Begun in 1985 and still running to this day Mamoru Nagano's
epic work The Five Star Stories is a cult manga in Japan. I've heard it
referred to as the 'Lord of the Rings' of mecha series given its epic nature
and the massive detailed poured into it.
Given the
huge nature of the manga one movie could never retell much of the series and thus
instead the film focuses only on the very beginning of events in the Joker Galaxy.
The FSS movie does actually cut off events at a sensible point in relation
to where it gets within the manga story and so although nothing major takes place
in the way of character development, bar Sopp, at least everything flows perfectly
and is coherent, which is a good thing given the complexity of Nagano's
work.
Even if the movie only gives a glimpse of the
epic nature of the manga and we don't get to see carefully constructed characters
it doesn't mean that the movie isn't worth watching. As a stand alone movie it's
still very entertaining to watch and there plot twists along the way, even within
this minute portion of the story. Being a movie the animation is very decent and
seeing Nagano's brilliant mecha designs (which are the best I've seen)
on screen is a real treat.
The Five Star Stories
manga has just started to translated and released in America, with the first issues
coming out in December of last year, so this movie acts as a wonderful introduction
to anyone who might be interested in picking the manga up. If you like mecha series
or sweeping sci-fi tales then The Five Star Stories will be for you. The
movie is good for the portion of the tale it deals with but hopefully the manga
will continue to be translated so we can get the full story!
