Space Invaders Invade Space: An Appraisal of Outlaw Star

The popular science fiction anime series gets The Awesome TreatmentTM by
 
Michael Seaholm

Undergraduate/Political Science

As a card-carrying nerd, I am often accosted by people in the streets with questions about scientific subjects and nerd culture. Such queries as “Why can't science just convert us all to free energy and be done with it?” and “If computers can help us save our personal data, why can't they help us save the rainforest?” are thrown at me like exceedingly sharp knives on a daily basis, and I have absolutely no qualms in answering them. Seeing how the public can benefit from an understanding of nerdery on a local, national, or even a global scale, I occasionally provide leaflets filled with relevant information for the consumption of the masses, which as you might imagine, are thankful for being given the opportunity to read things that challenge their world views. Thus, I have decided to write about Outlaw Star, an anime series that takes place within the epic confines of space and, quite frankly, is much cooler than anything you will ever hope to accomplish in your lifetime.

Outlaw Star starts out following the exploits of protagonist Gene Starwind, a wily red-haired bounty hunter who, like most gunslingers, possesses sweet gun skills, an unusually high alcohol tolerance, and an appreciation for the ladies that would be considered more socially acceptable in the 1950's than it is in the future. If you're anything like me, you can't help but compare him to William the Silent, the first cool person to be assassinated by a firearm, mostly because he ends up getting shot up a bunch throughout the course of the series. He is accompanied by the 11-year-old Jim “1337 H4x0r” Hawking, computer expert and combat analyst extraordinaire. At the beginning of the series, they are living on some podunk frontier planet, scraping together money from bounties and odd jobs. Suddenly, a series of unlikely events unfolds – including a plot-relevant character falling into a star – and Gene ends up with a spaceship that is the series' namesake. This ship is so badass, it has fucking SPACE ARMS. These quite literally armed ships are designated Grappler ships within the continuity of the series, and though this concept may seem strange, even the modern-day Space Shuttle has a mechanical arm known as the Shuttle Remote Manipulator System on it, presumably for snagging free-floating Doritos that accidentally fell into Earth’s orbit.

The ship's navigation is controlled by a bio-android named Melfina, a rather meek woman who when she isn't being useless in a combat situation is busy contemplating the purpose of her own existence. Since Gene and Jim first encounter her while she is in suspended animation in what is essentially a suitcase, this latter impulse is understandable. Also, she manages to get the Outlaw Star out of a number of fixes as the ship's navigator, a capacity which for some reason must be performed in a blue fluid-filled tube. She doesn't wear clothing during this process, because obviously her clothes would get wet and that would just be an unpleasant situation. It couldn't possibly be to titillate audiences with shameless scenes of partial nudity, because anime viewers are above that kind of senseless depravity. Anyway, it turns out that Melfina and the Outlaw Star are the key to getting into the Galactic Leyline, a universal Easter egg that lets you hack reality because someone forgot to patch the source code. This arouses the interest of a bunch of space pirates, who send an elite group of assassins known as the Anten Seven to take on the crew of the Outlaw Star. Luckily, Gene, Jim, and Melfina are not alone in their quest to not be killed by pirates.

Outlaw Star features the largest number of enemies who start out wanting to kill the protagonist and then end up becoming important allies that I've ever seen in any series. For instance, Aisha Clanclan, a cat-person with a voice that sounds like a parallel universe consisting entirely of nails colliding with a separate parallel universe made entirely of chalkboard, keeps following Gene because she wants to claim the Galactic Leyline and pretty much everything that isn't nailed down for the cat-person Empire. Eventually, she just sort of tags along to fight pirates, presumably because it is sporting good fun. Alternatively, the female Ultra Class A assassin Suzuka (and yes, that is her official designation) keeps trying to kill Gene because that's sort of what the assassin business is all about, but ends up fighting alongside him because her family was killed by one of the Anten. These allies turn out to be indispensable; Aisha has the strength of ten of those guys who go around calling everyone “bro” and spending too much time at the gym, and also appears to be immune to bullets. Not to be outdone, Suzuka has mastered some sort of sword-witchcraft because she can send concussive sound waves at her opponent and at one point CUTS A BUS IN HALF WITH A WOODEN SWORD. Of course, Gene manages to stay on the same page through an assortment of weaponry, including a gun that actually shoots magic. This turns out to be a plot-relevant object, so I feel that I should mention it here, even though its purpose will remain unexplained throughout the rest of this article.

Pretty much the first half of the series consists of the crew badassing their way through space, taking on pirates and trying to live off of the meager wages afforded to bounty hunters and random task accomplishers. Then, like many series, shit gets real, and the gang ends up racing against the Anten Seven to reach the Galactic Leyline. Their journey is impeded significantly by the constant interference and general fuckery perpetuated by the MacDougall brothers, a pair of rough-necks with a penchant for taking on contracts for illegal, murder-related services that can only be theirs if the price is right. While the elder Ron MacDougall actually looks like a man, Harry MacDougall possesses the frame and appearance of a thirteen-year-old girl. The androgyny is not helped by the fact that he has long teal hair, complete with a purple bow in the back. Ironically, his role in the series is primarily to stalk after Melfina like a huge creeper, insisting that they were meant to be together because he was a test-tube baby, and she's a bio-android, and, I don't know, I guess that means they're essentially the same person. Needless to say, Harry is a pretty fucked up guy, and he only gets crazier as the series progresses.

I would delve further into the metric fuckton of awesome that constitutes the remainder of this series' plot, but I am afraid that putting so many spoilers into a single article would render my artistic license null and void, and I'll be damned if I have to renew it again. Luckily, like most anime series, there are some filler episodes that have little to do with the overall plot, and I am only too happy to reveal that one of them deals with the crew fighting a sentient cactus with mind-control powers. If this does not make you want to stop what you are doing, go immediately to your local DVD vendor, purchase the entire Outlaw Star series and watch all the episodes in immediate succession without eating or sleeping with blatant disregard for your personal well-being, then I have failed you as a writer. Though it may be a bit of an exaggeration, I would say that Outlaw Star is a pretty okay series and that you might enjoy it, but if you don't then that's fine too.