AnimeJB Dot Net

Episode Summary

A short backstory reveals that there was a group of powerful beings known as the Golden Tribe. They called 3 other tribes (Silver, Bronze, Hero) to the universe. Before the Golden Tribe decided to move on to a new universe, human beings had made it to their current universe and were dubbed the Iron Tribe.

In the present-time, The Iron Tribe seems to be in big trouble. Their princess, Deianeira, has been using a vast amount of resources to find the ruined planet, Oron. She believes that the planet wlll hold the man that will become their savior, later claiming that he has more wisdom than any other being because he was raised by the Golden Tribe.

Indeed, on that planet is Age, a human who has been living there on his own. He crashed on the planet when he was a baby, and he calls the ship “Mother”. When Deianeira’s people land on the planet, he wonders if they are the people his father told him about.

The Bronze Tribe attacks the planet soon after Deianeira makes contact with Age, and they destroy Age’s ship. Outraged by the death of his mother, Age turns into (or calls?) a giant mecha-type monster and annihlates the enemy force’s mother ship in space. Deianeira refers to it as the last Nodos, and says that inside it is the one kept by the Hero Tribe that they were searching for.

The Opener

Calophi: This episode decided to drop a normal opener in favor of setting the scene, so to speak. But it was boring. Really boring. They tried to make it all mysterious and stuff, but my attention kept drifting off and I had to restart it 3 times. Once you get past the scene of Deianeira floating in space it gets better, but…let me just say that if I hadn’t attempted to watch Hidamari Sketch the other day I’d say that no intro I’ve ever seen is more boring than this one!

Eurkos: My goodness. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a plot-establishment device more boring than this one. It probably wouldn’t have been as bad if it were shorter. The voice-over was slow-speaking to cover for the amount of time the boring animation took. It was shiny and nice, but boring. Part of it might have been that I was expecting more from the animators of Gundam SEED, but still. Boring. Gets better, though.

Characters

Age

Calophi: Wow, it’s nice to have a wild-type hero who isn’t rude or clueless. Age actually knows what he is – he answers Deianeira’s question about the whereabouts of the Hero Tribe’s Great One with his own name. He respects life and recognizes intelligence. He doesn’t just attack at the drop of a hat either, which was refreshing to see. And, he’s associated with the Nodos, which looks like it may be a living mecha (like the Eva units, sort of, but different obviously).

Eurkos: While I’m still not convinced that Age knows what he is, it seems like a possibility. He was kind of absent minded about the answer he gave Deianeira. Either way, I like how cheerful he is. It’s nice to see. I also enjoyed his interaction with the crashed ship (calling it Mother), and with the squid monster (It almost seemed like taking its legs for food was a game between the two of them.)

Deianeira

Calophi: Uh…she’s the princess? She seems to have a few different powers, like Astral Projection, and some sort of empathy-type thing too judging by how she senses things (Age in particular). She seems like she’s trying to bear the weight of whatever’s going on by herself. We haven’t seen much of her character in a personal light – she was mostly business this episode.

Eurkos: I don’t particularly care for her yet. She seems kind of one-dimensional. Possibly because it’s just the first episode. All she did was glide around and be all weird and mysterious. I dunno if her Astral Projection is specifically an ability she has, or if it has something to do with technology (she was in a big KOS-MOS style machine in the beginning). She seems to be able to sense stuff, like Age and the planet they were looking for. I predict that she’s linked to the Golden Tribe somehow. She’ll probably turn out to be this serises’ Lacus Clyne, but she’s not nearly as hot.

Captain Mobead

Calophi: The Captain is a gruff guy with a quick temper. He doesn’t really like how close their ship is to having no supplies left, but can’t do anything about it, which irks him. However, he doesn’t seem like he’s opposed to finding their Hero, just the way they’re going about it.

Eurkos: Captain Mobead is fairly stereo-typical. He’s probably well-respected, and an excellent Captain. He’s got a short temper, but not an overbearing temper. He seems to constantly worry about the well-being of his ship and his crew, like any good captain would. He doesn’t like the fact that he’s not in full control. I’ll probably wind up saying “Mobead is great” at some point or another.

Iolaus – Mobead’s son

Calophi: I have a feeling that Iolaus used to know Deianeira more personally, as friends or something, because when he tried to approach her to congratulate her on finding the planet and was pushed back (no men allowed, apparently), he seemed really hurt. But it seemed like a natural reaction from him and not manipulative – and how could he forget something like a no-man clause otherwise? Maybe it’s just me?

Eurkos: Iolaus is either Deianeira’s childhood friend, or current friend. Perhaps they’re to be married or something. He seems like a guy with a high social rank. The son of a ship captain, probably a high ranking mech pilot. The very first shot of him makes him look like a jerk, but that’s the only time so it might’ve been an accident. He’ll probably do heroic and badass things before the end. Probably will be a rival to Age.

Anesha

Calophi: The only real opinion I have about Anesha is that she seems really dedicated to Deianeira. I’m wondering if she’s Deianeira’s personal bodyguard and, if so, what neat things she can do.

Eurkos: Anesha seems to be trusted by Deianeira. She’s the tough, bodyguard chick type, and probably has skill to back up her demeanor. She may have some sort of inferiority complex, as it looked like she took pleasure in reminding Iolaus that men aren’t allowed past a certain point in Deianeira’s chamber. She’ll probably also do heroic and badass things before the end.

Mayl and Tayl

Calophi: Eurkos said we should include these two, and I agreed because they, you know, have names and neat powers that seem to be a restorative type. Whether it restores living things or just technology remains to be seen, but there’s way too much involved in fixing a ship for what they did to be anything less than that.

Eurkos: Quirky and cheerful, the twins caught my interest because of their ability to repair the crashed ship just by focusing energy (or something like that). That will probably come in handy later. They’re probably going to be charged with maintaining a light factor in the feel of the series, since things will probably go bad at least once.

B Navi

Calophi: Is…is this meant to be the new Haro, or something? What is it, an angelfish? It scares me! Who would invent something that looked like that and assign it to a manly man such as Captain Mobead? It seems so cruel!

Eurkos: B-Navi seems to be incharge of the ship’s systems, and may be a manifestation of the ship’s computer. Obviously the mascot character of the series, like Haro was to Gundam SEED (and the rest of the Gundam franchise, actually). She will pick up any light-side slack that Mayl and Tayl don’t, I bet. The way she ends her sentences with “Master” is infectiously cute, in my opinion.

Storyline Thoughts

Calophi: I’m not terribly interested in culture conflict at this point. All we really know for sure is that the Bronze Tribe are jerks and the Iron Tribe are in dire straits. Age is definitely something special, but for what purpose? That’s the part that interests me, though I’m not sure I really like the implied destiny angle that’s going on here. I suppose I’m just being picky, but I wish they hadn’t waited until the last 10 minutes to give me something to be interested in.

Eurkos: Another spin on humans going into space and struggling to survive. The struggle between the tribes is probably just a surface plot to establish the reason that humans are in space to begin with. So far it’s not incredibly interesting. Age is obviously the wonder boy who’s gonna fix the universe, and the anime will probably be more about how he does that than how the tribes interact normally.

Final Verdict

Calophi: I’m not particularly interested in this one quite yet, except, of course, for Age and the Nodos. Space wars aren’t normally my thing – I need other hooks to reel me in. One thing I do want to note is that the CG and drawn animation in this series are a lot more solid and mesh together much better than in Reideen. And! The title is so punny! I have no idea why people are translating Age’s name as Eiji when it’s clear that it’s meant to be a pun. Anyway, I don’t know if I’ll be able to get through six episodes of this – but I’m gonna try!

Eurkos: While I’m not terribly interested in the storyline as it is right now, it has potential. As expected, the animation and CG sequences are nicely done, on par with Gundam SEED. It should be noted that I thought the same thing about the beginning of Gundam SEED, and it turned into something great. Based on that, I’m hoping that this one does the same thing.

Footnote

A good friend of mine, Haro, also has a review up for this series. Get her opinion on it here: Haro’s Heroic Age Ep 1 Review