Lost Universe is another solid offering from the mind of Hajime Kanzaka, set in one of the parallel universes of the Slayers continuum. Dubbed "Slayers in Space," the series follows the adventures of Trouble Contractor Kane Blueriver, ship computer Canal, and their erstwhile "partner" Milly in a series of events which escalate into a conflict with the galactic crime organization, Nightmare.

The plot for Lost Universe starts out fairly circumstantial, but slowly knits into a tighter, focused yarn as the series progresses. The trademark Slayers humor takes a more subdued presence, with a good deal more irony than sheer silliness driving the light-heartedness, although the latter surely claims its moments from time to time. However, while metaphysics and science might loosely take the place of magic, and in spite of any number of other Slayers analogues, Lost Universe's storyline is still its own, drawing more on elements from the space opera genre than the fantasy field. Nothing is stunningly new, but the saga is still well-told - the episodes build up to an enjoyable conclusion with a few surprises, and by the end, many of the seemingly random occurrences acquire plot significance in retrospect, which can make it fun to rewatch the series. At the same time, don't expect too much explanation as to how meta-psychology powers spaceships or how such technology was developed.

A dose of maturity is mixed in with standard Slayers archetypes to keep the familiar cast of characters fresh.	Animation quality ranges from the occasionally excellent to the more often mundane.

As an added bonus for Slayers fans who have seen through the ending of Slayers Try, there are a number of cross-references between the series, suggesting some interesting possibilities about the analogues between the two universes for those interested in such speculation. This sister series is set in one of the other four realms mentioned in the Slayers cosmogony, and comparing the differences between the realms helps to explain a lot of seemingly strange things that happened in Try. It will be interesting to see if Hajime Kanzaka's next series will also tie into this cosmogony and shed even further light on the connections.

The characters in Lost Universe mix some of the Slayers archetypes in with a dose of maturity. For instance, at first glance one might equate Kane Blueriver with Slayers' Gourry Gabriev - after all, they both wield "swords of light" and are many times taken for only slightly evolved variants of the village idiot. Thankfully, however, Kane has much more character than Gourry. Cleverness is part and parcel of Kane's job as a Tro-Con; but so is resolve, which Kane shows later on as he is forced to make some hard decisions. Similarly, Milly has to reconcile herself with some hard truths about her role in the world, and her method of handling these problems shows that she has a character much deeper than her happy-go-lucky attitude and apparent quest to become "the greatest in the universe" might initially suggest. This theme pervades many of the other characters as well, though, disappointingly, many of the villains are still a little too shallow in comparison.

In general, the animation quality of Lost Universe is about on par with Slayers - which is to say, fairly standard TV grade animation. There aren't many recycled frames, but at the same time there is a fair bit of cell-monkeying and fairly minimal attention given to granting any measure of "fluidity" to the action scenes. There is some CG animation for the space battles, which works fairly well when integrated - but most of these scenes lack considerably in detail, with fairly low contrast gourad shading serving to flesh out the starship models and low-grade special effects used for attacks and explosions. There are certain CG scenes which stand out in excellence, but they seemed the exception and not the rule.

The music for Lost Universe is kind of a mixed bag. I loved the opening and closing songs, and all of the vocal songs off of the "Best of Lost Universe" CD, but I felt that the majority of background music used in the series was fairly blah. There were enough pieces used to herald mood shifts from scene to scene, but something about the overall mood or style of the pieces just turned me off.

As a whole, I felt that Lost Universe was a refreshing alternative to the Slayers scene. With a reasonable plotline and greater character development, Lost Universe is a promising portent for what the future might hold in next season's offering from Kadokawa Shoten. No Slayers fans should miss out on this series, especially with the number of bonus connections to Try.

Translation Comments: First of all, for some strange reason ADV has chosen to use "Kain" instead of "Kane." This may seem like a minor deal, but "Kane" was the official Japanese transliteration... and still appears in the eyecatches in the middle of the episodes ^_^ On the other hand, I am proud of ADV for properly spelling Kali's name... The name refers to a Hindu Death Goddess, a reference which at least three fansubbers missed back in the days when no one had domestically licensed LU. Secondly, as I expected, they chose to change "mantle" to "cape" just as Bandai did for Escaflowne. Again, not too big a deal, but it might bother you if you listen to the Japanese closely all the time and keep seeing the discrepancy. Thirdly, there are a number of minor "polishes" which slightly change the nuance of a statement... sometimes for no apparent reason. For example, in episode two when Neena drops the tea on Rail, Rail exclaims something about how hot the tea is in Japanese, while the subtitle reads "Watch what you're doing!" Can anyone else help me figure out why THAT line needed a change? Fourthly... the introduction animation is different from the Japanese LD in some major ways, and looks kind of haphazardly cut and pasted in some places if you look closely in comparison. I really hope they include the LD introduction at least before the end of the series, since there is a lot of stuff which has a good deal of meaning by the end of the series that has been omitted in the current introduction animation... Fifthly, there have been some minor changes to the order of the episodes so far, though nothing too jarring continuity-wise. Finally, there is the censorship change in episode 6, where what was written as "bitch" (in English) in the original has been overwritten with "Loser," significantly changing the severity of the scene in question.

Distributor: ADV
Creator: Hajime Kanzaka, EG Films, Kadokawa Shoten
Released: 1998

Plot: B
Character Design: B+
Animation Quality: C
Music: B-
Overall: B