Outlaw Star

I just finished this series this afternoon and I have to say I was not overly impressed. Although I did manage to get through it all, the 26 episodes took the better part of 2 months to watch. The storyline for the most part was patchy. At the beginning of the series the episodes were very fluid in terms of how the story developed. As the series progressed though there was a lot to be left for the viewer to interpret. There was a lot going on and it was clear that not all of the events could be condensed into a 22 minute episode. Overall the series was not extremely poor, still worth watching if you are into the whole Bandai style spaceship and outlaw thing. It was very much reminiscent of Trigun in the sense that it had the Shonen Jump style comedy thrown in amidst the serious situations.

Basically the whole story revolves around this Character named Jean Starwind who wants to go into space but is afraid to because of his Father's spaceship being destroyed by some space pirates. More or less Jean and his friends manage to get their hands on this spaceship that is more technologically advanced than anything  that the K pirates of Federations have constructed on their own (sounds a little like some mobile suit series that Bandai has graced us with...*cough* Gundam). The ship is piloted by this android who for whatever reason strips down to fly the ship and who surprise the main character (Jean) falls for. The whole purpose of the show is for Jean and his friends to find the Galactic Layline and determine the origin of the ship that they are piloting and the android Melfina.

I would probably have been more interested in this series had Bandai not done the same story over and over with a majority of their space series. I would still recommend giving this series a view, especially if you are into  the whole Bandai mid-late 90's style of animation and storylines.