Maetel Legend

Original Title: メーテルレジェンド 交響詩 宿命
Romanized: Maetel Legend Koukyoushi Shikumei
Literal: Maetel Legend - Symphonic Poem of Fate

Plot Synopsis

Young Maetel is the princess of a dying world. Thrown out of its 1000 year orbit, food, warmth, and time are running out for the forsaken planet and its people. Their only hope is to follow the brilliant scientist Hardgear, who promises eternal health by replacing flesh and blood with a machine body that he has perfected. But is Hardgear's gift really what it seems? Maetel must choose whether to become a machine like so many others, or to join her sister and risk her life fighting for freedom.

Quick Review

Rating: 1.5 / 5
Reviewer: Marc
Review Date: 2005-12-19

Maetel Legend is yet another piece of Leiji Matsumoto's epic space opera universe. A sort of origin story for the ever-mysterious Maetel (along with Emeraldas), it is clearly intended for fans of Galaxy Express and its progeny, and doesn't offer much to non-fans past an uneven, tragic fairy tale. Past unimpressive visuals that look two decades older than they are, the story is halting and jumps around seemingly at random. Individual scenes are good, but it doesn't fit together into a coherent whole.

Maetel Legend is an interesting story about Maetel's past for fans of Galaxy Express 999 and its kin. For those who aren't, the story functions on its own, but it's just too poorly constructed for me to be able to recommend it unless you're very much in the mood for a tragic sci-fi fairy tale.

US DVD Review

The DVD isn't a particularly impressive production, but isn't bad either. It includes an unimpressive video transfer (it's rather harsh looking), Japanese and English stereo audio, and a subtitle track. Extras include a cheesy "trivia" game (really more of a memory game), "meet the cast", which is a short character description and video clip of each character (the actor and audio for both languages is included--nice touch), and a long biography of Leiji Matsumoto.

Content Guide

All things considered, there is some fairly strong violent content. Appropriately rated 13+ by USM.

Violence: 3 - Not terribly graphic, but there is some strong violent content.

Nudity: 0 - Nothing of note.

Sex/Mature Themes: 0 - Nothing.

Language: 1 - Relatively mild language.

Notes and Trivia

Leiji Matsumoto, the mind behind Maetel Legend, is responsible for some of the seminal works of anime space opera, including Space Battleship Yamato and Galaxy Express 999, and Maetel Legend fits into the epic world that most of his stories are part of.

Availability

Available from US Manga Corps on a hybrid DVD. Was originally also available on one dubbed VHS tape.

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