Five female pirates pilot the Sol Bianca, a starship with a higher level of technology than any other known. With it, they seek out riches, such as the Gnosis, an legendary item of power, and pasha, the most valuable mineral in the galaxy. Along the way, they must consider a stowaway's quest to save the one he loves, and seek revenge against those that have wronged them.
(Source: ANN)
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Comentários
Beatnik
In the year 2395 an all-female crew of five make their appearance not with a bang, but with a crack. An electrical whip crack that is! It’s not enough for them to wield these snaking lethal weapons, but their ship has to have an epic version too, slicing and dicing everything in its path. Their entrance is bold and assured, the direction patiently keeping our heroines' faces from us until the perfect moment, like Spielberg's reveal of Harrison Ford only after he's whipped a gun out of a rascal's hand at the beginning of his first Indy movie. Yes I just mentioned SolBianca and Spielberg's Raiders in the same sentence, sometimes you have to be compassionate in life, at least that’s the hokey message of the first episode of this OVA.
Ok, Sol Bianca has the same template as Outlaw Star, Cowboy Bebop and dozens of other sci-fi anime, and is crammed with every anime cliché you can think of, but at least it stars a fun group of characters squabbling and exchanging wisecracks you've heard a million times before but still grin at anyway.
The pirate crew of the Sol Bianca have multi-coloured bleached hair styles (you can tell because their eyebrows are still black!) and outfits resembling Power Rangers. This is the end of the 80's. A time when we weren't afraid of colours; when good guys could wear something lighter than grey and bad guys weren't cloaked in shadow all the time but confident enough to walk around looking like 80's pop band rejects.
A planet featured in the first episode is run by a generic despotic ruler, reminiscent of Street Fighter's M. Bison, and dressed a bit like Irresponsible Captain Tylor (minus the overcoat), though obviously lacking that guy's amiable attitude. Lacking in anything remarkable at all really which is a shame as we all love a scenery-chewing bad guy, but this guy isn't even peckish. People on this planet are oppressed and working in mines. Mining for what exactly? Who knows? When you want to oppress, you just chuck them in mines!
Despite the fact that the episode's shenanigans are kick-started by a boy stowaway on a ship populated by all females, there is no lousy harem atmosphere, no pace-stopping sexual hijinks. Instead the humour is breezy good fun with the occasional blood-letting violence sprinkled throughout. The first episode's story is a completely forgettable liberation-fest, although I did find the last few scenes accidentally resonating a bit, for both the concept behind the idea and also an idealistic speech about a time before planes hit skyscrapers coupled with an iconic 20th century image.
The second episode is much more fun. Thank God for Die Hard practically inventing the 'exciting stuff happening in a contained environment' template, and thank God for anime running with it. Ok, the generics still continue, but it’s just more enjoyable watching a thriller cliché than a war resistance one.
The pirates this time are attempting to steal something expensive on a luxury ship but confront resistance in the form of bullets and thugs. The story moves on, but continually keeps the action inside spaceship interiors keeping with the semi-claustrophobic theme of the episode. There's also development on the pirate crew's ship itself, a character in its own right. Definitely one of the best spaceships in anime, with cool design, mysterious interior and history, it’s like a mobile futuristic apartment that just happens to have destructive capabilities included.
So with the second episode everything is funnier, dramatic, more action packed and entertaining and we finally see the potential of Sol Bianca, a potential not yet reached but still attainable if the franchise continues with sequels. With a bit more passion infused into the production, this franchise could be something special and at least get within whipping distance of anime like Bebop, and with the all-female crew would have just enough to make it distinguish itself from its rivals.
As it stands, Sol Bianca is easily lost in that crowd, as is evident from MAL's low statistic for the show, although a high statistic obviously isn’t a marker for quality, so maybe one day another Sol Bianca will be released with a better script and director involved, and will become a cult hit.
The characters in the OVA are fun, although the eldest and one who appears to be the leader is so laid back it’s like someone spiked her drink. She wanders around in a daze and doesn't actually do much at all, which is a waste. The art is of course early 90's, but the animation is smooth as anything produced post millennium. The music is typical 80's synth rock/pop that dates it but also gives it charm that all 80's/90's anime have.
Sol Bianca ends on a baffling last scene that's begging for elaboration, leaving you unsatisfied but wanting a bit more, which represents the entire OVA very well.
Unconfidence
This was a pretty good two OVA series. It had a lot of really well-executed points and a good number of flaws, and I'll try to list some of them without spoiling anything. It's strengths are in its rich artwork and worldbuilding, its presciently-executed sci-fi for its time, and the overall badassery. The artwork is pretty phenomenal throughout whenever it's not a character model. If it's a ship, or a robot, or a docking bay, it looks incredible. They go fairly well into their world without overexplaining anything considering the small span of time the series uses. After spending a lot of thepast few years watching new shows whose action sequences always seem a little rehashed, every perspective they used looked fresh and unused when dealing with space combat.
The Sci-fi concepts are very well-executed and today might seem pretty par for the course, but at the time were pretty advanced. The main one I saw consistently at play was the idea of people resigning and not continuing to try useless stuff when things were out of their control, something which is something which is realistic to any venture involving a large or widely-skilled crew doing any task, and the only other series I've seen the mentality showcased is Legend of the Galactic Heroes. But while it executes the treatment of the situations well, it doesn't overexplain itself and lets the sci-fi do its job of providing the impossible.
Finally, the badassery. The story doesn't really shy away from being a simple action story, but it avoids many cliches. Each character is depicted as strong in their own right, and they aren't ever stuck in cliche situations. Each has a developed personality and for a 90's anime about an all-female space pirate crew, it manages to avoid many of the "Men Writing Women" tropes (although when they do strike it hurts), and mainly ends up being a fairly decent representation of strong women in action roles. While a little OP-ish and plot armory, the characters all represent their own set of awesome skills and the action is fun and often awe-inspiring.
The Flaws. The mentionable problems of this anime are the character art, the shallowness of the plot, and the unexpected and pointless nudity.
The character art is a juxtaposition with the non-character art in that it's just bad. Granted this is about normal for early 90's anime, but the voices and mouth motions are extremely off-sync, and the scenes with any character motion which aren't full-action scenes are usually very poorly done. But generally speaking I don't think that's a very strong criticism at all; the non-character art and action animations are so mindblowing they more than make up for this.
The plot was also not nearly as deep as it needed to be. I suspect there's a lot more written to this world which could have been included if more material had been made, but with the space we had there could have been more done. Again though, this criticism isn't so important due to the fact that it's very good at filling out the role of a simple action series. Not everything HAS to have the kind of metaphorical depth some media carries with it, but this could have worked more with the space it had and didn't, which I think is somewhat of a negative mark.
Finally, the random and unnecessary nudity in what could otherwise be a very pro-feminist type series. The first time it happened it seemed just sort of forced and weird, especially juxtaposed with the general lack of ero fanservice in camera angles or plotline. The second time it was just gratuitous and had me really wondering what the hell they were thinking putting it there. Very strong mark against the series.
All in all, this is a really enjoyable two OVAs and is a good watch for fun, but nothing mind-blowing on an intellectual level. Watch it for badass space pirates rendered in that beautiful early-90's hand animation.
Kamezuki
“Sol Bianca” is a 2-episode sci-fi action OVA that has a cool aesthetic, interesting characters and a plot with a lot of potential, but it unfortunately ends up going nowhere. The episodes feature separate stories that revolve around the all-female pirate crew of the Sol Bianca, a mysterious, massive and seemingly invincible spaceship. In the first episode, due to an unforeseen turn of events during a routine attack on a smuggling vessel, the ladies end up going to a dictator-led planet in search of a legendary treasure, while helping a young boy out in the process. The second episode has them sneak aboard another ship lookingfor an all-powerful mineral called pasha secretly stored somewhere within, but as one would expect, things don’t go that easily. Meanwhile, one of the pirates is revealed to have a strange connection to the Sol Bianca’s computer system, and there is a mysterious man going after them.
The story lines in the two episodes are confusing and sloppily put together. The direction is all over the place, so it’s difficult to tell what’s going on at times or even where the characters are. Many key plot elements are left unexplained (i.e., why is X there, why is Y doing that, etc.). In the first episode, the antagonists aren't given any motivations besides that they want to work people to the bone in mines (what are they mining?) and are anti-freedom. The second episode is filled with foreshadowing, a cliffhanger and the introduction of a main antagonist, but there’s no payoff for these since this is the last episode, and there is no original source material. There’s another OVA that came out a few years later, but it’s a prequel. They had planned a sequel to this, apparently, but due to various reasons, it never got made. So we will likely never know what the deal with the bad guy is, or the secrets of the ship and its crew.
The five main characters themselves are unique and surprisingly memorable for a 2-episode show. Named after months of the year (which I’m sure is related to some plot point that never got visited), they each have distinct personalities and appearances. Frustratingly, however, they often act like they don’t care about the various life-threatening situations they’re in. Some of them treat the fact that they’re about to get executed as a matter of mild inconvenience, for instance. I guess when you have a super powerful spaceship, there’s never anything to worry about…
Which brings me to the spaceship, which has a complex design and an interior that stimulates the imagination. The ladies often hang out in a spacious lounge with large, round, white sofas, trees and even a pool. There’s also a scene where they’re shown lazing around in the wilderness next to a waterfall. The bedroom of one of the characters is also huge, with wide windows. All of these are somehow within the spaceship. We learn a few more interesting facts about the spaceship during the show that contribute to its intrigue, as well. Suffice it to say, I really liked the spaceship and wanted to see more of it.
As for other technical aspects, the animation is not bad, although it is a little rough and could use more detail. Character designs are great. Voice acting is okay, but the gray-haired pirate sounds too much like Conan (same voice actor). Some scenes had no background music and really needed it because they felt too quiet in the first episode, but overall the music was acceptable. Similarly, both ending themes were okay, but they didn’t fit the series well and weren’t all that memorable.
Regarding objectionable content, there is a lot of violence and killing in both episodes, and some nudity in the second episode. The nudity feels extremely forced to the point of ridiculousness. The reason for the nudity doesn’t make any sense, and it seems like it was just an excuse to get one of the characters topless for a few scenes.
Overall, I wanted to like “Sol Bianca” more, because of the great character designs, the fun interactions between the characters and the cool ship. But the story is too messy and incomplete for me to give this a higher rating. I still recommend watching this for the aesthetic atmosphere it exudes, but don’t go in expecting a coherent or conclusive story.
ghostbishnu
This was a pleasant surprise, in that it kind of hits (or slaps) like 'Outlaw Star' The world building here perhaps takes a back seat in favor of the dynamics of the crew and how they handle various situations. This type of angle can be highly effective. Other loose parallels could be made with things like 'Black Lagoon' or the most obvious 'Cowboy Bebop' The characters are reasonably well defined, and if this was in a longer format, I would expect some interesting back stories/character development. Some people may take issue with the all female crew, but I would suggest that these people have '_other' issues. The artworkon the spacecraft(s) is really quite impressive.
The story is far from perfect - the interplanetary conflict needed some love, and the emperor was not interesting at all. I found that these shortfalls did not significantly impact my overall enjoyment of the OVA.
