4084 AD. Humanity
finds itself facing a lethal alien race known as Victim. The war with this monstrous force has
decimated Humanity’s planets and only a single solitary world remains,
Zion. Tasked with protecting the last
refuge of mankind are five pilots and their elite fighting machines, The
Goddesses. GOA is the training hall for
young men with the potential destiny to take up the mantle of Pilot for the
Goddesses. Five new recruits have been
chosen, each with their own skills and quirks.
If they can survive GOA’s rigorous training, they could be the key to
ending the war with Victim once and for all.
Candidate for Goddess, or Pilot Candidate, is a show that
I first found out through its brief tenure during the early days of Cartoon
Network’s Adult Swim Saturday Anime Night.
Just recently, I found the complete series re released for the first
time in over a decade on DVD and decided to give into my nostalgia earnings and
check it out. So after one episode, how
was this return to Mechas Past and does it seem to shape up right away to be
the disappointment it’s known to be? For
me, the answers are ok and sort of.
Ive gotta say right off the bat, Zero Enna’s character is
the easiest character to write in Anime history. Just give him five lines, have him repeat
those lines for about a minute each and boom, instant annoying Naruto Type in
space. Personally, his cool sounding
name aside, I don’t see how we’re supposed to get super invested in Zero and
that’s also where the infamous faults of the series come through. There’s a lot of setup in the premiere:
establishing Victim, the Goddesses, their pilots, GOA, Zion, the spirits within
the Goddesses. This was clearly meant to
be a series much longer than 13 episodes, probably closer to 26, hell I’d say
it feels like it would need 50. And yet
the premiere tells us very little and expects us to roll with it, leaving
viewers lost and totally confused as to why an advanced piece of mecha is
accepting a hyperactive fan boy into its cockpit. There’s a crap tone of questions presented
and I can feel that, even if the overall ride is possibly enjoyable, we’re not
going to get many answers, if any at all.
And that’s a frustrating thought.
Another complaint I need to make, if we’re going to be focusing on the candidates
themselves, what about the real pilots, how often will they be around,
especially the cute girl leading the team?
I get the feeling the huge cast will weigh down the story more than the
short length of it.
Trying to balance out the mile a minute plot line are the
visuals and they’re not all bad. The
Goddesses are gorgeous mechs, almost in the same vein as Zone of the Enders
(which I think around the time of this Anime’s production was a popular game as
well). We only get to see them briefly in
action (and even then only one of them really does anything). Had we seen the Goddesses and their pilots
take on more than one Victim, they might’ve left a bigger impression beyond
their fantastic designs. The character
art, and animation in general, feel standard fare and sometimes the CG art on
the mecha and space ships feels a bit dated.
Unlike handrawn Anime of the 70’s and 80’s, the animation here hasn’t
aged all that well and almost feel generic in a way (need I mention Zero’s
Naruto looking hairdo in addition to his high caffeinated personality?).
Pilot Candidate is a short series and it’s now sitting on
my shelf and, given it’s brief length, feels like something I could probably
get through in less than a day. However,
I don’t know if I want to wade through waters that have no depth. This series is notorious for its short length
and plot holes a mile deep. Some would
tell me im crazy for wasting my time.
Eh, I’ve watched worse things for the same reason. The opening and end themes are pretty good
though. Now if you’ll excuse me…I
suddenly feel the urge to play Zone of the Enders again.
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