Crest of the Stars (1999) IMDb
Categorization |
Mostly hard interstellar naval SF. A serious form of space opera with culture, politics, diplomacy, romance, action and coming-of-age. |
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Subject |
Humankind’s many worlds are becoming culturally separated, and genetic manipulation has produced several races. Eight years ago, an interstellar empire reached a world whose leader was elevated to nobility in the empire upon his ready surrender. That leader’s son grew up with a secret identity because the people of his world viewed his father as a traitor. Although he has no family left, and although he’s never seen any member of the conquering race, the son is noble by heritage. Now a young adult, he is about to leave his home world for military training at the core of the empire. He, and the elfin girl who picks him up for the journey, know nothing of the war that is about to erupt among thousands of old human colonies, which are now polarized between two vast empires. |
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Commentary |
The early majority of episodes integrate a lot of background very skillfully and avoid unnatural streamlining of the plot. The last episode, on the other hand, takes too many shortcuts and degenerates into a harmlessly violent Disneyland robot safari at one point. Otherwise, the humour is very good, and Japanese language skills pay off. The artificial languages, and the names created in them, sound almost uniformly alien but fairly natural, which is a nice achievement. The world is generally realistic (including amoral), but there is a villain in the end, and some space-opera clichés are readily apparent: uniform technological near-stasis, two-dimensional battles explained as a consequence of the FTL premiss, feudalism and so on. Mercifully low on fan service. Good characters. Overly pompous music, but good enough. |
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Prequel: Crest of the Stars: Birth (2000)
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