Heroic Age- Episode One [Star of Destruction]

 

Well here’s a series that I had in my ‘maybe’ section, but was pleasantly surprised. I was genuinely leaning towards ’suck’ on this one, but watched it and found myself quite entertained. Heroic Age is not the deepest title in the world, nor does it pretend to be. Like any mecha show (even some of the good ones), I found myself giggling a few times during serious scenes and overall had trouble taking it 100% seriously. However, like any good mecha show, it’s also a lot of fun to watch. Let’s hope it stays that way!

I know I’ve posted it here in the spring preview, but here is ann’s summary of it anyway:

Answering the call of the “Gold Race”, all the sentient races launch into space. The human race is the last to launch, and are thus known as the “Iron Race”. Much time has passed since then, and humanity is threatened with extinction at the hands of the more dominant “Silver Race”. In order to save her people, Queen Deianeira sets out on a journey to a galaxy far away, following the prophecies of the Gold Race handed down by the royal family. Then, she meets a boy named Age. Their encounter will change the fate of the universe…

 

Click ‘read more’ for thoughts and images.

The above summary gives a pretty solid idea as to what the story is about. For clarification, the ‘Silver Race’ are bug-like entities or something of the sort, the ‘golden race’ are very shiny looking people, the heroic race are mecha like creatures, and the bronze race seems to be some sort of mechanical creature we only got one glimpse of. The iron race is of course, humankind. I think that the only prominent races in the series may be golden, silver, and iron.

As is probably obvious, many themes of the story are rooted in Greek myth. The different races are named after the ‘ages’ found in Hesiod’s The Theogony, the root of many Greek myths we are familiar with. In addition to the uses of the races, some characters, as well as the spaceships, have mythological names.

The animation is very solid, and the backgrounds are often quite nice. I don’t think the stylistics in this series are anywhere near Romeo x Juliet, but I do think that it looks a bit better than most mecha series.

Hisashi Hirai’s character designs look good as always. I could see complaining about the fact that his characters all look very similar, but it doesn’t bug me. This might be because I think he designs amongst the prettiest girls out there, and because overall I like his crisp clean look. As far as the mecha designs? Well to be honest we see very little as far as mecha go in the first episode so it is hard to judge. The ‘main mecha’ (or what I’d assume is) appears at the end of the episode and it is quite foreboding, but nothing to write home about. With the teeth and all (which you can’t see in the image), it does remind me of an EVA. However, truthfully mecha designs, with the exception of some Gundams, don’t interest me much. As such, I may not be the best judge here.

CHARACTERS:

There were several other characters introduced in this episode, but to be honest I felt like I only found out enough about two to profile them.

Deianeira- This is the lead female. In fact, the ending theme is dedicated entirely to her. Her name hails from myth, a wife of Hercules. Deianeira is a Princess on a mission to find a man with the ability to save their race. She has the ability to teleport her essence in the form of a ghostly version of herself. Truth be told, she does remind me a lot of Lacus Clyne, a lead female (and my favorite character) from the Gundam Seed franchise, another Hirashi Hirai series. In appearance they’re almost identical, but with Deianeira sporting blonde hair instead of pink. In personality, they seem to share the same commanding but compassionate attitude. I see her as more of a Lacus-clone than the often associated Euphemia of Code Geass.

Age- The lead male. He’s a young man of mysterious origins, with a mullet and a loincloth. XD He lives on a desecrated planet that seemingly holds no other people. He seems completely unaware of the world outside his desert home (where he plants trees and fights Tentacruel wannabes for food) Oh yeah, he also resides in a broken down ship that crash landed on the planet one hundred years ago. He calls the computer system in the ship his mother, despite the fact that it answers most of his comments with ‘invalid question’ or ‘invalid command.’ Age is either able to turn into a giant mecha due to a connection with the heroic race, or he can manifest one from himself. We’re not sure. That’s where the episode ended. He is surprisingly upbeat and not too feral, and of course, very mysterious.

OPENING/ENDING:

The first episode did not have an opening before it, as some anime don’t to smush more into the pilot. The ending theme is Azurite by Tae Urakabe. It is pretty but unmemorable.

CONSENSUS:

I will definitely be continuing with this series. It’s true that it could easily jump the shark, but I have more faith in it than Code Geass, the mecha show I followed (and dropped) last season. I think that while this doesn’t start out as strong as Code Geass did, the plot will probably remain more linear and focused just by the first episode. I can’t see them pulling the same kind of weird shock factor plot twists here. I feel safer with this series. Plus, it’s nice to look at.

FOURTEEN EPISODE ONE CAPS LOCATED HERE.

Including larger ones of the caps used in this post. As with the RxJ caps, I don’t mind if you use them. However, don’t post them on your website as your own. It is not required, but if you do use them- I would love a link back. That way I can spread the word about this blog.

-Haro

 

 

 

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