Having seen this OAV a few days ago, I was interested to see so few reviews, so I'll write my own ;)
The plot basically revolves around the pirates on board the Sol Bianca, who find a young boy as stowed away in a cargo crate which they've just half-inched from a space freighter. Said boy wants to go to the planet where he was bound before his 'kidnap'. After buttering up his (all female) 'captors' with stories of treasure, they head off to the planet, full throttle. Blah blah blah. Feeling excited yet? I wasn't.
About half way through, it had become obvious that the female leads were busy following their stereotypes, and would do nothing more. The 'baddie' is identical to a thousand and one evil generals seen elsewhere in Venus Wars and Plastic Little, though both those characters had at least some interesting facets.
Every aspect of the OAV is well-trodden territory, from the characters themselves, the character designs, the plot, the settings, the relationships between characters, it's all 'ditto'. There's no time given to explaining what's going on, because what's going on is painfully obvious. You sit there in stupified silence and wonder if the few minutes of decent viewing (most of the way through the film) justify watching the entire thing. They don't, unfortunately.
What bothers me intensely about this is if there were a few more minutes running time, and a little more LIFE in this short film, then it could have turned out differently. As it stands, I can't see it being of much use to many people.
If you can see this for nothing, borrow it or watch it on TV, then go for it and form your own opinions. I would heartily discourage all but completists from paying good money to own this, there's nothing here they won't have seen being done better on another anime film.
The plot basically revolves around the pirates on board the Sol Bianca, who find a young boy as stowed away in a cargo crate which they've just half-inched from a space freighter. Said boy wants to go to the planet where he was bound before his 'kidnap'. After buttering up his (all female) 'captors' with stories of treasure, they head off to the planet, full throttle. Blah blah blah. Feeling excited yet? I wasn't.
About half way through, it had become obvious that the female leads were busy following their stereotypes, and would do nothing more. The 'baddie' is identical to a thousand and one evil generals seen elsewhere in Venus Wars and Plastic Little, though both those characters had at least some interesting facets.
Every aspect of the OAV is well-trodden territory, from the characters themselves, the character designs, the plot, the settings, the relationships between characters, it's all 'ditto'. There's no time given to explaining what's going on, because what's going on is painfully obvious. You sit there in stupified silence and wonder if the few minutes of decent viewing (most of the way through the film) justify watching the entire thing. They don't, unfortunately.
What bothers me intensely about this is if there were a few more minutes running time, and a little more LIFE in this short film, then it could have turned out differently. As it stands, I can't see it being of much use to many people.
If you can see this for nothing, borrow it or watch it on TV, then go for it and form your own opinions. I would heartily discourage all but completists from paying good money to own this, there's nothing here they won't have seen being done better on another anime film.