Melange of seventies influences emerges pretty much intact in this modern adaptation.
Toward The Terra is an adaptation of Keiko Takemiya’s shonen sci-fi manga from 1977. Directed by Gallery Fake’s Osamu Yamazaki, who seems to have an odd credits list on Anime News Network, in that there seems a sizable missing period of time. He’s clearly from that Project A-Ko/Cream Lemon generation, having worked on the first A-Ko and the Cream Lemon TV spin off (I know, the mind boggles…) Lemon Angel. Then he’s a number of OAVs under his belt in the late eighties/early nineties (Tokyo Revelation and Yotoden the most notable). Then nothing until Gallery Fake and Mushishi. Is this a case of ANN being incomplete, two Osamu Yamazaki’s merged together, or does he use more than one name? You know I may attempt a Rock Family Trees/Comedy Connections style thing soon using Project A-Ko as the anchor.
Anyway, what else production wise is of interest. Well it’s made by Minamimachi Bugyousho, who did Gallery Fake and part of Mushishi. Tokyo Kids are co-producing, and they too worked on Gallery Fake and Mushishi. Toward The Terra is showing a similar style as those two shows. Stories that are against the grain of the current fads, direction aimed more at storytelling than flash and a great use of digital animation. All three shows make great use of colour to match the moods of the shows, Gallery Fake had lots of warm colours and browns that fitted it’s anime Lovejoy feel, Mushishi had ghostly pastels, and Toward The Terra has a nice line in blues and earthy colours.
Oh and it has character designs by Nobuteru Yuki (Paradise Kiss, Noein). As Vision of Escaflowne was the first (VHS!) fansub I saw, Yuki’s art is close to my heart, and it was a nice surprise to see those eyes drawn straight onto hair.
So what of the story itself? Well I said it’s a melange of seventies influences. It’s got the feel of those seventies pre-Star Wars “issues” sci-fi films, with Logan’s Run being one of the more obvious influences. Also, Uri Gellar. It’s easy to forget that he was a international phenomenom in the seventies, and you’ve got to think that plays into the ESP aspect of the story. The hero also ends up with an animal mascot by the end of the episode. And there’s been an environmental disaster on Earth forcing people to the stars. But it’s actually refreshing in this day and age of pandering to fandom’s basest instincts to see what might seem on the surface a collection of cliches and well worn tropes played absolutely straight. I’m sure the story also has far more sci-fi novel references that I’m missing.
Roll on the manga/anime that is influence by Elmore Leonard novels – then I’ll be able to pick them out like crazy.
Anyway, even though the story is clearly ploughing a familiar furrow, in terms of manga, and subsequent anime, it’s a massive influence. There is certainly more than a passing resemblence between elements of the story and those in Gundam that debuted 2 years after the manga started. Not say anything of the various psychic powers based anime and manga that followed in it’s wake.
In this episode, on a space colony controlled by an artificial intelligence, we meet Jomy Mark Shin. Jorny is a 14 year old boy about to become an adult. The days before his coming of age “ceremony” he has strange dreams of a man called Soldier Blue and of “Mu” (hey a reference to a likely fictional missing country, this sort of interest in the unknown was another 70s fad). I shan’t go into too much more detail, but needless to say, the coming of age doesn’t go as The Computer had planned, friend citizen.
REMEMBER. HAPPINESS IS MANDATORY. POSSESSION OF FANSUBS IS TREASON.