Space Fantasia 2001 Nights

I encourage more people to find this as it is a part of anime history. Truly a monumental achievement back in the eighties, to put the ideas of Clarke and Asimov to paper and shoot cell after cell was pretty kool! lol We have the basis for most high tech, futuristic genres in this anime. Space exploration for the purpose of repopulating in a cleaner, longer lasting sense via terraforming other worlds. Sound familiar? You bet your cheeks tis'! With this movie you have the idea and what it might seem like to pitch long term space sleep and travel to prospective colonizersas well as , to put it bluntly, fruits of the seeding of life labor upon a new world. The animation was straight outta the eighties which though some may not like; with the rampant need for over ecchi, chibi as can be nonsense these days, it was not bad. It looked like regular people and so it was all drawn as such. I too like larger eyes on my anime characters, but not as large as the overly extreme type many animes can portray. The music was also straight outta the 1980s, with the ending theme being evocative of some awsome action and intrigue, sultry packed gripping film. HUZZAH!!! Jazz n dance to this ending I says! =p To summarize: This Good! If you are at least 25 ( 20-ish works too) years old, you will probably appreciate this even if its just for that feeling of nostalgia. If you are younger, watch anyways and add another anime notch to that needlessly thin MAL belt. To infinity, and b....whoops, dont sue! T.T

Partially based on the classic 2001 Nights manga series, it's hard not to compare this anime with the manga. And for those who have read the manga, it does come up a bit lacking. It's pretty much a straight-up hard sci-fi tale that falls in line with what you might expect from, say, Niven or Heinlein or Brin. Also the story is emblematic of the type of themes that were being explored at the time, as the grand hope of space comes crashing against the hard realities of humanity's foibles. And it's really three parts of astory that are interwoven together, across a span of about 400 years. There are some nitpicky details to the story setup (which comes with the territory when you are dealing with the harder edges of SF). And also, hints of a much larger, broader universal story out there -- but clocking in at just under an hour, there's only time to focus on this one slice of that larger universe. When I say this comes up lacking, it's because the manga itself was a masterpiece of artwork and storytelling that would be hard for *any* adaptation to compare. Hoshino's artwork is crisp and clean, and that translates into animated form somewhat unevenly. And the animation quality is a bit on the sub-par side, relying heavily on pans-and-scans of grand backgrounds and landscapes and less on movement. Takeuchi does his best, but it's a tall order to capture the grand scope of the manga. Taken on its own, for someone who is unfamiliar with the manga, it's just "okay". But if you have the opportunity, choose the manga instead.

I knew about the manga for this first, saw it in some Book-Off and very nearly bought the whole series except that I knew it'd be too difficult to read and digest it all. Didn't know they had an anime movie for it! This movie covers three chapters in the stages of life for a small, risky space colony designed to help save the human race from what is looking to be a surefire extinction. It's beautiful. It's sad, and it's beautiful. Anyone who loved Interstellar has got to see this, because it covers similar ground in a far different way. Also, that soundtrack is kicking.