Space Travelers

Original Title: スペーストレベラーズ THE ANIMATION
Romanized: Supeesu Toraberaazu - The Animation
Literal: Space Travelers - The Animation

Plot Synopsis

In New Cosmic Century 038, the Earth is assaulted by a mysterious civilization of robots, driving humanity into hiding among the ruins of destroyed cities. The Orbital Ring System, a massive enemy force surrounding the earth, constantly hunts for the last holdouts, and attempts to keep people from human colonies from offering any help. And that's where Hayabusa Jetter and his Space Travelers, a ragtag group of borderline-insane and very skilled blockade runners come in. But it's going to be more than another supply run when they're hired by an Earth operative to deliver a cargo that just might turn the tide against the ORS...

Quick Review

Rating: 1.5 / 5
Reviewer: Marc
Review Date: 2003-06-12

Space Travelers is two things: Embarrassingly cheesy and unoriginal, and cursed with a glut of characters with little to no backstory and about as much personality. Those are also it's two biggest strong points: the straight-from-Star-Wars story and action will probably tickle the fancy of campy sci-fi fans, and a few of the characters were so darned fun that it was almost worth watching the whole thing for them. Almost.

Past that, all you've got is a lot of half-decent action and painfully cheesy plot, although it's certainly ripe for mockery. If that all sounds appealing to you, go for it. Most of us, though, will want to keep our distance.

US DVD Review

The DVD isn't loaded, but it does the job. Aside from one of the louder package designs I've seen (think lots of yellow), it features a fairly crisp transfer, clean two channel sound in both languages, and a couple of unsubtitled Japanese TV spots. The package claims "deleted scenes", but I certainly didn't see any.

Content Guide

Rated 7-up by Anime Works, there are a few violent scenes, but not much else objectionable.

Violence: 2 - There is death implied, but most of the fighting involves robots.

Nudity: 0 - None.

Sex/Mature Themes: 1 - One character is a bit sexy, but nothing overt.

Language: 1 - Nothing noteworthy.

Notes and Trivia

Ironically, Space Travelers is not based on any existing story, despite all appearances to the contrary (the glut of poorly introduced characters and comic-style sketches with the credits). More ironically, it is intended to look exactly as if it were part of a larger series, since what it is based on is a live action movie in which several characters mimic the personalities of characters from the "popular" anime series Space Travelers... which didn't exist until this one-shot was made based on the non-existent anime of the live-action movie. An odd case of fiction mimicking fiction.

The live action Space Travelers, for those wondering, is directed by Motohiro Katsuyuki (who made a name for himself by directing "Odoru Daisousasen The Movie," the movie version of a popular police series of the same name), though he did not direct this anime. It is the story of three ill-fated bank robbers seeking a way out of mundane life who befriend several of their hostages when the robbery goes awry. As the story progresses, the robbers and their hostages join forces, each taking on the persona of one of the Space Travelers characters that eventually ended up in the animated version.

Availability

Available in the US from Anime Works on bilingual DVD ( RightStuf has it on dirt cheap closeout as of this writing). Was previously also available on dubbed VHS.

Looking to buy? Try these stores: RightStuf (search) | AnimeNation | Akemi's a(nime)Store