Finished watching all of Oban Star Racers this weekend and I finally understand why they never aired the second season on Saturday mornings. It had a bit to much non kid friendly violence and mature themes. It probably would have easily gotten a Y14 rating and that's not really a good thing for Saturday mornings. Parents don't like having to explain things to their kids when it comes to cartoon I'm sure. However, that makes this show just that much better really.
Brief Summary: Oban Star Racers is a joint anime project between France and Japan. It is about racing teams from different planets brought together every 10,000 years by a powerful being called the Avatar to race and battle each other to win the grand prize which the racers believe will be a powerful wish that could even bring back the dead. The first season is held on the planet Alwas where the Earth team made up of our main characters Molly (Eva) her father Don and Molly's gunner Jordan must race against a vary diverse group of alien racers. Much carnage and racing goodness ensues with the Earth Team wining the elimination round moving onto the final race series held on Oban itself.
With a new even more powerful group of racers facing our Earth team it doesn't look good for our team. In fact the Earth team only wins one race during the second season challenge, it looks like they wont win but then some thing interesting happens. After a major wreck leaving Molly and Jordan to wander the Oban waste land they find themselves at the winning temple where the previous avatars tell Molly and Jordan the truth about the race and it's implications.
The winner of the great race becomes the next Avatar. This doesn't exactly sit well with Molly who only wanted to bring back her deceased mother to be a normal family again. She finds out that that just isn't possible. During all of this the previous Avatar Canaletto, who has been locked up because he didn't want to give up his Avatar powers, has been plotting away to regain his former Avatar title and he has been secretly using Molly to get his powers back. He was using Molly because he knew he could manipulate her destiny to win and what she would do when she did win giving him the opportunity that he was looking for to regain his role as the Avatar once again.
Destiny I tell you has a way of never turning out how you thought it would. Canaletto finds this out the hard way in the last fight at the old ruins between him Molly, Jordan and Prince Aikka another racer who Molly had befriended. The end finds Jordan sacrificing himself at the last moment to save Molly and stop Canaletto from becoming the Avatar again. Jordan becomes the Avatar instead allowing Molly to return home with her father to live a much happier life back on Earth.
My Opinion: I'm finally glad that I was able to finish Oban Star Racers it's been sometime since I first watched it on Saturday mornings many many years ago. Thankfully it has withstood the test of time (better than the Sam and Max catoon that's for sure) and with the second season has become one of my more liked cartoons that I would definitely tell people that they would need to check it out if they were interested in a good strong sci-fi story. Due to the violence though this isn't for the kiddies. If you haven't seen it or happened to only see the first season like I did I would strong suggest renting this on Netflix.
Brief Summary: Oban Star Racers is a joint anime project between France and Japan. It is about racing teams from different planets brought together every 10,000 years by a powerful being called the Avatar to race and battle each other to win the grand prize which the racers believe will be a powerful wish that could even bring back the dead. The first season is held on the planet Alwas where the Earth team made up of our main characters Molly (Eva) her father Don and Molly's gunner Jordan must race against a vary diverse group of alien racers. Much carnage and racing goodness ensues with the Earth Team wining the elimination round moving onto the final race series held on Oban itself.
With a new even more powerful group of racers facing our Earth team it doesn't look good for our team. In fact the Earth team only wins one race during the second season challenge, it looks like they wont win but then some thing interesting happens. After a major wreck leaving Molly and Jordan to wander the Oban waste land they find themselves at the winning temple where the previous avatars tell Molly and Jordan the truth about the race and it's implications.
The winner of the great race becomes the next Avatar. This doesn't exactly sit well with Molly who only wanted to bring back her deceased mother to be a normal family again. She finds out that that just isn't possible. During all of this the previous Avatar Canaletto, who has been locked up because he didn't want to give up his Avatar powers, has been plotting away to regain his former Avatar title and he has been secretly using Molly to get his powers back. He was using Molly because he knew he could manipulate her destiny to win and what she would do when she did win giving him the opportunity that he was looking for to regain his role as the Avatar once again.
Destiny I tell you has a way of never turning out how you thought it would. Canaletto finds this out the hard way in the last fight at the old ruins between him Molly, Jordan and Prince Aikka another racer who Molly had befriended. The end finds Jordan sacrificing himself at the last moment to save Molly and stop Canaletto from becoming the Avatar again. Jordan becomes the Avatar instead allowing Molly to return home with her father to live a much happier life back on Earth.
My Opinion: I'm finally glad that I was able to finish Oban Star Racers it's been sometime since I first watched it on Saturday mornings many many years ago. Thankfully it has withstood the test of time (better than the Sam and Max catoon that's for sure) and with the second season has become one of my more liked cartoons that I would definitely tell people that they would need to check it out if they were interested in a good strong sci-fi story. Due to the violence though this isn't for the kiddies. If you haven't seen it or happened to only see the first season like I did I would strong suggest renting this on Netflix.
