"The boundless expanse of space, blanketed in darkness without sound or motion. We were raised in space, where wind did not exist, but he was different. Cleo, you were the wind. I will never forget that first fierce gust as it blew in from the far reaches of the galaxy."
Glass Fleet is a 26-episode anime original series produced through a joint effort by Gonzo and Satelight. It first aired in 2006, and is currently licensed by Funimation.
In an unnamed galaxy where people live on off-planet territories and setting foot on a planet is considered unclean, a revolutionary group known as the People's Army unites under Michel Volban de Cabelle, who they regard as their savior. Michel, however, recognizes his inadequacies as a leader, and after suffering a brutal counterattack at the hands of the aristocracy they fight, he prepares to sacrifice himself for the sake of those who serve beneath him. He's rescued, however, by a single glass battleship equivalent in military might to an entire fleet. The strange ship is captained by a brazen man named Cleo, who Michel immediately decides would make a better savior for the People's Army than himself, but Cleo turns out to be a lawless pirate who could care less about the people and their needs. He does have a dream, though: to rule the galaxy. To do that, he'll need to overthrow the galaxy's current rulers, the Church of the Black Cross and the young Emperor Vetti. Michel uses that common goal to convince Cleo to join him, and together they aspire to strike down the tyrants who seek to unite the galaxy under their oppressive rule... or do they? Vetti, as it turns out, has an agenda of his own. These three leaders may be fated to fight against something bigger than any of them imagined.
It's rare but not unheard of for two big-name studios to produce an anime together--Mahoromatic (Shaft, Gainax) is another example that comes to mind. I'll admit, I haven't seen enough by Satelight to be familiar with their work, but I will say that these visuals have Gonzo written all over them, and not in a good way. Character designs are unnaturally shiny and angular, the backgrounds are occasionally good but the garish technicolor abyss they call space is an absolute eyesore. There are a few decent swordfights but for the most part shortcuts are rampant, movements are stiff, and for every viscerally captivating moment there are a dozen terribly sloppy ones. The CG elements are mostly reserved for ships and off-planet habitats, making them obvious but still tolerable, and the CG touches on the eponymous glass ship actually work to positive effect, giving it a genuine glass feel. Still, it doesn't make up for the rest of what goes on. Finally, an anime I can honestly call ugly. Yes, it is ugly. Moving on.
The music is actually pretty good, if a bit typical for a space opera, all blaring trumpets and soaring strings. It's a bit repetitive but it supports the show well for the most part. Still, during some of its dramatic moments it can get pretty overblown. I can honestly say that the most memorable moment in the show, musically speaking, involved Cleo and Vetti simply passing each other by in separate carriages. The scene was supposed to radiate biting tension, but the musical choice was so melodramatic it actually became unintentionally hilarious. That's not to belittle it, though, it's still a solid score all in all.
The voice acting is a decent listen in both languages, but since the setting is clearly intended to be faux-Renaissance the dub ends up with a weird variety of accents, ranging from vaguely British to ambiguously Eastern-European, with varying degrees of success. If nothing else, Christopher R. Sabat as a pseudo-Roman is delightful. Laura Bailey and Yuko Kaida both play Michel effectively (yes, Michel is played by a woman in both languages, wink wink nudge nudge), but with Vetti and Cleo it gets a bit stickier. In the dub, Jason Liebrecht plays a fairly detached Vetti with a snide streak, which is part of his character. Akira Ishida, however, adds a dominating, slightly vulgar touch while still managing to carry his sympathetic moments. It's a great performance. With Cleo, it's the opposite. His Japanese seiyuu, Kenjirou Tsuda, plays the character's confidence as a cheeky to the point of coming off as a bit childish, while Travis Willingham makes the character's voice resonate with experience to back his confidence. Language preferences will split where they always do, and if you can go either way I'd suggest giving both tracks a fair shake. At least, I would if I thought this show was worth watching.
The "space opera revolution" concept has been done to death, and within Gonzo's portfolio alone it's not hard to find other series from which Glass Fleet clearly took some pointers, most notably Last Exile. Still, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. While it's always nice to see something genuinely fresh and unconventional, cliches can be comforting if they're backed with solid execution, but Glass Fleet is not an example of this. The pacing is hacky and sophomoric, jumping between events with little explanation and often giving the impression that key transitory scenes were cut to save screentime. The setting is poorly constructed, with slaves performing manual labor under the whip that ought to be easily achievable considering the technology presented, and for whatever reason humans have no trouble surviving exposure to the vacuum of space. Several key concepts, such as why setting foot on a planet is taboo, are left unexplained, and as if that's not enough, every episode begins with Michel philosophizing at us with a cup of tea.
All of this awkwardness would have been forgivable, though, if only the writers knew how to create strong characters. Despite the derivative setting, I'm certain there's a great story hiding somewhere in here. The concept of a savior who isn't cut out for the responsibility is actually a really good one. I would've loved a story of Michel sharpening his leadership skills and gradually earning Cleo's respect and support, and in the process perhaps becoming a better savior in his own right. Alas, neither Michel nor Cleo have the character strength to carry such a story. This is especially shocking considering the amount of detail put into both of their backstories, but the story fails to make any meaningful connections between who they were then and who they are now.
I've referred to Michel as "he" up to this point, but the show makes so little effort to hide the truth from its audience that it hardly constitutes a spoiler when I inform you that Michel is actually a women masquerading as her brother. What's wrong with this? They do nothing with this subplot, despite the implied importance of gender roles in-universe. There are a few little attempts to explore her dual identity, but they're tacked-on and half-assed. As the story nears its end, the writers suddenly decide that everyone should know the truth, and nobody seems to care about it in the least. Even her confrontation with the original Michel doesn't prompt any development. Her role as a savior is equally underexplored, and considering she leads a group called the "People's Army" you'd think she'd spend more time interacting with the common people she supposedly champions. Her relationship with Cleo is okay, but only just. It doesn't help that her comrades are pretty weak characters to play off of. Her servants Jean and Sylua get a fair amount of screentime but no worthwhile development, and the rest of the People's Army is hardly worth mentioning.
Cleo's character is hardly better off. His backstory is pretty well fleshed-out but the gap between his childhood and forming the crew of his glass battleship is left unexplained. His apathy toward responsibility to the people early on is especially baffling when we meet his mentor, who you'd think would have instilled stronger ideals in him. His character does genuinely develop and change for the better as time goes by, and his grounded attitude and unique viewpoint place him a notch above Michel, but it's only a notch. He's not nearly as strong a character as he really ought to be, certainly not enough to carry the show on his own. It doesn't help that his crewmates are pretty weak characters to play off of. Heizak is a big Roman who mans up when he puts his helmet on, Nowy is a wimpy boy who freaks out when his glasses fall off, and Barrett is a little too mysterious for his own good. The only member of his crew they attempt to develop at all is his pilot Eimer, and with only limited success.
Then there's Vetti, who could've been the most interesting of our three leads. An egoist to his very core, his reason for seeking to unify the galaxy stems from a desire for power and a need to save his own life. These are the ingredients for an utterly despicable character, but then there are his conflicting relationships with Ralph, his closest childhood friend, and Rachel, the daughter of the pope to whom he finds himself engaged in a relationship of convenience that may or may not evolve into more than just convenience. Once again, this is potentially interesting material, but the writers have no idea how sympathetic they want Vetti to be, giving him a few moments of tenderness followed by long periods of him being an irredeemable douchemuffin. The backstory they ultimately give him is not only one of the cheapest ways of attempting to make a character sympathetic, but it ends up making him even more despicable, which makes his one-eighty at the end come off as forced. It also doesn't help that Ralph and Rachel are pretty weak characters to play off of. Ralph is clingy and jealous and that's just about it, while Rachel starts off as a strong female character in her own right but starts devolves into lovesick madness for pretty much no reason at all.
To be fair, the ending makes a decent attempt to bring all the main characters' arcs to acceptable resolutions, but the plot and character development leading up to it were too weak to carry it through; it was too little too late. A few neat ideas are constantly sidelined to make way for a generic plot, there's hardly any sense of genuine tension when the true conflict rears its head, and the characters are interesting in theory but pathetically written. The most interesting character in the entire series is probably B.B., a wine merchant who controls a sizable portion of the galaxy's neutral forces, and the writers even find an excuse to cheapen her character at one point when her wine cellar is raided. There are some decently entertaining moments mixed in, and a few strong scenes that really do work, but they simply aren't enough to make the rest of the show worth slogging through.
This feels like the kind of show where the people who made it simply didn't care. The animation is half-assed, the writing is half-assed, the characters are half-assed. I almost would have preferred it if this show was truly bad. Then, at least, it would have been memorable. In all honesty, I still maintain that in good hands this could've been something unexpected and special, but far from soaring, Glass Fleet never even manages to take off. Now if you'll excuse me, even though Christmas is over I still have a stocking to go through. Next review is Panty and Stocking, ladies and gentlemen. Always keep it classy.
Special thanks to TielFigs for the request.
Final Grade: 5/10
A few great ideas get sidelined for a poorly written, thoroughly generic story.
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