Genres: science fiction Themes: cloning, sand pirates Plot Summary: In an endless desert without a speck of greenery, Sam Coyne rides a motor bike, looking for something, when he sees a girl being chased by seemingly-hostile ships. Sam saves the girl, whose name is Maya, who might actually not be a criminal on the run, but royalty… Before returning to the safety of his group’s base, he sees a giant monster rise out of the sand. It’s the monster who is his brother’s enemy… The sand whale Ozma. Number of episodes: 6 Vintage: 2012-03-16
I just saw it. I thought it was pretty weak. The art was horrible. While some of the characters looked “normal”, others looked like caricatures that wouldn’t be out of place in One Piece. The art for the female characters was horrible across the board. The main protagonist was a wimpy little boy who seems a bit mentally deficient and who hasn’t yet discovered testosterone. Older male protagonists need to be seen more.
As was said over on Crunchyroll, this show blatantly rips off so many other shows. When does homage become plagiarism?
As for actual content, I didn’t see anything remarkable. We have the chipper and “not quite all there” boy hero, a tsundere, a budding love triangle, and the “good guys” have some sort of uber-ship that is so advanced that not even the military can challenge it. This reminds me of the awful “Valkyria Chronicles” anime where there was no tension or conflict as the “good guys” possessed a weapon so ridiculously superior to anything their enemies had that their enemies didn’t have a snowball’s chance of defeating them.
The first episode also presented a perfect opportunity for the “good guys” and the “bad guys” to actually kill each other off, but they conveniently did not. When the captain of the uber-ship was grandstanding in the open, she should have been shot, but luckily she equipped her Hero Shield before going outside
Crunchyroll did a DVD release last year, though they did say that it was a failed experiment. According to ANN there is a “secret” agreement between Sentai and CR in terms of licensing, so there’s always a chance that they’d license this for physical release. It would take an incredible dub to make this show worth buying to me though.
