Star Blazers: The Comet Empire, Vol. 6 (1979)
Review by Dindrane
Film:
DVD:

Directed by Leiji Matsumoto
Starring Tom Tweedy, Corinne Orr, and Kenneth Messerole

Features:

• interactive tactical maps
  
• English audio
  

Dindrane's Anime Warnings:

• cool costumes on relatively silly people
• non-threatening villains

Rating: NR

Anamorphic: N/A

My Advice: Rent it.

Earth’s warships are dropping like flies in the battle against the Comet Empire. Even the Andromeda has fallen in the onslaught. Thus, only the Star Force remains to defend Earth against the combined might of Prince Zordar’s ambitious forces. But before they can hope to defeat Zordar, they must first meet and defeat the sinister Desslok, who has his own designs on the deaths of our heroes. When the Comet Empire has handily defeated entire galaxies, how can our heroes hope to defeat them with only part of their army intact?

The plot of this final disc in the Star Blazers Comet Empire saga is interesting—the idea of a vast celestial empire that has set its sites on Earth is engaging, and the way the generals plot their battles is great fun for the tactics fans in the audience. But like the earlier installments in the storyline, it’s just so much pabulum instead of the cutting-edge it could have been. I am not one of those anime fans who believes that stories require blood or sex to be good, but I do think that villains should be, well, menacing, and I also feel that a storyline with campy goofiness should be a comedy, not a science-fiction drama. Some of the moments in this title were frustratingly interesting, but they just weren’t developed, and it seems as if they were writing for their idea of children, not real children or even adults.

The audio and video quality are both as feeble as the earlier releases in this series. It would have been greatly improved by a bit of digital restoration, expensive as that process may have been, because it truly isn’t in good enough shape to slide by without it. There is not only dirt and things on the film, but even a couple of flickers. The film stock is faded and seriously in need of touch-ups. While the audio is at least relatively clear, it is still lackluster, both in performances and in film quality.

The extras continue to be the star of this series. On this disc, we are presented with a set of tactical maps that are attractive and fun to see. There is an interactive map of the Comet Empire war, annotated with dates and showing the path of the White Comet and Prince Zordar as he marches across the Universe.

I just can’t quite figure this series out. Some aspects of the disc are very interesting, like the tactical maps in the feature list. Yet other aspects of the title are just plain poor, like the video quality and the just plain silly anchors all over the captain’s uniform. I can’t help thinking that if the animators and voice actors had taken the story more seriously, it could have been quite something good, but as it is, you just see what it could have been in the shadow of what it is. Science fiction fans should still rent this one, even with all of its failings and problems, just for the sake of what it might have been.