Crest of the Stars

Publisher
Beez
Country of origin
Japan
Format
Series
Running time
25
Year
1999

Crest of the Stars - Volume 2

By Joseph (Joe) Wood
16th May 06

The Seikai Trilogy manga was made up of three volumes, Crest of the Stars, Banner of the Stars and Banner of the Stars II. The anime version of Crest of the Stars then is really the first in a three parter something that has to be considered when watching.

After a rather lengthy recap of the events of the previous episode Jinto and Lafiel leave the Gosroth, the crew go up against its mysterious attackers. Meanwhile Jinto and Lafiel have need of fuel, so they leave sub-space entering the domain of a young Abh Baron. Lafiel’s reception into the Baron’s domain is certainly high; the Baron’s many vassals attend to every need Lafiel needs, except the refuelling. Annoyed at the Baron’s dismissal of the refuelling and how everyone is ignoring Jinto, Lafiel confronts the Baron. The Baron reveals he has no intention to let Lafiel leave, despite her status and mission to take Jinto to the capital of the Abh Empire, whilst it’s possible his domain may be detected by the enemy. Lafiel then finds that Jinto has disappeared, after this Lafiel decides to play by her own rules and not the Baron’s.

The second volume of Crest of the Stars is certainly an improvement over the first. It is far more action packed, although the story doesn’t really move on from where it was at the end of the first volume. The action sequences are pulled of extremely well visually. With barely any use of CG making the show stand above many other similar titles that use the sci-fi setting as an excuse to crowbar lots of CG in.

Unfortunately the second volume still suffers from many of the same problems as the first. The subtitles for the Abh language still don’t come up unless you switch the full subtitles on themselves, although there is not of the Abh language during the actual episodes as there was before. Then again considering the voice acting for the English language audio track you’re probably better off watching Crest of the Stars in Japanese. The first volumes English track was bearable but the rather weak mono-tone acting from most of the English cast is just terrible during some of the more action packed segments. Considering the overall quality of English dubbing on anime these days there is no reason to accept a dub like this these days.

Despite the problems Crest of the Stars does manage to set it self away from the crowded area of similar sci-fi shows though be it only slightly.

R2 DVD Notes

Features: Japanese/English Audio, Japanese/English/French Subtitles, Character Files, Textless Opening and Closing animations and trailers.

Release information: Publisher: Beez Running Time: 100min Classification: PG Relase Date: 8th May 2006

Notes: There isn't anything diffrent to the extras present in the first volume...rather dissapointing.

-- Joseph (Joe) Wood 16th May 06

Crest of the Stars Images