliché. Basically, the Earth is in jeopardy because of a supernova that happened almost two centuries prior to the story. The first part of the story focuses on the effect of the explosion, and a twist is revealed after that mission. The story is more the journey the characters take to self-realization than the effects of the disturbance. I really like the ending to Stellvia. I'm seldom happy with the endings, but Stellvia was an exception.

Character: Just like almost every anime, you are going to see a few familiar archetypes. Stellvia is no different, but some of the more annoying ones (the playboy) are toned down here. Shima, the heroine of the story, has some great development, but that doesn't keep her constant crying from being annoying. Some of the other characters have some pretty good development, but a few seem underdeveloped. There is very little revealed about Arisa, there are only a few hints to her background and that really left me wanting to know more about her. Kouta, Shima's significant other, is extremely bland most of the time, but he was likable enough.

Value: The good visuals, great OP, and clichéd story taken in a new direction make it pretty easy to recommend to others. A turnoff may be the drama later on, leaving at least one girl crying just about every other scene. It's also important to know Stellvia is more a slice-of-life story than an action story. I don't think re-watch ability is greatly affected by seeing the ending, since I was almost positive what was going to happen the first time around.

Enjoyment: I can appreciate what the creators tried to do with Stellvia, but the main story was a little too trite to get my attention. It was refreshing how the story was told, but it's still ultimately a teenagers-save-the-world story. The enjoyable characters, nice visuals, and a great OP made up for the story.

Stellvia... this series is tough to write a review for. It's an impending-doom-will-mankind-survive type of story, and it all depends on some kids who steer spaceships and mechas. It's science-fiction, but clearly the makers either don't care about making it seem as realistic as possible, or they don't know anything about how computers work. So if you are a fan of hard science fiction, you won't get any of that here (you could give 'Planetes' a try though).

Anyway, I won't repeat the story here, as the description of the Anime is already very accurate. Just a couple of things so that you get an idea of the 'science-fiction' setting you'll be getting:

- The main character school girl transfers to a space station and one of the first things she does is hack the central computer with her laptop; another student accidentally hits one button on this laptop which causes the central computer's program to be deleted. Ummm... yeah... sure.
- Same girl actually develops programs on the fly while piloting a spacecraft; programming is actually building some 3D geometric objects for no particular reason.
- Students go into restricted areas all the time by simply cracking the door locks.
- Whenever people analyze data or do work, all they actually show on the computer screen is playing 3D tetris or whatever. Sometimes they open up a shitload of windows on top of each other that no human being is able to read.
- There is no bogus explanations as to how things are supposed to work whatsoever. It's pretty much processing data this and processing data that all the time.

All of this would be fine if the series developed it's own style / universe of how things work, like for example 'Mujin Wakusei Survive' partially does. But this is not done, the world just seems hollow.

That's for the sci-fi part... the story itself has it's good sides, but on the other hand many holes as well. For example, in the first episode, they stash away a human-shaped robot-spaceship on the space station... 'It will be used for space travel' he says. My ass.

In the end, while it has some nice ideas and interesting characters, it has just as many irregularities and holes in the story, that it ends up being a nice to watch but not outstanding in any way anime.

Animation
The drawn art is very nicely done, characters have big eyes and show a lot of emotion (for the romance part among other things, it's school girls / boys we have as main characters after all), animation is fluid, very well done for the most part.

A lot of the anime actually shows not characters, but spacecraft of various kind. All of this is 3D CGI. They put in a lot of effort to make it seem like hand drawn, so there are black outlines and stuff, but it's still obvious that this is coming 100% from the computer.

Some screens are also mixed, for example when characters walk around in the hangar, the spacecraft are rendered and the characters are moving properly.

I think that the animation is the best part of the series (and that's a sad thing, as usually I prefer series that have a good story, even if the animation isn't top-notch).

Sound
Yeah, well... this is not hard science fiction, so of course, spacecraft and objects make noise in space. The sound effects are all right. Music is so-so, there are some nice tunes, and some boring ones. Nothing I would particularly be eager to add to my playlist. The voice actors are doing a great job... one of the boys voices sounds too manly in my opinion, but there are boys like this, and the voice actually fits the character well. All the voices are well distinguishable, which is a big plus (as there are so many girls/boys of the same age running about).

Story
I always end up writing about the story in the introduction, and I don't want to put any spoilers here, so...

Character
Tough to rate, really tough to rate. There are many interesting characters, for example kind wise old teacher, who acts a bit as a father-figure so to say. Actually well done. On the other hand there are just so many characters, and only about one or two of them we get some kind of background story, the others remain hollow.

In this series, characters get into dangerous sitations from time to time, and whenever that happens in a series, I try thinking about the characters and how I would react if one of them were to die right now. When the characters are well done, I would feel sad or at least feel something. Wasn't the case in this series, as there are too many hollow characters around.

One time a side character -- in German I'd call this guy Besatzungsstatist, which means the extras / supernumerarys in Star Trek episodes who get introduced and die in the same episode -- actually dies, and not only did I feel not anything, the characters themselves didn't either. They just went 'Oh my gosh he is dead(, Jim)' and that was it, no funeral, no feelings, no nothing.

I still give 7 points because there are some interesting characters between the hollow ones.

Value
While this series has some merits (and I'm giving it points for it), it has too many flaws to be considered all that valuable. Rewatch value for me is also zero.

Oh yeah, before I forget... one thing that makes this series valuable, or rather, one thing that many other series of this type have that decrease their value... err, well. This series does NOT get too philosophical / surreal like other mecha series end up doing. So no deducting points for that here.

Enjoyment
I watched this anime as a filler between other tasks, and as such, I actually enjoyed it a lot. You don't have to think much when watching this anime, and don't have to concentrate on the story too much either, so it's perfect for that purpose.

If you had a lot of free time and wanted to use it for watching some outstanding anime, better go for something else. This one is just enjoyable, that is all.

Kids in space? That can be a recipe for excellence as other series have showed us (Infinite Ryvius comes to the forefront of my mind). Unfortunately, Stellvia blasts forth into space where many anime series have gone before: a good show that couldn't go the distance.

Summary: A star went supernova and the initial EM shockwave blasted the Earth, almost 200 years ago - and now the Second Wave of slower-than-light material is about to strike home. Shima Katase is a (scrawny) teenager who decides that she wants to go into space, even in the face of such danger. It turns out that the Second Wave may be the least of her problems, considering all the friends she makes...

Animation
Character Design: The characters are all drawn nicely with some very characteristic details for each. However, most of them seem to be...scrawny. The students range from 15 to 18, yet all of them appear to be more like...12. This is most pronounced in the case of Shima. The adults all seem to be normally proportioned, so maybe there's hope for poor Shima yet.

Op/Ed: Nothing special here. The opening is your standard collection of clips from the first couple of episodes and the ending is a collection of clips from the current episode. While the latter shows that they actually spent a little but of time putting it together, the clips are deliberately grainy, putting it in a "home video" context.

Artwork: Here's where Stellvia earns its score. The artwork and general animation is great. The designs for the two most-seen fighter craft in the series (the Bianca and the Katie) are very pretty and the intricate flying is always a joy to watch. Everything is brightly colored and the little details add up to a very well drawn series.

Sound
Op/Ed: I have to say, the opening song grows on you. At first it's pretty neutral, but the singer's voice is good and eventually you find yourself getting into the beat. The first ending song is mediocre, but I love the second ending, "The End of the World".

Music: Nothing stands out here at all. Every once in a while they add a soft vocal of the opening theme, but for the most part, the background music is just...completely below the threshold of being noticed, let alone enjoyed.

Voices: I confess: I watched Stellvia dubbed. Therefore I can't give any opinion on the Japanese seiyuus, but the English voice actors were typically mediocre. No voice was overly annoying though, which is an accomplishment in and of itself!

Story
Plot: The plot of Stellvia is broken up into two broad story arcs: Pre-Second Wave and Post-Second Wave. There are also the standard romantic entanglements that mesh their way through the entire series.

The Pre-Second Wave arc, in my opinion, is the better of the two. The goal is clear and the characters are prepared and everything makes sense in a sci-fi way. The Post-Second Wave arc, on the other hand, is rapidly thrown together but somehow more organized. A bunch of different plot elements are thrown together and then never used or underused: The unidentified space craft? The oblique scheming? The "alien"? As a writer, there's a rule to follow - if you introduce something, use it. If you're not going to use it, don't introduce it. Stellvia breaks this rule badly during the latter part of the series.

And then, as is depressingly common with anime, the ending is rushed and so far below the quality of the rest of the series, you wonder what the hell you even watched it for.

Writing/Script: The script is average, most of the time. At some points, the quality drops like a rock. My case in point - a scene in episode 18. Without giving away any spoilers...what the hell? I know 16 year old girls are emotionally unstable, but that's pushing it! Scenes like that simply detract from the quality of the series, and there are lots of scenes that simply don't fit.

Characters
Interest: Honestly, the characters in Stellvia are not all that interesting. As usual, the characters I would most like to see developed are least developed (Akira, Jojo, etc). Shima isn't the weakest protagonist I've ever seen, but she's close to it. Arisa is the standard spunky sidekick/best friend to the emotionally unstable protagonist, Yayoi plays the wise and stable counterpoint, Akira plays the brooding quiet friend, the boys play mostly comic relief...it's all very stereotypical and not very interesting.

Growth: Can a series have less overall growth? No one changes! Shima starts off as a gawky clumsy chick with low self esteem. Her self esteem starts to grow - and then plummets. In the end, she's really not much different. Arisa's only real change is that she changes her focus of study. Yayoi, Akira, all the other characters are almost completely static. These characters are faced with the end of the universe, for all intents and purposes - and none of them are really all that affected by it. Suspension of disbelief, anyone?

Value and Enjoyment: Really, this series is only moderately worth the time. You can do much worse, but you can also do much better. Stellvia is a fun show, don't get me wrong - but it's style without substance. It's a shallow puddle - great fun to jump in while it lasts, but then the sun comes out and it goes away and you don't really miss it, because another puddle will come along soon enough. That's what Stellvia is. Expect a fun show without much depth.