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Review* Candidate for Goddess by Zachary Hardison (Kyo) Aired: Animax-asia/ Cartoon Network Japanese Publisher: NHK/ Bandai Creator: Yukiru Sugisaki |
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| Genre: Mecha, Military, Science Fiction, Shounen First off, the Americanized name of this anime is Pilot Candidate is anyone was wondering. Because I saw 3 eps of Pilot Candidate way back when, and have since looked to download the rest and couldn't find it, because it goes by a different freaking name! Well most anime's do anyway, but it was just frustrating. So getting to it, this one is fairly short as they go, only 12 eps long, but still fun to watch. So the Earth is pretty much gone and humans live on other planets and small versions of planets that have a kind of bubble around them for their atmosphere. Well the main refuge of humans is called Zion. And Zion just happens to be being attacked by giant space monster things called Victims, and yes their freaky. Zion's only defense against these giant bringers of doom are the five Goddesses; sentient beings who are mecha-like in appearance but very much connected to their human users. And the users can only be teenage kids so the pilot of the goddesses change when a user reaches a certain age of, uhm, uselessness? So we need lots of recruits to be ready on standby basically which is where the Goddess Academy (GOA) comes into play. They recruit, train, and harness the pilot's with abilities of EX, a form of superhuman power. Pilot #88 is the main character, Zero Enna, who we all like immediately because he’s anxious, cocky, and pretty funny all in the same (think of Naruto). Azuma Hijikata is a veteran in GOA, possibly may have been a pilot at one point, but now he's the instructor of the new recruits, including Zero.Hiead Gner is best described as Zero's rival also possessing great EX, but Zero’s better for undisclosed reasons at this point. Hiead's past is gruesome and bloody, so naturally he's pretty much a jerk guy we don’t like much. Teela Zain Elmes is the goddess pilot of Emn Laties. The first and only female pilot since only boys are supposed to be able to become pilots. She pilots the best goddess and is the team leader earning her the nickname “First” (Haha! Take that you male chauvinists jerks!). But she’s pretty timid in person. Kizna Towryk is a tom-boyish kind of girl who happens to have cat ears (totally cute). She is Zero’s repairer/partner. Every pilot has a repairer partner who does just that. Repairs and takes care of the pilot’s mecha. Now that I think of it though, I don’t think Teela has a repairer…. There are plenty of other characters in this anime, the other Goddess pilots as well as Zero’s classmates. Unfortunately, you don’t get too in depth with any of them because of so few episodes. To sum it up, Zero is set on being the best pilot ever and has a history with the Emn Laties Goddess, although he actually has a run in with another Goddess his first day arriving at GOA, very interesting to say the least. We get to see the extent of what EX actually is and what it can do, and let me say that its wicked cool, and I want to buy it somehow from ebay. Through his training and the battles of the victims, the story moves back and forth a lot between character groups. You can start to see developing relationships between Goddesses and new pilots, pilots and their repairers, pilots with pilots, all that good stuff….but no, you never see where it leads! Eh well, get the manga, that’ll tell you. But all in all, even though you will want to see more of it and have your questions, it’s a cool anime to have seen. It mixes mecha-action with comedy and drama pretty well I thought for only being 12 eps long. So anime fans….red alert! Zion is calling for help and a Victim is attacking! Grab your mech and go blow its face away…if it has a face, otherwise just shoot randomly and try not to hit your own people. And watch out for that dreaded Zero-G sickness (watch it, you’ll know what I mean). Later days. -Kyo- |
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