So a while ago I blogged about the animes that I’m currently watching and ones that I will be watching next. One of those that I mentioned was Crest of the Stars, a space opera set in the far future where mankind has split into many factions.
The story follows Jinto Lynn, a young prince whose planet is taken over by a space faring race known as the Abh. The prince’s father sells out his own planet to the Abh in exchange for a position in the Abh peerage. Thus his son becomes an Abh royalty and leaves his home to an Abh school to learn the ways of Abh.
On his way he meets Lafiel, an Abh princess(granddaughter of the Abh empress). And that’s where their adventures begin. Little do they know that a great war between the Abh empire, which control half of the known space, and the other human factions is about to break out.
I know that back then I said that I probably wouldn’t like the anime because of the childlike appearance of most of the characters, but at least with the Abh it’s explained. They don’t age so noticeably, and are brought in to serve at a young age. But after watching all three “seasons”, I’m glad that I did.
The thing that I really liked about this anime is the character development. Take Abriel Lafiel for example, at the beginning of the series, she seems to be a very cold person who values her pride over everything else. But episode by episode, she goes through many phases and realises many things about herself.
Whereas Jinto starts off as a very insecure and clumsy person who is lost in the Abh society. But in time changes into a man of honour with a great duty sense, and of course a clumsy person who doesn’t like being a hero, but is always placed in situations that require a hero.
The show is a space opera yes, but there’s more character development in the show than there’s action, and there’s quite a lot of action in the show, with many space battles. So it has a little(a lot actually) for everyone.
To the quality of the anime itself, I was actually surprised at how good it looks given its age, and how much time and effort the makers must have put into it. The characters look good, and the animations are great. One of my main gripes with other anime shows is that they re-use a lot of animations or backgrounds. This just simply isn’t the case with here.
One thing that I almost forgot to mention, but is very important, is the absolutely great music. In my opinion, I think that every space opera should go for orchestral music, why? Because if done right, there’s nothing that can beat orchestral music to start of a tale of galactic proportions. And this is something that they nailed perfectly in the series, it fits perfectly. You can have a look at the intro of Crest of the Stars on YouTube, to see just how well they have made the music.
So who would I recommend this anime to? Ideally to everyone, but we all know that anime, or even science fiction isn’t everybody’s thing. So, if you like anime, action, science fiction, and/or character development, Crest of the Stars and Banner of the Stars is definitely worth looking into.
