Uchû no senshi

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.

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.

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.

This depiction of Robert Heinlein's "Starship Troopers" is interesting mainly for its portrayal of the mobile infantry. Without the benefit of English subtitles, the story appears simple; focused on Johnny Rico's training and integration in a mobile infantry unit, and quest to win the affection of a young woman he attended school with. The animation is good but modest.

The scenes with the mobile infantry's powered armor suits are where this anime production shines. The design of the powered armor fits Robert Heinlein's vision with the soldiers able to move rapidly and fight under intensive combat conditions with substantial firepower, and the series adds autonomous track-wheeled robots that fight alongside the armored soldiers. The series also features the mobile infantry's capability for atmospheric entry via individual protective capsules, as described by Heinlein, when they fight the bugs in the final episode.

Overall, the series is okay. The combat scenes with the mobile infantry are worth watching, though the tactics appear less than sophisticated for a force equipped with advanced technology, and the battle with the bugs in the final episode is somewhat anti-climactic. Nonetheless, this anime production remains an interesting portrayal of Heinlein's mobile infantry.

While Robert A. Heinlein's controversial classic sci-fi romp about humanity fighting an intergalactic space war with alien bugs has been largely overshadowed by Paul Verhoeven's more satirical audience friendly but deprived of high regard 1998 film adaptation. This Anime OVA (Original Video Animation) remains the more faithful and unique adaptation to date, it's also something industry professionals should look to if a 'Reboot/Re-adaptation' is in the works.

First and foremost, the original novel was more about the main character; Juan 'Johnnie' Rico making his way through the rough and tumbles of life training and living under the military. It was never pleasant and always fraught with conditions nobody would've ever believed and not just on the battlefield fighting a vehement and unreasoning enemy. That's what's presented here as being fairly accurate to the development for Johnnie, he loses family and friends, but he never loses his sense of purpose and follows through on strict orders. This anime is less melodramatic than Verhoeven which makes it easier to relate, even when some characters are being unpleasant due to circumstances. It also puts Heinlein's conception of 'Powered Military Suits' up front and center and being the primary weapon of combat for these soldiers. While there isn't much of that to distinguish this from other 'mech themed' anime, it's the story and commitment the series makes as Heinlein's 'Starship Troopers' that makes it unique. Even if action on the book pages were far and few in between, here it's very much worthy of the the wait and build up until the most thrilling of action battle scenes are on display.

My only criticisms for this film is the conception of the aliens, while the book and Verhoeven film make it quite clear the aliens are 'Insectoid' or 'Ant-like' which has always been up for interpretation and classification or it's kind(s). Here it's less of being 'bug-like' and act more like an infecting alien parasite threat that simply breeds and destroys, although still very effective, revealing less until the penultimate moment the squad of soldiers figures out how to fight them.

Overall, despite being dated and barely having a full narrative that pays-off much like Verhoeven's film. This version of Starship Troopers is surprisingly accurate to Heinlein's novel, straightforward with it's narrative and unique in it's design and characterization. Not the best anime of sci-fi to recommend but good enough for anyone to see a fresh perspective on Heinlein's book rather than spawning off from what someone else created.