Exosquad

I'll admit that in general, I'm fond of cartoons, but I despise one trick ponies. ExoSquad is far from being a one trick show. The storylines were diverse and interesting, yet connected nicely for an ongoing plot. The characters developed better than most television shows.

Essentially, the premise boiled down to the genetically altered NeoSapiens revolting from their slave positions and taking over Earth, Mars and Venus. The ExoSquad must attempt to liberate their home planets, but at the same time, by both necessity and inclination, realize that the NeoSapiens are not as evil as one might think, and neither are the pirates that have always been their enemies.

The beautiful thing about the show was that it was intelligent. Attitudes changed as characters grew. The viewer was not treated to random violence every time they turned on the show. This show deserved better than to be unceremoniously cancelled at episode 52.

When this show was on the air, my father and I watched it repeatedly. We rewatched every episode untl it was pulled off. He and I stil miss it. The animated shw had a strong storyline, lovable (likable is to weak a word for these characters) heroes, villains that had reasons for their hatred of humanity, and strong dramatic moments. Characters die, planets are treatened, and the heroes of ExoFleet continue till they finally win the war. But, on the very last episode, the stage was seat for a third season, which was never made. There are rumors of a movie being made. I hope to god there is. This is the best of it's kind folks. I hope you can find it. Amazon has videos, but they are from th first season only. There are 52 episodes total; season one consisted of 13.

We did our take of episodic series(many more for sure to follow in the US)but reason it's no.1. It did it first. Universal. How can you neglect releasing this show on DVD? The voice actor's went on to be the most sought after in the industry. It had top notch but yet nostalgic looking ship's like Flash Gordon. Many people had no opportunity to see it but how many household's now have DVD player's? DVD has created it's own culture of show's and film's that might have never been seen by the general public either. You need to release this show before it's completely forgotten but only a loyal few will remember this "classic cult" series. Even the opportunity to meet the few voice actor's I've met at con's has been great and Richard Newman was the top's in presentation of his panel of his many work's including Exo Squad. I can do at least one more thing. Thank you for Exo Squad.

ExoSquad is the second best American animated series I've seen. The first being Robotech(though American produced, had heavy japanese anime origins). ExoSquad had great character and plot depth. Each laser shot during the battles counts(meaning people could get hit and could possibly die). I use the battle casualty factor as a way of measuring as to whether an animated series is mature or for children. ExoSquad's plot was inconsistent at times which gave me the impression that they didn't write the entire saga before producing the episodes. An example of this inconsistency were the seemingly invincible mutant creatures that were impervious to laser fire in one episode and in later episodes could be killed easily with one laser shot. Unfortunately America doesn't seem ready for mature cartoons. Each mature American cartoon produced seems to get abruptly cancelled(there were quite a few, some cancelled at less than 10 episodes). Just for the record the Marvel superhero cartoons shouldn't be considered mature as they pale in comparison to their comic book counterparts maturity wise(nobody dies). If you can find a channel with reruns of ExoSquad, check it out.

To call Exosquad a "cartoon" is unfair. This saga is absolutely brilliant with its parrallels to the reality of war, racism, prejudice, ethnic cleansing, and the brutalities of totalitarianism.

In Exosquad, a race of artificialy created humanoids -bred for slavery - revolt against natural humans in order to exterminate them and take their own place as the rightful rulers of the Sol system.

In the outer reaches of the solar system, are the Space Pirates who were prisoners forced to mine the outer planet's moons for raw materials for building spacecraft. A group of violent, angry people bent on revenge against the people of earth.

In the middle are humans, who make up the populous of Earth, Venus and the space Navy, The Exosquad. Besides commanding a large force of battleships, they are trained for heavy weapons - including E-Frames - powered armor battle suits that increase the destructive power of individual soldiers.

While the plot sounds like the run of the mill anime, the show is given a distinctive American feeling by a cast of western actors, as well as a distinctive sense of realism and authenticity by graphic violence and actual death of characters as well as other brutalities of war such as forced labor, starvation, summary executions and stories of resistance, betrayal and honor.

This show goes well beyond the average cartoon and despite its watercolor animations, the high quality artwork and voice acting ranks Exosquad right up there with other space sagas such as Babylon 5 and Battlestar Galactica.

This show was highly enjoyable and I rate it a perfect 10.

My only disappointment is that the show was unfinished. The episode "Beyond Chaos" begins an incomplete story arc that would have been better left concluded in the episode "Fall of the Neosapien empire". In many ways, this left me disappointed - like the final episode of Space: Above & Beyond but, if you can overlook "Beyond Chaos", the rest of the series is unfortgettable and brilliant.