Crest of the Stars

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

Crest of the Stars - Volume 3

By Joseph (Joe) Wood
27th Sep 06

The final volume of Crest of the Stars on the one hand offers a nice conclusion to the series, yet leaves many things open for its sequel Banner of the Stars.

Jinto and Lafiel final get back on their journey to Sufugnoff, but arrive too late as the United Mankind has taken over. Crash landing on the planet the two try to survive in the wild and then in the city streets where the United Mankind forces are searching for them. Meanwhile forces from the Abh Empire head towards Sufugnoff in order to retake the planet, and the Abh Empress declares war on the other space nations. The united mankind soldiers realise that if they capture Lafiel they may have a bargaining chip. A group of independent citizens after their own spaceship also have the same idea, and take Lafiel and Jinto hostage, although not in the traditional way. It’s a race against the United Mankind closing in on Jinto and Lafiel’s “kidnappers”, and the Abh forces recapturing the planet.

The third volume sees a lot more development in Lafiel and Jinto’s relationship, trapped on the planet it is Jinto who takes the initiative, whilst Lafiel is often unsure having never stepped on a planet’s surface before. This makes a refreshing change as previously in the series, Lafiel has been the one taking action while Jinto just went along for the ride. This also leads to the characters becoming a lot closer and there are some quite tense scenes question their own strengths and weaknesses as well as those of their companion. The chemistry between Jinto and Lafiel is still the main driving force of the series and it does allow the series to progress, however this also means the entire series rests on the viewer liking the two main characters.

There are problems though, in these last few episodes, there are a number of secondary characters introduced and they aren’t really given enough screen time for the viewer to get to know them, mainly because most of them are somewhat stereotypical, or don’t have much to do with anything (unless they become more relevant in the later series). The English dubbing is still terrible, it’s quite a pain to watch in English and there is some truly awful acting from the secondary characters.

The third volume ends by setting things up the next instalment of the series (after the credits for the final episode roll that is). This segment does round off nicely some of the secondary characters storylines, although things are still left open for Jinto and Lafiel. If you were hoping for a concrete conclusion then this will disappoint.

Crest of the Stars is a enjoyable yet flawed series, the main flaw being that the story does not finish with this volume. Crest of the Stars can’t be considered the final volume in a series of three, but rather the third volume in a larger series.

R2 DVD Notes

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

Release information: Publisher: Beez Released: July 3rd 2006 Classification: PG Running Time: 125mins

Notes:

-- Joseph (Joe) Wood 27th Sep 06

Crest of the Stars Images