Queen Emeraldas [DVD]

As with most Matsumoto, "Queen Emereldas" is heavy on melodrama. "I am.....Emereldas (accompanied by a fierce wind that blows cape in a dramatic fashion.)" His work is pretty firmly Science Fantasy rather than Science Fiction. Spaceships are re-conditioned pirate ships with flags blowing in a non-existant wind as they sail the silent seas. Weapons are based on archaic swords and heavy dragoons. "Queen Emereldas" has all of these Matsumoto touches in spades. Honor and strength matter more than plot, and every scrappy kid has the right to be a man. The orchestral music is sweeping drama.

On the flaw side, as with "Harlock Saga," "Queen Emereldas" has a hard time with computer animation and cel animation. The two styles mix together jaringly. For some bizarre reason, the DVD switches to French about 2/3 of the way through. With a remote control it is easy enough to switch it back, but it is strange that this error got through on a professional DVD.

Storywise, "Queen Emereldas" assumes you are up on your Matsumoto. There are no introductions made for characters like Tochiro or the mechanoids. Backstory is never filled in. Someone not familiar with Matsumoto's previous work would be very confused and disappointed by "Queen Emereldas."

Still, with so little of Matsumoto's work available on DVD, each crumb dropped from the table feels like a feast. It's a fun series and I enjoy it in spite of it's flaws.

There are 2 things that are keeping me from rating this thing 5 stars. The first is the fact that the DVD encoding is horribly messed up! In episode 2, if you have the Japanese audio track on, it switches to French! The only way to correct this is to switch the audio over to French where it becomes Japanese. Then, halfway through episode 2, the French channel becomes French and you then have to switch the audio back over to Japanese. As you can see, it's sort of confusing, and annoying. I just pray that you all have DVD remote controls with Audio buttons on them, so you won't have to go to the menu every time.

The second is the actual OVA itself. I believe in giving an unbiased review, and to me, unbiased in this case means a review of someone who is not a Matsumoto fan. If I had no knowledge of the Matsumoto universe, I would wish I hadn't bought the DVD. I guess the OVA is sort of like a gift to the long-time Matsumoto fans. Also...with the exception of the very first CG shot, I can't stand the computer graphics.