cartoon

Welp, we’re finally here. Granted it’s been a few weeks since Adult Swim premiered it for the first time on television after over a decade since the original series… but we’re finally here. Despite being part of a franchise television block that had Tenchi Muyo and went out of its way to give all their nude girls bathing suits, Outlaw Star’s “Hot Springs Planet Tenrei” didn’t get such treatment. This is strange given how the only real full frontal we get is some Aisha (I guess Ctarl-Ctarl breasts are okay cuz they aren’t human), and some bits of ass from hot lizard lady and a guest human character. Such shit seems to be fairly easy to edit give or take.

That is a disappointed Aisha Face, because there wasn’t enough of her to go around this week.

Thankfully, this is not a disappointing episode.

The article title also fits for another reason; because Gene is a bit of a Dexter this episode, despite not ever being zapped by an in-series variation of the Infanto Ray.

Points to you if you understood the reference of my article title without researching and why I used it.

Holy shit, this episode is fucking adorable, and also perhaps now either the second or third best in the series. We had yet to get to Jim in terms of character development in this series, with most of his role being in support and foil to Gene’s scattershot ambitions. But now, with only six episodes left we get one, and boy does it not disappoint. Why is that really?

To sound like a broken record, how do you follow an episode that injected a shitton of adrenaline to the series and gives Gene an impetus to get his ass in gear?

Have him enter a big deal fighting tournament so Fred Luo can get out of marrying Space Ronda Rousey. Didn’t this happen already a few years back in… Wait, no. I… don’t think it’s really happened in any sortof space animu, at least anything like Outlaw Star.

Well now. We are back to plot again, and more importantly, back to the McDougal brothers. It has been a five-episode absence for them in the series, and they come back in a big and satisfying way. It doesn’t look like they’re aligned with Hazanko and the Anten Seven at this juncture, but what we don’t know doesn’t hurt us in the slightest. More surprises are nice at this point.

Because it not so much needs to be asked, but moreso because I want to: How do you follow an episode that injected a shitton of adrenaline to the series and gives Gene an impetus to get his ass in gear?

You have Gene and friends go on a salvaging expedition for some old man in another interpretation of a TV staple plot involving old men and the sea. Didn’t this just happen a few years ago in Space Dandy?

Ah, this is the episode with the scene bookending one of the original Toonami’s Outlaw Star promos back in the day. Personally, I like this tagline better than the reused “Time to roll the dice.” However, given my favourite tagline would not fit TOO much in 2018 than it would in 2000-ish, I guess it will have to do.

Even though, when one thinks about it, “time to roll the dice” wouldn’t make sense given how the original edit took great strides to censor out any allusion to gambling. I guess Gene and friends play some SD&SD (Space Dungeons & Space Dragons) inbetween jobs, which explains the use of dice.

I think the celebration is too early for my continuing onward of this show, but the sentiment is appreciated.

So after the rather amusing diversion that was last week, this week tries its luck in a tense affair. An innocuous tugboat job for Gene, Jim, and Melfina is hacked and hijacked by a terrorist group with a penchant for cartoonish theatrics and an over the top Mickey Mouse-esque mask. Attached to an advertising spaceship with a bomb in it, Gene and the gang have to beat the clock to not only get out of being blown up but also find out who is this ‘Cracker Jack’ and what’s his game?

I told you I’d be back. Also, I have noticed Jim has yet to make an appearance on the feature shot of an episode. So here I am remedying more matters. Then again, covering this series is in and of itself a remedy of mistakes long made in the past. Mistakes I, once again say, hope to fix.