Outlaw Star

[dankrug572]

Hey guys, I am just posting this topic to let people know about an awesome underrated scifi anime series that I'm a fan of. It's called Outlaw Star.

The show is about these two bounty hunters/outlaws Gene Starwind and Jim Hawking, who are just trying to make a living by doing jobs such as turning in bounties, acting as bodyguards, etc. However when they take a bodyguard job for a shady character known as Rachel, they get ambushed by a group of space pirates and end up in a warehouse with a crate that is locked, but they manage to unlock it and in it they find a naked girl (sound familiar?), who turns out to be this android named Melfina, and there's something about her that the space pirates want, and we learn that it has something to do with this mysterious place known as the Galactic Leyline. Throughout the series, Gene Starwind, Jim Hawking, Melfina, and some other characters (including a cat/feline like alien Aisha Clan-Clan), take on many jobs with their new ship, the Outlaw Star, all while in search of the Galactic Leyline.

The basic plot is kind of similar to Firefly, especially the part with the naked girl in the crate that turns out to be very important to the story. I'm not trying to say either of the series copied each other (Outlaw Star came out in Japan in 1997), but it's just kinda weird that both series have that similar plot element.

It aired on Cartoon Network back in 2001 - 2002, but it was heavily edited (They had to edit some episodes that were TV-14 rated content to begin with down to a Y7-FV rating), and they even removed one episode because of the excessive nudity that did essentially nothing to further the plot. Although even in edited form the show was still edgy and managed to keep most of its plot intact. I remember being 6 when the show first premiered, and I decided to watch a few episodes because the promos looked so cool (I have one of them below), and I watched one full episode and like, 5 minutes of another episode, but then my older sister saw me watching it and told me to turn it off. Here is a promo for the show back from when it aired on Toonami:

Toonami - Outlaw Star Longer Promo (1080p HD)

Overall, this is a very enjoyable series that I think is kind of underrated; it is one of the 3 most well known space western anime series, along with Cowboy Bebop and Trigun, both of which have become more successful than Outlaw Star in the States. I currently own the complete series, and I would give the show a 7.5/10 overall, I recommend it