Captain Herlock. – The endless odyssey – Outside Legend. - DVD 2 – Tendrils of Fear.
The vast fleet of the Space Sheriff Station attacks the Fata Morgana, the research ship of the space archeological team that perished five years ago and that now contains the Noo. However, just as the solar system fleet before them, the Noo uses the fear within the fleet’s crew to turn them against each other and within minutes the Space Sheriffs forces slaughter each other! Only the Arcadia and her brave crew remains to prevent the Noo from escaping, but can Captain Herlock and his crew resist their fear as well as the injured commander of the Space Sheriffs who is still determined to eliminate the Arcadia.
With the second DVD in the Captain Herlock – Outside legend released we now have the opportunity to dive into more of the Herlock outside legend story. To refresh the readers’ memory, Herlock is based on the work of famed anime director Leiji Matsumoto (Star Blazers, Original Comic Space Pirate Captain Herlock). Script work by Sadayuki Muarai (Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress).
The first episode of this disc starts off where the last episode of the previous disc ended. The Space Sheriffs Office is closing in on the Sol System to stop the Fata Morgana and to bring order back to the galaxy. With the Sol Fleet and their forces failing to the greatest weapon Noo has in it’s arsenal, fear. The Space Sheriffs forces approach and land a successful attack, only to discover that the Fata Morgana with the help of the Noo maybe too powerful to stop. Like the Sol fleet before them, the Space Sheriffs fleet falls victim to the Noo, they begin attacking on another, destroying ships and murdering one another in a paranoid belief that they are protecting themselves from their fellow crew mates.
The second DVD in the Outside Legend saga “The Legend Returns” contains three episodes.
5. Battlefield – The tombstone planet
6. A Gentle smile on the skull of memory
7. The moon waits in the promise land
Battlefield – The tombstone planet – The Space Sheriff’s fleet arrives in Sol to stop the Fata Morgana and restore order to the galaxy. However, the deceased crew of the Fata Morgana using Noo greatest weapon, the fleet of the Space Sheriff quickly falls prey to the Noo, and turns on one another. Will Herlock be able to stop the Noo before chaos reigns supreme on the galaxy.
A Gentle smile on the skull of memory - The Noo attempt to affect Herlock’s crew, to make them fall prey to fear. Will Herlock and his crew be the next victims of the Noo, are they strong enough to resist?
The moon waits in the promise land – The moon is still in it’s orbit around the earth, even after Noo has attacked it. How can that be? What of the Arcadia, the ship seemingly with a mind of its own, has set a course to find one of her missing crew man.
Even within the second disk the story still seems to be off to a rush start. However, some more time has been allocated for character development and the opportunity to delve more into certain characters pasts in order to gain a better perspective of who they are and what lead them to become who they are. Still there hasn’t been much time for development of the main characters of the story, with the series moving on, I don’t feel there will be time to go back and reintroduce Herlock, who he is and why he became the man he became, this is partially due to the long following of the Herlock series. However, still being new to the universe, it would have been appreciated if there was a slower start to the series or allowing some time to give more detail to the characters and how they evolved. They do a brief background of who Herlock is where he’s from and why he’s in space, but this is not enough. Some of these issues could have been resolved with a few features on the DVD.
Sadly the features included with the DVD don’t seem to be getting much better as time goes on, the features offered are Bilingual 5.1 Audio (English and Japanese). Also, 2 streams of English Subtitles: Dialog and signs or signs only. One the biggest disappointments of this DVD would have to be the lack of any bonus features. The only available features were, previews for upcoming Geneon releases and the original Japanese opening. If any additional feature such as original or conceptual art work definitely would have added to the disc. Maybe even with a time line that explains Captain Herlock universe. Character biography’s giving additional information to the characters that make up this universe.
With the second disk now available and still no sign of special features that would help to make this a definite buy, the story seems to be evolving nicely and at an increasing pace. With the battle between Herlock and Noo approaching, I can’t wait to see what events will unfold. Still, with the lack of any form of special features with the disc, I would have to say based on the anime itself it’s a must for those who are fans of Matsumoto’s work. However, for those who aren’t really fans of the earlier style of animation then this one might be a good one to rent or at least borrow a copy from someone. Hopefully in the next release we will see additional features.
Animation: 8 / 10
Story: 8 / 10
Audio: 8 / 10
Video: 9 / 10
Extras: 5 / 10
Impact Rating: 7 / 10
Total: 75%
Matt Capranos
