Uchû no senshi

Honestly, this is my very first review. I specifically made an account so I could write a more informed, professional review after reading the divided reception it's already received. So I'll get right to the meat of it.

If you're a big fan of the Paul Verhoeven franchise and are looking for that, you're not going to enjoy this treatment of the source material.

As previously stated in other reviews, this Anime follows the BOOK and not Paul Verhoeven's "artistic re-envisioning" of the source material. Paul Verhoeven, as also stated already, read 2 chapters of the book before getting bored, throwing it in the shredder and writing his own movie.

Furthermore, "American Cinematographer" reports that Paul Verhoeven's film had a working title of "Bug Hunt at Outpost Nine" while in pre-production. That means the film and it's script, as Bug Hunt at Outpost Nine" had ALREADY been green lit. THAT means, Paul Verhoeven's adaption was not even originally envisioned as Starship Troopers. And it shows. Verhoeven's live-action film was originally an entirely different, original franchise altogether. However, when similiarity's between "Bughunt" and "Starship" were mentioned, they bought the film rights to the book, and retroactively repurposed "bughunt" into "Starship Troopers".

Hence why the connections to the book were superficial. A previously existing work was retooled and renamed after an already established Scifi Classic in order to garner viewership and attention from those who were fans of the Book.

NOW THAT WE HAVE THOSE SEMANTICS OUT OF THE WAY

This Anime mini series was the most faithful adaption to the books. From the characters, to the Power Armor. I must admit, this series is very difficult to track down and find. I only managed to find a handful of episodes and never got to watch the entire series.

But this was released before Verhoeven's Film. It IS the original Starship Troopers, and still the most faithful. No other adaption of the work can claim this, and this gives it much artistic credence in my opinion. Verhoeven's series with Caspar Van Dien is pretty much an alternate universe altogether. Attempts were made to reconcile the existing series with the books in "Marauder" and "Starship Troopers Invasion" which were both fantastic IMO, and I'm a huge fan of Verhoeven's film, as I saw it in theaters when I was only 7 years old.

The animation, as stated before, is fairly on par with what was standard and considered "Good" back in it's era. This is an 80's anime we're talking about here.

Aside from that, I must admit it's been a very long time since I watched this OVA, and it IS very hard to find a good copy of it.

But from what I remember, it was good. I only recommend watching it if you're a hardcore Scifi or Heinlein fan however because of the sheer difficulty of finding this series gives it a very low effort to reward ratio. The animation is dated, the Audio is in Japanese. But if this were to be released on say, DVD at Walmart, I would pick it up in a heartbeat.

8/10 from me, as there are better ways to spend your time than rewatching this old dinosaur of an OVA. However, it has my respect for reasons I've already stated ad nauseum.

On the bounce, soldier. \M/

Its dated and conforms to early anime styles but this movie is far closer in tone to the original novel than Verhoevens far-leftist Crapfest.

The English dialogue in the dub was stilted and barely passable but the bugs and the power armor of the troopers conformed to the book rather nicely.

Too many young people have seen Verhoevens later version and never read the book and just assume its fascist trash based on scuttlebutt. This could not be further from the truth. I wish Verhoeven had made "The forever war" which was a far better anti-war response to starship troopers. Im so tired of Hollywood trashing SF books.

Verhoeven's movie was utter and complete garbage. He's a disgusting hack of a director and should be ashamed. By his own admission, he read 2 chapters of the book, got bored, and decided to make the whole thing up from scratch.

Heinlein would have NEVER supported that trash if he'd been alive to see it. It basically steals the name, mocks politics of the book (which is a good portion of it), and throws in some T&A so the average idiot American moviegoer doesn't get bored.

This anime isn't perfect, but it's at least mostly accurate, as best I can tell.

Note: I've only seen the first two episodes (out of 9)

The Anime version of Starship Troopers is alot closer to the original book by Robert A. Heinlein than Verhoeven's film. However, the Social and Political commentary from the novel was toned down in this version (whereas in Verhoeven's film, it was exagerated into Nazi Symbolism). But hey, they kept the Powered Suits. Now remember, I've only seen the first two episodes. But I will post a full review once I see the rest.

Robert A. Heinlein's classic novel Starship Troopers has been messed around with in recent years, in everything to Paul Verhoeven's 1997 film to a TV series, to a number of games. But none of these, so to speak, has really captured the spirit of his novel. The games are usually unrelated, the TV series was more of a spin off, and the less said about Verhoeven's film, the better. Little do most know, however, that in Japan, an animated adaptation had already been done, released the year of Heinlein's death. And, believe it or not, despite its differences, this 6-part animated series is, plot-wise, the most faithful adaptation of Heinlein's classic.

The most obvious plus to this series is the presence of the powered armor exoskeletons, something we were deprived of in Verhoeven's film. Like the book, the series focuses more on the characters and their relationships than on action and space travel, though we see a fair amount of each. While events happen differently than in the book, the feel of the book's plot is present. Rico and Carmen have a romantic entanglement, but it's only slightly more touched upon than in the book. While some may believe the dialogue and character interaction to be a bit inferior to the book (it gets a bit of the anime treatment, but what did you expect?), but it's far superior to the film. Heinlein's political views are merely excised, as opposed to the film, where they are reversed. The big payoff of the series, however, is the climatic battle on Klendathu between the troopers and the bugs/aliens, which features the kind of action from the powered armor suits we would have like to have seen in a film version.

Overall, I enjoyed this series because I wanted to see a vision closer to that of Heinlein. And I think they did pretty well with this. If you can find this series, give it a look.