==First-time blind watch==
==Dub== ::0:
==Animation: 9==
==Sound: 6==
==Music: 8.5==
==VO: LoL, 5.5 or a 9==

I watched this on a whim based on an offhand mention in a Kenny Lauderdale video, because I really like the creator's character designs, and the animation quality looked great. Those did not disappoint. I was afraid is was all going to be about some cocky teenage male protagonist with a paper-thin personality when I saw the cover, but was pleasantly surprised to find it to be much more of an ensemble cast, despite ostensibly following a protagonist, Hiro.

Now, one major note here. I don't normally watch dubs, but I was in a mood to throw the dice, and the over-cutesyness of the 1980s Marilyn Monroe Earth girl reporter in a trailer made me go for the English dub. The English voice acting is very much a product of its era and the very low profile of anime exports in the 1980s. There obviously wasn't consistent direction, as some of the line reads are completely off from the context of the conversation. Also, the actual recording/studio quality was clearly shoestring. And the points when strong emotion is asked for more often come off in three categories 1) Old guy is "yelling", but isn't 2) Bad guy is corny, and 3) Any time a woman expresses a strong emotion, it's more likely to make you laugh. Main Girlfriend character legitimately sounds like a whimpering puppy looped over and over. It's can be kind of funny, thus the "5.5 or 9" for voice over. Girlfriend character sounds like the best actress in your fly-over state high school drama class. She's quite charming, but often delivers lines like she's just reading them straight, with no direction, which was probably pretty close to the reality. It's due to this, and the fact that it's simply uneven rather than total hack job, that makes it genuinely enjoyable, and enjoyable because of the charmingly low-grade ingenuousness of it.

That's not to say you can't ever take it seriously. It actually does its job, partly because it's a pretty gung-ho action film, that, while it takes on serious issues and a bit of melodrama, never gets too serious in tone, and the jokes and goofball shenanigans come off as mostly natural for the medium, and are broken up with more serious bits in the same scene. It's a balance that some may not care for, but I enjoyed it fully, and was in the perfect mood for it.

The animation is gorgeous, as are the backdrops for the city, which are all highly textured and evocative of lived in environments, but with a realistic future flavor of a terraformed colony. That's all convincing, and looks more realistic and less cartoonish than other anime of the era. The industrial design is top notch, from the eight-tread tanks to the mono-wheel bikes, it all looks as exacting and believable as can be asked of any animation, and like it was taken from something that actually exists.

The sound, overall, gets a median grade because of the VO quality, and the terrible, mid-high treble-y machine gun and explosion sounds in pretty much anything made before the millennium. Seriously, it's everything. Why are these sound effects so low quality and ear-piercing?

The music has a number of fun tracks, and the Earth night cityscape shot in the end was overlaid with a perfect track that made me feel like I was in a theater watching it, and wishing I had been when it was released.

Watch it. They really don't animate them like this anymore.