Yamamoto Yohko, Starship Girl Anime Review

Quick Review

• Reviewer: Marc
• Review Date: 2006-07-20 (updated 2012-07-20)
• 2.5 stars out of 5 (?)

Yamamoto Yohko, Starship Girl is a silly girls-in-space action series where we learn an important lesson: The future is very, very stupid. Apparently based entirely on the junk food that features prominently in it, the series is so outrageously pointless it's hard to get into the characters, and by the time you finally get used to them, it spends one episode trying ineffectively to be mildly dramatic, then ends. It's not as wacky as I expected (or wanted) it to be, but it does manage a few very funny moments, and the characters are a distinctive crew with plenty to yell at each other about. Sharply-timed dialogue in the Japanese version helps, and the acting is colorful and varied, if totally devoid of drama. Its biggest asset, though, is snazzy visuals, with sharp art and oodles of highly slick space action.

I didn't dislike Yamamoto Yohko, but I can't say that I enjoyed it all that much either. It won't stick with you any more than the cotton candy that the story is apparently based on, but it's an amusing diversion, particularly for fans fans of light space action.

Read the full-length review...

Full Review

• Reviewer: Marc
• Review Date: 2006-07-20 (updated 2012-07-20)
• 2.5 stars out of 5 (?)

Although Yamamoto Yohko, Starship Girl consists of two separate OAV series, they're similar enough (and released together in English) that they're reviewed together here.

Yamamoto Yohko, Starship Girl is yet another series about a bunch of girls in space having a grand time trying to blow each other up. It has about as much substance as cotton candy, and the only lesson anybody learns is that the future is stupid. Very, very stupid. The series has its moments, but I didn't enjoy it as much as I expected to.

You wouldn't expect a story about a bloodless war fought by high school girls yanked a thousand years into the future to be deep, but Yamamoto Yohko is positively vacuous. The story isn't random or pointless, it's nonexistent. Only two of the episodes feature anything even resembling character development, and the cast of characters has all the depth of your average bathtub.

The lack of substance is nicely illustrated by Yohko's transformation from high school student to combat pilot ten centuries in the future: Her indoctrination takes about four minutes, one of which is spent insulting another pilot's forehead, and another filling out registration forms. She never so much as raises an eyebrow at the concept. Damn the set up, action away! The second episode has even less plot and much more preposterous action. (Space billiards? Really?) The third gives the illusion that one of the villains has meaningful backstory and personality, but it's just that: an illusion.

Yamamoto Yohko is technically two separate OAV series (three episodes each), and there is an ever-so-slight attempt to add meaning (I use the term loosely) to the action in the second one. It doesn't amount to much until the last episode, where we're treated to a touch of romance and drama. Sadly, the series is so empty up to that point that I didn't care, so it ends on a vaguely disappointing note. (The end isn't, incidentally, any sort of conclusion--just a stopping point.)

When you put it all together, the series seems to be missing something. Specifically, the beginning, end, and character development. All that's left are some side stories of the sort that usually fill out the middle of a TV series and one or two fragments of drama that don't fit at all. It's simple-minded fun, but would have been better with a little effort spent on the characters.

The humor is also a bit disappointing. As silly as the series is, it only manages to pull off a handful of spectacularly wacky moments. To its credit, at least those are pretty darned funny--one of the characters making an anime-style costume to get in the mood for combat, a planetary system as the prize in the Claw Game, and a haunted house gone wrong.

It's also surprisingly clean--the obligatory hot springs episode only has a couple of mildly off-color jokes, and in place of the standard breast jokes are constant jabs at one character's big, shiny forehead. I'll credit the boring hot springs as a reversal of the usually raucous things that take place, but the joke is funnier in concept than execution. Speaking of which, I kept looking for this to be a parody of its own genre, a la Tenamonya Voyagers, but despite a number of in-jokes (including the title) that didn't seem to be its aim. At least it has a reasonably solid setting that follows some sort of internal logic (or consistent lack thereof, I should say).

Most of the fun in the series ends up coming from the girls' constant bickering (both among friends and enemies)--lots of not-so-friendly banter and watching them antagonize and mock each other.

The cast is a colorful lot. Yohko, the most distinctive of the bunch, is certainly not your average high school cutie. Good looking, yes, but she's a rightfully cocky, slightly aloof, video-game-obsessed modern girl with an attitude, and she never really takes anything seriously. A refreshing change from the norm, definitely, but I also found her annoying.

The other pilots each have their share of fun personality, from the stuck-up enemy pilot Rouge to her empty-headed sister Lote. Empty-headed doesn't come close, actually--the other characters are shallow, but she barely qualifies as a puddle. Still, as much as I'm usually annoyed by bubble-headed characters, her absolutely unfazeable, good-natured idiocy made her my personal favorite of the bunch--stupid to the core, but she seems to really enjoy it. That may not speak well for the rest of them, but I was laughing in spite of myself.

Yamamoto Yohko is, if nothing else, a snazzy-looking series. Very attractive art, cute character designs in something like the style of Pioneer's late-'90s work, and action aplenty. The space action that makes up a good chunk of the series is fast paced, varied, meaty, and slickly-animated, and it's even spiced up with a few nice artistic touches. The character animation is of a similar calibre, particularly Yohko's wonderfully expressive face. There are plenty of extra touches, too--arty flair in some locales, the cockpits of the fighters have realistic glitches with their wrap-around viewscreens, and the girls sport a variety of attractive and unusual outfits throughout the series. Note that last point--they just wear street clothes in their fighters (why not?), and Yohko has some particularly distinctive modern fashions, including a pair of eyebrow-raising ripped jeans.

There's less to say about the musical score: Lively if unremarkable, with a few appropriately overdramatic themes.

The acting in Japanese is very good, featuring a wide variety of distinctive voices. It's a cast you can't help but love: from the always-versatile Minami Takayama, who supplies Yohko's confident, slightly dry tone and healthy helping of nonchalant attitude, to Megumi Hayashibara's turn as Yohko's perpetually-annoyed, shiny-foreheaded teammate, to Mika Kanai as the (almost) likably ditzy Lote. No drama to speak of, but they're fun anyway, and the sharp timing makes the banter work. RightStuf's subtitling is accurate, but I was a little surprised they didn't use any Japanese suffixes (Lote's dialogue in particular would have been much smoother had they used "-chan").

The main characters in the English dub are well cast and acted (particularly Hunter MacKenzie Austin as Madoka). Erin Matthews' Yohko doesn't have quite the attitude of the original (now that's rare for a dub) but she's a bit less annoying. J-Ray Hochfield's Lote, sadly, isn't as funny, and the timing in the banter isn't as sharp. While the girls' dialogue is well written, not all the humor translates well, so some of it is awkward. In a pleasant surprise, at least they can actually pronounce each others' names (except for "Lote," but hers doesn't matter).

Overall, I didn't dislike Yamamoto Yohko, but I can't say that I enjoyed it all that much either. It's so outrageously pointless it's hard to get into the characters, and by the time you finally get used to them, it spends one episode trying ineffectively to be more serious, then ends. It's also not as wacky as I expected (or wanted) it to be, but it does manage a few laugh-out-loud moments, and the characters are a distinctive crew with plenty to yell at each other about. At least there's no shortage of slick action. Yamamoto Yohko may not stick with you any more than the cotton candy that the story is apparently based on, but it's an amusing diversion, particularly for fans fans of light space action.

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Related Recommendations

Yamamoto Yohko: Starship Girl had many notable similarities to Tenamonya Voyagers, but that series is sillier and much less solid. It's about halfway between that and Martian Successor Nadesico or Lost Universe, which are silly and funny, but based on a semi-solid world. Oh, and if you like the concept of a pointless, bloodless war, check out Dual--it is more solid and sends up giant robots instead of space combat, but has some similarities.