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Starship Troopers anime

PostPosted: Mon Sep 15, 2008 2:08 am
by Bobtheduck
Being a huge fan of the Book, and a huge enemy of the film version (holy crap, that was a crime against humanity... People who hate stories should never be given adaptation rights to those stories), I was intrigued by and skeptical of the anime adaptation from 1987.

Has anyone else seen it? I just watched it, and... Well, the ending was a bit what the crap, but it was an interesting take on the book, and 100x better than the 1997 movie version by the Robocop and Showgirls director... FOr one thing, it actually HAD the mobile Infintry armor... Even if it was a little too gundam style for my tastes, though i suppose rendering it like the book described would be prohibitively expensive. For another thing, the anime was respectful of the source material, not in direct opposition to it (the way the film was)

The only thing it really had in common with the movie that was different from the book was that they put more emphasis on the relationship between Johnny and Carmencita, which was barely mentioned in the book... Not so much a relationship as a brief Crush if I remember correctly... Not to say it didn't veer from the source in its own ways... It wasn't gung-ho pro-military. They didn't show how harsh and absurd the military was, the way it was in the book. No scenes with the firing squad, no mention of how ranks were, um, "earned" (in the book, basically, if you outlived your commanding officers, your rank went up)

One thing they kept (that I can remember) is the separation between men and women. All the pilots were women, and the infantrymen were all men.

One thing that kind of bugged me was that, in the Book, Rico was very clearly Filipino... In both this version and in the Movie version, they made Rico white. Another thing that bugged me, no pun intended, was that the two groups of enemies they fought were never mentioned... The bugs and the skinnies... We see some mostly amorphous enemies that are likely the bugs, and some tall, tentacled things that are most likely the skinnies, but it's never made clear they're even separate.

Overall, despite the WTH moment at the end, I liked it. I hope Paul Verhoeven's rights to the movie expire and a proper adaptation that treats the source material with respect can be made, but until then, this is the closest I'll get.

PostPosted: Mon Sep 15, 2008 12:53 pm
by sainttailfan
Hmm, sounds rather interesting... something to put on my ever-growing list of things to watch in the near future :D Thanks Bob ;)

PostPosted: Mon Sep 15, 2008 1:06 pm
by RobinSena
Sounds interesting.. I really loved the book, but I haven't watched the movie, because I've heard that it was crap. I'd definitely like to check it out. It doesn't appear to be licensed, so where did you watch it? (P2P, a website, etc. PM if necessary.) Btw, How is the content? Mainly blood/gore and nudity/sex. =)

PostPosted: Mon Sep 15, 2008 2:20 pm
by Roy Mustang
ChurchPunk wrote:It doesn't appear to be licensed


That is true, the 1988 anime version of Starship Troopers has never been release over here, so you will have to find a fansub of it.

I never seen it it, but heard about it. The only thing that I have seen is the US a 1999 CGI animated television series, Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles.

[font="Book Antiqua"]
[color="Red"]Col. Roy Mustang[/color]
[/font]

PostPosted: Mon Sep 15, 2008 2:22 pm
by rocklobster
Didn't someone already try a Starship Troopers anime? I believe it was called Blue Gender;)

PostPosted: Mon Sep 15, 2008 2:29 pm
by Roy Mustang
[quote="rocklobster"]Didn't someone already try a Starship Troopers anime? I believe it was called Blue Gender]

Lets not talk about Blue Gender. That anime had a very crappy ending and doesn't stand up to anywhere near Starship Troopers the book.


[font="Book Antiqua"][color="Red"]Col. Roy Mustang[/color][/font]

PostPosted: Mon Sep 15, 2008 8:00 pm
by Bobtheduck
ChurchPunk (post: 1259254) wrote:Sounds interesting.. I really loved the book, but I haven't watched the movie, because I've heard that it was crap. I'd definitely like to check it out. It doesn't appear to be licensed, so where did you watch it? (P2P, a website, etc. PM if necessary.) Btw, How is the content? Mainly blood/gore and nudity/sex. =)


I think I found it on a torrent site. Yeah, it's not licenced in the US, and likely never will be, because of the movie... Unless Sony decides to pick up a 2 decade old anime and license it for release in connection with those sad excuses for movies... I doubt it will ever happen.

As for Nudity... There is one picture of a naked girl, with the face on the picture ripped off. A guy is throwing things at it. Another one is a girl doing a pinup kind of pic for her boyfriend, but she's kind of covering herself. This picture shows up a number of times...

As for Blue Gender, this anime predates blue gender by over a decade, and the film version of Starship Troopers by about a decade too...

This is a surprisingly un-gory series... There is a scene where an entire crowd of people are ripped apart, but it's like they don't have any insides. I think the only blood in the entire series is a trickle on Johnnie's forhead in the last episode.

PostPosted: Tue Sep 16, 2008 6:39 am
by EricTheFred
Bobtheduck (post: 1259175) wrote:One thing that kind of bugged me was that, in the Book, Rico was very clearly Filipino... In both this version and in the Movie version, they made Rico white.


This angered me a little. One of the few chances Filipinos ever get to have a starring role somewhere outside the Philippines, and they rewrite the role as a white Argentinian. No apparent ratonale for it.

I guess the screenwriter just didn't think a Filipino war hero was believable. I'd like to take him to the American WWII cemetary in Manila where my wife's uncle is buried some time. Half the names you will read there are Filipino. And a very large percentage of those died in fighting _after_ the Japanese 'conquered' the islands.

PostPosted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 3:37 am
by Bobtheduck
EricTheFred (post: 1259432) wrote:This angered me a little. One of the few chances Filipinos ever get to have a starring role somewhere outside the Philippines, and they rewrite the role as a white Argentinian. No apparent ratonale for it.

I guess the screenwriter just didn't think a Filipino war hero was believable. I'd like to take him to the American WWII cemetary in Manila where my wife's uncle is buried some time. Half the names you will read there are Filipino. And a very large percentage of those died in fighting _after_ the Japanese 'conquered' the islands.


No clue about the anime version, but the movie version had a white guy cast because the director was basically saying they were all nazis...