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Ouch. I saw this review coming with his reference to it back in his review of Murder Princess, but I wasn't expecting a "D." In my estimation that's a little harsh; I'd have given it a "C" and note that the series picks up in the second half.

Heroic Age is not masterpiece by a long shot, but I hold a special fondness for it for two reasons, both of which contain very vague spoilers, but I'll highlight just in case
spoiler[1) It's nice to see a sci-fi series that is actually optimistic about the future rather than grimly apocalyptic and dystopian. The ending is about as positive a one as I've seen in years.
2) I kept expecting Dhianeila (should be spelled Deianeira, after Hercules' wife) to turn into a damsel-in-distress for Age to save, yet she never does. She's independent and strong until the end. I liked that.]

You're dead right, however, on the bland character designs (the Silver Race in particular are bad) and on the idiocy of Age's name. Why they didn't continue with the Greek myth theme and give him the name of a Greek hero escapes me utterly.

And I thought it had such beautiful music, too. Pity. I remember I watched the first episode or two in fansubs when I was deciding which summer releases to preorder, and it certainly looked promising, but...I dunno, there just seemed something kind of soulless about it. I'm glad my instincts served me well and I didn't waste the money.

Wouldn't mind having the soundtrack, though. The score really is gorgeous, especially the main theme.

Last edited by sarsman45 on Wed Jun 24, 2009 5:35 pm; edited 1 time in total

Wow. Well giving the fact that this is just a review of the first DVD, its understandable why it got such a low score. I have seen the show in its entirety and believe that it is well worth watching through before one judges.
spoiler[The show itself becomes epic during the latter half and it is here where the show finally hooks the watcher]

Overall, I think that this is a great show, although it may become boring at times (at least it wasnt as boring as the politics in the Crest of the Stars series). The music is gorgeous and swells like Gigantic Formula and the ending song Azurite conveys a lot of emotion.

Anime smallmouth + sweatdrop

sarsman45 wrote:

Wow. Well giving the fact that this is just a review of the first DVD, its understandable why it got such a low score.

First half of the series, actually. Funimation did this in two-part a box set, as has been their wont in recent times.

I honestly probably shouldn't rate it as highly as I do, but it really held an appeal for me, for reasons already states.

Wow...this sounds really awful. Ah, I love this site, saves me some time.

Although, this kind of bomb almost sounds like it might be good to make fun of in a group...and since I always watch anime with company, it might be good for a chuckle.

wow this review (although somewhat justified) is just as harsh as any other review for a substream anime I've seen some of or heard of. I'd agree heroic age is a little bland half way through though I think a propper review should be done with the Entire serries, doing such a harsh review straight off the bat when it's only half the series is jumping the gun a bit. I watched the entire thing fan subbed though it was ok for a sci fi drama ish mecha it's not one I'd really get a hard copy of or keep a downloaded copy of. is it just me or is funimation just shuffling through with just a few new titles being released for dub and a Lot of rereleases of previously released titles

Can't say I disagree with the review, aside from not having heard the dub. The first three or four episodes were really, really boring and uninspired. The character designs are also quite... generic. The OP was kinda cool, IIRC.

Labbes wrote:

Can't say I disagree with the review, aside from not having heard the dub. The first three or four episodes were really, really boring and uninspired. The character designs are also quite... generic. The OP was kinda cool, IIRC.

OP is awesome, probably the best thing about the series. "It gets better" but it does take rather too long to get better. I actually stopped watching the series around halfway through, and only decided to finish it for completeness sake, and was pleasantly surprised that the second half was an an improvement.

But it's very "rental shelf," to use Bamboo's term. I have a feeling if I watched it a second time my warm fuzzies towards it would wane and I'd see its flaws more. Ah well. :shrugs: Not everyone will get the same reaction off of a series. It's not one I'm tied to heart and soul.

MagusGuardian wrote:

[...] I think a propper review should be done with the Entire serries, doing such a harsh review straight off the bat when it's only half the series is jumping the gun a bit. [...]

Exactly: books, movies or albums never are judged on their first chapters, minutes or songs only but on their entirety; I don't see why it should be different for TV series or animes – of course, when the whole show is 200 eps or so, I understand that a reviewer who is not interested by the thing doesn't wish to go to the end but it's not the case here...

As for this series: it's definitely one of the best I've watched, all titles and even medias or genre considered; its metaphysics put it far apart of anything I've read/watched in science-fiction so far – and I know several hundreds of SF stories, from the greatest masters' pieces to the ütter garbages. Also, it's worth noting that it is everything you want except a mecha show (although there's some mechas in, but it's a very secondary aspect of the story, more a truism of the anime industry in fact) or a psychology/characters relationships plot (all the more as it's not the main focus of this show, obviously) or any other mangas/animes usual themes: this anime at least has this originality

For these reasons, and many more which I'll not mention because I'm short on time, all the points of reproach pointed by the reviewer – and even if most of them are justified – seem to fall flat to me: they simply are off subject

Last edited by Big Hed on Sun Jun 21, 2009 4:23 am; edited 2 times in total

sarsman45 wrote:

(at least it wasnt as boring as the politics in the Crest of the Stars series).

Wo-wo-woah. Careful there.

MagusGuardian wrote:

is it just me or is funimation just shuffling through with just a few new titles being released for dub and a Lot of rereleases of previously released titles

It's just you, man. Razz

Guilhem wrote:

MagusGuardian wrote:

[...] I think a propper review should be done with the Entire serries, doing such a harsh review straight off the bat when it's only half the series is jumping the gun a bit. [...]

Exactly: books, movies or albums never are judged on their first chapters, minutes or songs only but on their entirety; I don't see why it should be different for TV series or animes – of course, when the whole show is 200 eps or so, I understand that a reviewer who is not interested by the thing doesn't wish to go to the end but it's not the case here...

As for this series: it's definitely one of the best I've watched, all titles and even medias or genre considered; its metaphysics put it far apart of anything I've read/watched in science-fiction so far – and I know several hundreds of SF stories, from the greatest masters' pieces to the ütter garbages. Also, it's worth noting that it is everything you want except a mecha show (although there's some mechas in, but it's a very secondary aspect of the story, more a truism of the anime industry in fact) or a psychology/characters relationships plot (all the more as it's not the main focus of this show, obviously) or any other mangas/animes usual themes: this anime at least has this originality

For these reasons, and many more which I'll not mention because I'm short on time, all the points of reproach pointed by the reviewer – and even if most of them are justified – seem to fall flat to me: they simply are off subject

Firstly, it's safe to assume that the series is going to get reviewed in its entirety. Secondly, you can't invalidate a person's opinion on the first half of a show based on the argument that "it gets better". The boring parts are still going to be boring, even in retrospect. Furthermore, whether or not people follow through entirely on a series is always going to be -- unless one is a completionist -- decided by highly subjective criteria, regardless of the length of the series in question.

On the subject of metaphysics, I'll just say "whatever floats your boat". In my opinion though, the best science fiction dwells in the realm of the actual. Also, I'll echo Carl's sentiment that good characters are critical not only to good anime, but to good storytelling in general. Especially in epics such as those which Heroic Age strives evoke, I might add. So at the least that complaint is not off subject.

Carl's review is full of quite reasonable arguments against the series -- but it has to be said that I have seen the series and enjoyed it very much, and enjoyed it just as much when I watched it again, half a year later.

Honestly, though, the Nodos battles do kind of go on and on, to unnecessary lengths.

Still, I definitely think it's worth the effort to watch.

- abunai

I've grown up with Robert Heinlein, E.E. 'Doc' Smith, and Frank Herbert and though this series doesn't have the breath of those before it. I was delighted to see a show trying to touch that forgotten branch of Science Fiction.

Age is an inexperience boy and that's pretty damn obvious to myself. Did the reviewer expect to see yet another brooding emo child? Can't get out of the '90s dreg of dark emo scared little boys with father issues? The two main female characters have history and specific goals from the very beginning that seems to also be ignored or missed by this twit of a reviewer to boot. Good grief, that ship was searching for over TWO years before she actual found the boy! From the very beginning in the narration, you're told that the Nodos are insanely violent. Tamed only by the Golden Tribe and they could only contain Five with the others being killed off during that war. Those things blew up Solar Systems! But like many a "God like" being is prone to do, they have a plan for them. Also, this is a chase story with small pauses throughout where we get to see the character further fleshed out and unfortunately the show doesn't have 45 minutes per episode to dive into to depths of all involved.

Unlike some American live science fiction shows of questionable taste, it doesn't "wander" and every episode never became a tangent to the overall plot. Paraphrasing one races' creed from BSG, the plot had a "plan" from start to finish. Heroic Age had 26 episodes with 24 minutes inside each that never threw out the core story and laid red herrings to confuse and piss off the viewers. That being me.

I have always truly loved space opera and Heroic Age has that in spades with thousands of ships blasting away at each other across Millions of miles apart. Where battles fought lasted for days sometimes. The many Nodos battles sometimes (if you paid attention) lasted for over 4 hours at the shortest, to up of over 500 hours. Where even though ships can travel great distances, communications sometimes took days to reach other fleets. Delandia's speech in the middle of the series did move me as it moved one of the later female character. This show gave me more then the usual moe, panty joke that plagues many, many shows now.

Space operas are too damn infrequent in anime and being that the last show to do so was Legend of the Galactic Heroes this was delightful. I truly thank the creators of Heroic Age that gave me that feeling again.

>Tagent Alert< Of which BSG did too during the first two seasons.. then tossed most if not all of it down the garbage drain. Concentration Camps? Didn't they NUKE THIRTEEN Planets in the first episode?! What was with the gerbil farm on Nu Caprica by the robots? ugh...

Big Hed wrote:

[...]

Guilhem wrote:

MagusGuardian wrote:

[...] I think a propper review should be done with the Entire serries, doing such a harsh review straight off the bat when it's only half the series is jumping the gun a bit. [...]

Exactly: books, movies or albums never are judged on their first chapters, minutes or songs only but on their entirety; I don't see why it should be different for TV series or animes – of course, when the whole show is 200 eps or so, I understand that a reviewer who is not interested by the thing doesn't wish to go to the end but it's not the case here...

As for this series: it's definitely one of the best I've watched, all titles and even medias or genre considered; its metaphysics put it far apart of anything I've read/watched in science-fiction so far – and I know several hundreds of SF stories, from the greatest masters' pieces to the ütter garbages. Also, it's worth noting that it is everything you want except a mecha show (although there's some mechas in, but it's a very secondary aspect of the story, more a truism of the anime industry in fact) or a psychology/characters relationships plot (all the more as it's not the main focus of this show, obviously) or any other mangas/animes usual themes: this anime at least has this originality

For these reasons, and many more which I'll not mention because I'm short on time, all the points of reproach pointed by the reviewer – and even if most of them are justified – seem to fall flat to me: they simply are off subject

Firstly, it's safe to assume that the series is going to get reviewed in its entirety. Secondly, you can't invalidate a person's opinion on the first half of a show based on the argument that "it gets better". The boring parts are still going to be boring, even in retrospect. Furthermore, whether or not people follow through entirely on a series is always going to be -- unless one is a completionist -- decided by highly subjective criteria, regardless of the length of the series in question.

On the subject of metaphysics, I'll just say "whatever floats your boat". In my opinion though, the best science fiction dwells in the realm of the actual. Also, I'll echo Carl's sentiment that good characters are critical not only to good anime, but to good storytelling in general. Especially in epics such as those which Heroic Age strives evoke, I might add. So at the least that complaint is not off subject.

I don't invalidate the opinion of anyone but a TV series review has a purpose on two terms; at short term, the goal of the reviewer is to inform readers about the content of a part of the show: here, the job was rather well done; at long term, it is to give to readers an idea on the interest of the whole show: if this one is reviewed entirely, it's fine (and I don't see why I should assume that this series will be entirely reviewed: some are not after all...), but in this case it clearly discourages taking a look at the product and – for all the reasons I mentioned – I think it's a pity. Finally, I do think that "it gets better" is a valid argument and that the reviewer may have been well inspired to give some hints on this point, at least to minimize some things he wrote and which still look injustified to me – but maybe he didn't watch the entire series yet, all the more a reason to avoid saying it's "junk" like he did: how does he know it's junk if he didn't watch it in its entirety?

Concerning good characters, I agree they are important in storytelling but it depends also on the main idea behind the story itself: I understand a reviewer removes some points to a show because of serious flaws on this part but when the main concept of the show doesn't revolve around characters it is less of a problem. Of course, anime fans tend to like particularly this aspect of an anime or a manga: I'd agree it is more a sin to forget character development in such productions but, again, it still depends of the main point of the story. Finally, like I hinted in my previous post, this show is not exactly an epic story to my eyes – even if it looks like one sometimes, mainly because of its space opera setting and the numerous battles it portrays – or, to be more precise, it doesn't look like the main interest of this series: to me, the interweavings of the various concepts that each member of the Heroic Tribe represents looks more appealing; it may be a consequence of my ignorance but I never saw such things yet

One last note: I didn't compare this show to the best SF stories, but I said it was apart them – which, de facto, makes no comparison possible. There's some metaphysics in Dick's, Priest's or even Egan's SF stories, at least to some extent, but never under this form: for this reason, Heroic Age proposes something new and it is rare enough to be mentioned

You're right, I was premature in assuming that part 2 will be reviewed (though as far as I've seen, these half-season sets that Funimation is releasing tend to get followed up on most times around here).

As for the "it gets better argument", I agree to the extent that grading an entire series poorly based solely on its first half is not necessarily* in good judgment; having said that, this review didn't do that anyway, by simple virtue of its title ("Part 1") -- as such, Carl had no (ethical) responsibility to address any merits or shortcomings present in episodes 14-26.

*From the perspective of the non-reviewer, on the other hand, it will often make perfect sense to watch the first half of the series, get completely fed up with it, and say "screw this, Title X is crap." This is an individual's holistic judgement -- and a perfectly acceptable one in my opinion (regardless of how crazy that can make me some times -- for instance, I recently had a friend watch the first 22 episodes of season 1 of 00 and then drop it).

Regarding the rest of what you wrote, I understand better what you meant now. Most of it makes sense to me, however, I still hold good characterization above all else in storytelling. That's not to say that a given story can necessarily entertain through its characters alone, rather I was just picking a single factor that I valued most.

the Guyver In Space. I would think the dub crowd would be furious that they are dubbing stuff like this while others go without.

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