sigurd53 - 2016-06-29 18:50:53

Once upon a time, there was a planet, called Venus. And since it by almost believable turn of events suddenly became habitable, the mankind decided to colonize it. Two nations were established on its surface, the Aphrodia and the Ishtar, and after only a few decades since colonisation, a war broke out. 

The story begins in the Aphrodian city of Io. A young reporter arrives from Earth, decided to write a story about the war. She ventures to a certain local drinking establishment and is rather disgusted by what the locals consider a good spectator sport. However, her culture shock is abrubtly interupted by an incoming Ishtarian air raid. The city's defences are quickly overrun and she finds herself with a monobike racing team, who decide to try to destroy some huge Ishtharian tank, because... reasons. 

All right, I admit. I got a little lost there. Although the main story of this film is fairly straightforward, the side story arcs and motivation of some characters are sometimes a bit hard to follow. Maybe it's because the movie is from late eighties and its way of telling a story simply doesn't work that much anymore. It's not the first old anime, that aged quite badly in this department. Or maybe it's because there's way to many characters with way to many stories to focus on and not enough time to really introduce any of them, because main plot is rather time-consuming. But as I said, the main story is rather comprehensible, so it could be worse. 

The same can be said about the characters. Sure, the protagonist, young bike racer (you thought the reporter is a lead character? well, so did I at first), is a bit impulsive and unreasonable, but at least he's not nearly as dumb as, for example, Hikaru from Macross. Anyway, I actually quite liked him, as well as his girlfriend, although she's fairly generic. As for the rest of the main crew, there's an old grumpy guy, bossy young woman, who leads the whole team, couple of comic relief characters and of course the reporter, who, due to lack of screen time in second half, turned out to be little more, then a nuisance. 

But if there's anything special about this movie, it's the animation. As far as I know there is little to no CGI in this film (makes sense given its age). Just a beautiful hand-drawn animation. Everything is detailed, believable and some designs even bring back memories of Yamato or Macross, which is always a good thing. The only problem is, that around half of the film they started to use edited real-life backgrounds instead of painted ones during riding and battle scenes. And it kinda breaks the mood, because the background moves differently, than the characters and it actually looks kinda cheap. I don't know why they did it. Maybe they ran out of money or time, maybe their background animator suddenly left... I have no idea. But it shouldn't have happened, because it instantly destroys every scene it appears in. Which is a shame, because motorcycle-based combat is actually one of the best parts of this film. The action is well thought out and thrilling to watch, but without a propper background it just doesn't work. 

All in all it was a rather good SF anime. Yes, the story is not exactly original, sometimes it's hard to follow and sometimes makes no sense, bud I still liked it. Many of the complaints I made aren't actually complaints at all. They're just part of the time and genere I guess. Anime in general is filled with cliché and there's nothing one can do about it. But it's quite fascinating to watch these older pieces, especially when you're interested in where all those current trends came from. And even if you're not, Venus Wars is still a good way to spend an evening. It aged quite a bit, but it is still an enjoyable piece of classic SF anime, that is well worth your time. 

hschuppe - 2015-04-27 20:34:27

Venus Wars combines gorgeous visuals with a simple but action packed story. The cast is versatile and likable. The dub has aged pretty well too. If you like retro sci-fi or 80s anime then this movie is worth checking out.