Queen Emeraldas

Original Title: クィーン エメラルダス
Romanized: Queen Emeraldas
Literal:

Plot Synopsis

The spacelanes are a dangerous place--travelers live in fear of the mighty Afressian empire, ambushing and wreaking havoc on passing ships at will. But one ship and one captain has both the power and will to stand up to them: Emeraldas and her ship the Queen Emeraldas, one of the mightiest vessels ever built, and sister ship to that of the legendary Captain Harlock. They come and go as they please, and none who defy Emeraldas and her ship survive long.

Hiroshi is a young orphaned boy, full of anger and determined to rely on no one as he travels through space. When he stows away on a freighter that comes under attack, his fate becomes connected to Emeraldas' when she appears and saves the day.

Review

Rating: 3.5 / 5
Reviewer: Marc
Review Date: 2006-07-21

Queen Emeraldas fits into the broad canvas painted by Leiji Matsumoto, including famed series like Galaxy Express 999 and Captain Harlock. As with many of the OAVs tied into this universe, Queen Emeraldas is archetypal and straightforward enough to stand completely on its own, but also features a number of tie-ins, both explicit and not, for existing fans.

Not being a particular Matsumoto-verse afficianado, I'm approaching the series as a stand-alone work. From that perspective, it's an interesting combination of old-school Matsumoto style and slick modern visuals. For all the polish, it has everything you'd expect from a classic Matsumoto yarn: A story that is sweeping in scale but centered on personal development and character-building, an orphaned boy striking out on his own, and a way-too-cool hero.

That said, the coolness is my main gripe with the series. I've never cared for uber-cool portagonists (Golgo 13 for example), and Emeraldas is so cold she's liable to give you an ice cream headache. She's so cool, in fact, that she doesn't even have to dodge. Now, I'm used to bad guys who can't hit the broad side of a barn if the good guys are hiding in it, but twice in the series Emeraldas comes under fire and just stands there in the open, looking slick and warding off the oncoming laser fire with her steely glare. Then there's the Queen Emeraldas, which doesn't get into space battles--it gets into space massacres. At one point an entire fleet sits there blasting away for all it's worth and when the time comes, she more or less obliterates it in all of 30 seconds.

I'm sorry, but that kind of thing just annoys me--even the most remote pretense of realism is thrown out the window in favor of style. I'll admit, there's a certain appeal to majorly badass heroes, and some people go for that kind of thing, but Queen Emeraldas takes it way too far for me.

Otherwise, the story is a simple, classic yarn that Matsumoto has done before, but it captures the "individuals embodying a greater struggle" theme relatively well. Of course, true to the old-school anime feel, it's also heavy-handed with the moral. In this case, it is "no man is an island"--make trustworthy friends, and you'll go places. Well, that and "If you're really, really cool, you can take out just about anybody without even trying very hard."

The characters are archetypal, but there is some development. Emeraldas, in particular, has that air of deep, suppressed emotion that the best supercool heroes often do. She wasn't always this cold, and there's still something of her old self hidden deep down.

Although the character designs are Matsumoto classics, Queen Emeraldas is a visual spectacle--to my knowledge the best looking of the Matsumoto-verse stories. Going well with the classic story, the visuals are steeped in retro-future style with a distinct modern finish. You've got pirate captains and a backwater town was straight out of a Clint Eastwood movie, complete with an "updated" shootout between Emeraldas... and a shuttlecraft.

Loaded with flashy polish, spiffy locales, and overdramatic posturing, the art is detailed and attractive and the animation fluid. The only classic anime standby that bothered me is one I'm glad has fallen out of fashion: Frequently, during moments of extreme action, a single freeze frame is substituted for expensive animation. This series obviously had the budget to do without, even if it did add to the flavor. There's still plenty of worthwhile action: Look for quality space battles, a few gunfights, a neat duel, and a surprisingly brutal fistfight.

The Queen Emeraldas is computer rendered, and while the technology is a little antiquated, it fits in well enough. That said, for those unfamiliar with this series' kin, she's a funny looking spaceship: Sort of like a giant blimp with an old fashioned sailing ship for the gondola. Whether that's unusual in a good or a bad way depends on your taste in spacefaring vessels, but it's certainly distinctive. The other ships are more conventional and nicely designed, as are the costumes and other hardware. A few of the guns, including nifty energized rapier/laser pistol combo deals, have an old-fashioned look that adds to the setting without getting too silly (that is, they're effective weapons with a vintage look). On that note, the gunfights (with the exception of Emeraldas' inability to be shot) are good stuff. I particularly liked the solid feel of the laser blasts--energy weapons are rarely done this well.

The music of Queen Emeraldas is an orchestral mix of sweeping thems and Old Western flavor; both styles fit well and sound good. The opening and end themes are also quite nice, especially the opening--it sets the tone and is a proper theme for Emeraldas herself.

The Japanese voice acting is mostly quite good; Hiroshi sounds about right, and most of the supporting cast are distinctive. Emeraldas is cast perfectly, and gives a standout performance--cold, hard, and withering.

The English acting is passable but less impressive. Hiroshi and his crew are cast and acted quite well, and Emeraldas is acted well, although she sounds too old and growls a bit much for the role (Emeraldas is more icy than angry). The military fellows, unfortunately, are both cast and acted rather poorly. For those intending to watch the French dub, all I can say is that at least Emeraldas sounds good.

Summing up, Queen Emeraldas is old school anime with all the trimmings and a modern polish, but still old school anime. The character designs, the broad story, and the blatant message are a little too old-fashioned for my taste, and Emeraldas' way-too-coolness got on my nerves. On the other hand, it looks great, is generally an interesting story, and the characters have a bit of depth. If you're a fan of Matsumoto's related stories, I'm guessing you'll like this one, but familiarity with the world isn't a prerequisite and anyone who enjoys a good space pirate tale or heroes so cool they're almost frozen will probably have a blast.

Related Recommendations

If you liked this, you should of course check out the rest of Leiji Matsumoto's many related series. You might also have a look at Sol Bianca for spunky kid on an overpowered pirate ship and Space Adventure Cobra for seriously old-school (and horribly campy) space opera with a bit of modern polish.

US DVD Review

The DVD is quite nice, but as with most of their early efforts, ADV missed the mark by a little. The video and audio transfers are flawless to be sure, and the disc includes English, Japanese, and French dialogue tracks, as well as subtitles in English and Spanish. It has animated menus complete with music, an animated track index, and some short character bios.

The biggest problem with the disc is that it only includes the first two episodes of the series, and while it doesn't end on a cliffhanger (you might not even notice there isn't more to it), ADV never got around to releasing the second two.

Additionally, a few small glitches make the disc fall short of really great, even for the era. For one thing, they neglect to include the Japanese cast; ADV is usually good about that, too. Second, at least on my player, when I was watching in Japanese it suddenly cut to the French soundtrack a couple of times. Weird. Third, (and this affects everybody), the theme songs are subtitled in English first, then Japanese (so you can sing along) on the second episode, as ADV usually does. But apparently the end theme was subtitled from another verse or something, because the words on the screen have almost nothing to do with what is being sung. Go figure. A final nit-pick, the subtitles at the very end of the last episode are mis-timed, popping up well before they're supposed to.

Content Guide

Violent, but not extreme; probably 10-up, though some parents might find the violence more objectionable than others.

Violence: 3 - Violent, but usually detached (spaceships and such), with the exception of one particularly brutal fist fight.

Nudity: 0 - Nothing.

Sex/Mature Themes: 0 - None.

Language: 1 - Not noteworthy.

Notes and Trivia

Fits in with Leiji Matsumoto's vast anime universe, which encompassing Galaxy Express 999 and the Captain Harlock/Arcadia franchise. Emeraldas and several of her aquantances are ongoing characters in the assortment of stories, and Emeraldas plays a pivotal role in another newer OAV series, Maetel Legend.

Although there are actually four episodes in the series, ADV's initial 1999 release came before the second two parts were even completed. While commendable for a timely US release, as of this writing they never bothered to release the other half, and even the first part has been essentially dropped from their catalog.

A totally random note: In the little known very early CD-ROM game Spaceship Warlock (released in 1990 for the Mac and several years later for Windows), the titular pirate ship is vaguely reminiscent of the Queen Emeraldas. This was probably an in-joke by the creators of the game.

Availability

Available in the US from AD Vision on a hybrid DVD (English, Japanese, and French) that includes the first two episodes (with no indication that there are two more). The same was also simultaneously released on subtitled and dubbed VHS, now out of print. ADV has never released the last two episodes in the series.

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