Set in the fictional "Towards Stars Era" universe, during its past, an asteroid containing a material known as "dragonite" crashed in the fictional Arashon desert of northern China.

Scientists found that the dragonite contained properties related to "ether", an energy source that would allow spacecraft to travel faster than the speed of light, and thus traverse large distances of the universe in a short time. As new colonies were formed throughout the vast reaches of outer space, pirates, assassins, and outlaws began to enter humanity's new frontier.

The story opens on the backwater planet Sentinel III, on which the protagonist Gene Starwind and his 11-year-old business associate James "Jim" Hawking run a small jack-of-all-trades business. After an encounter an infamous outlaw named "Hot Ice" Hilda, the two find themselves with both a highly-advanced prototype ship dubbed the XGP15A-II and a suitcase containing a bio-android called Melfina, the only being capable of interfacing with the ship.

And so starts the adventure of Gene Starwind and co. as he meets new allies, old enemies, and searches for the legendary Galactiv Layline

This is Outlaw Star, by Studio Sunrise (January 8, 1998 – July 28, 1998).

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For many of you reading, it won't matter what I say about Outlaw Star because your opinions of it will already be firmly set. Outlaw Star is one of the most well known and beloved anime of all time, and with good reason.

Airing during the glory days of Toonami, Outlaw Star is a nostalgic favourite for many, along with stuff like Dragonball Z and Pokemon. It's part of their childhood, and when it comes to nostalgic favourites, critical analysis rarely affects their love for it.

Here's the thing though; I didn't watch Outlaw Star growing up. In fact, my recent watching was my first time watching the entire series. I'd seen the first episode half a dozen times, and don't get me wrong, I liked it, but I never went further than that. It wasn't until I bought the entire series on DVD did I watch it full.

And let me tell you all, I may not have a nostalgic love for this anime, but I found myself thoroughly enjoying this anime, even though it is a flawed gem. Because of that, pretty much all of my criticisms will be said reluctantly because they often didn't ruin this series incredible fun factor.

But, let's not beat about the bush, shall we? This is my review of Outlaw Star!

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Outlaw Star Review

Production Values:

Compared to a lot of anime from the 90s, Outlaw Star has aged pretty well. While not as impressive as Cowboy Bebop, the series certainly does not look like a fossil and to this day has moments which will leave the viewers impressed.

These said moments of course being the epic space fights, which were often pretty short but were visually stunning, and often made for the best moments in the series. Outside that though, the series never looks bad, but the quality isn't always consistent. It's quite obvious at times that the budget was put into those wow moments whilst quieter scenes were far less impressive, and there's a fair bit of animation recycling. It's always acceptable, and it has moments of brilliance.

The music I felt was pretty good for this series, better than I had expected. This being a space spaghetti Western, a fair bit of the music drew inspiration from that and made some songs for that genre, but along with that there was an epic tune that played in the series big wham moments that was always cool to listen to.

Along with that, in its quieter, romantic moments was music that was very reminiscent of Macross with its dreamy peacefulness to it. I really did enjoy the music of this series.

Finally, the dub isn't amazing by today's standard, but considering when it got dubbed, it got very good treatment. None of the voices are really bad, though Bob Buchholz as Gene Starwind didn't always work in my opinion, but I think every character really did their best to fit their roles, and it shows. It's not solid proof to dub haters that dubbing can work, but it was better than most dub during that time.

Overall, the amazing thing about Outlaw Star is that even today it's still a sight to see. It's aged very well, and while it isn't consistently awesome, it's never bad at all, and it got a pretty damn good dub too.

Production Values Rating: 8/10

Setting:


Okay, take nearly every Sci-Fi cliché there is. Space colonies, portals, space races, furry aliens, space prisons, ancient space civilisation, epic space battles, nearly EVERYTHING you've seen in other Sci-Fi series.

I assure you, Outlaw Star has nearly all of them.

Outlaw Stars setting is very much a Sci-Fi geeks wet dream because every episode has some new unique addition to the setting. Since The series only had 26 episodes, the creators did their best to fit in as many new ideas as possible, often only there for a single episode.

Thanks to the nature of the storyline however, this worked very well. By having one episode dedicated to a certain space cliché, they were able to flesh it out a fair bit, but quickly left it before it got stale or boring. The only entries to the setting that were brought up constantly were those involved with the overall plot, the Galactic lay line.

Perhaps most impressively of all is that despite the numerous clichés seen in this setting, it was written well enough so nothing ever really contradicted another cliché. While there aren't any new and unique ideas brought by Outlaw Star, excellent execution by the staff by far makes up for it.

Setting Rating: 9/10

Characters:

The characters of Outlaw Star are probably the weakest aspect of the series. They are, for the most part, two dimensional, and the characters that did get development was either a one off or sporadic.

Regardless, I found the cast thoroughly entertaining.

I refer back to my previous review of Death Note in that if a character is incredibly entertaining, it can make up for a lack of depth, with Light and L being the prime examples. Outlaw Star's cast for the most part is basically this, and even though not every character is a riot to watch, they often had a certain appeal to them that made it hard not to care for them.

Granted, they did try to develop Gene Starwinds' character, what with him first being afraid of space, to his growing romance with Melfina, but it was very sporadic and sometimes out of nowhere. He even seems to forget his original motivation of getting revenge for his dead father, which was quite disappointing. It was nevertheless entertaining however, and Gene remains a really great lead

The only character I really didn't like much was Aisha, as she often got on my nerves. But to her credit, she did get less annoying as the series went on, which sorta showed she did develop during the series too, only it wasn't focused on. And I would also like to point out that Jim Hawkings was a really likeable character, which is a relief, considering the child genius cliché tends to be annoying.

Whilst the Outlaw Star cast lacks depth and character development, they are really likeable and memorable, and for that I can't score them lowly for it.

Characters Rating: 8/10

Storytelling:

Outlaw Star follows a similar path to another Sunrise anime, Cowboy Bebop in that whilst there is an overall plot, the series spends a lot of its time on one off episodes focused on expanding the setting of Outlaw Star. It's because of this that I was able to highly praise the setting of Outlaw Star, but I would also like to point out something that…I consider a flaw, but one that barely bothers me.

You see, it's established early on that the overall plot is Gene and co. go look for the Galactic Layline, and there are several episodes dedicated to this, but there are a fair few that aren't. This made the overall plot seemingly stop and start over and over, which made you wonder if it really was on our main characters top priority. This is also partly why the development of the characters felt sporadic at times.

But the thing is though, despite this the series never failed to be entertaining. Every episode was well paced, often funny and fun to watch. Fun really describes this series well, and it explains why this series is so popular. The only time I felt the pacing and storytelling really waned was the last three episodes, where you could see they were trying to force as much in as possible to end it satisfactorily.

Overall, while the plot will take a few side trips along the way, they'll be the kind that you can enjoy, and it's certainly refreshing to see such a light-hearted Sci-Fi series.

Storytelling Rating: 8/10

Here's the thing: Even though I gave GTO and Death Note higher scores, I definitely prefer Outlaw Star. This series is incredibly fun to watch, and though it's no storytelling masterpiece and a great character study, it does deliver well in both in the entertainment factor.

Regardless of the rating, I do really recommend Outlaw Star to anyone with an interest in Sci-Fi, anime and someone who just wants to watch something fun and genuinely entertaining. Outlaw Star knows how silly it is, and never tries to be deep or meaningful, it's just great entertainment.

Hope you enjoyed! Stay tuned for my next review: Eden of the East!

Overall Rating: 8.25/10