(L) Solty Rei, anime from GONZO

[Hiroi Sekai]

Oh whoa, I haven't seen anything Solty Rei related on this forum before! What a piece of nostalgia, albeit it being a somewhat bland piece.

Yeah, I didn't consider it a bad series, but it was kind of slow and somewhat empty overall to me. I would much recommend Macross Frontier, which elements of this series reminds me of.

One damn thing that this series does well is its opening. "Clover" was a meg rock track that was just downright fantastic. Love love love it.

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by papermario13689

Yeah, I didn't consider it a bad series, but it was kind of slow and somewhat empty overall to me. I would much recommend Macross Frontier, which elements of this series reminds me of.

Macross Frontier was definitely a better series, in part because of its presentation. Way back in the late 90's and early 2000's I used to tell my non-anime friends that they had to give a series up until around episode 8 before they could make a judgment on it, because those first few episodes were all about introducing the characters and didn't touch on what the main story of the series would be. Solty Rei fit that pattern (only it was worse - I think the "introductory" phase continued until around episode 12). More modern series tend to introduce the characters alongside the story progression, which is a superior method in my opinion.

Solty Rei still had some nice twists to it. The one that I felt was the most "Earth-shattering" was:

Spoiler for Setting:

that the events weren't taking place on Earth.

(Not sure if spoiler tags are really needed, given that this series is fairly old by now, but might as well.)

It may seem silly, but for what ever reason that discovery seemed like a big deal and sort of changed the way I was viewing the series.

[synaesthetic]

It's always amusing to think that Solty Rei is one of the very, very few cyberpunk stories that has a rather upbeat tone. Part of this is due to the main character's sheer quantities of moe, but also the strong central focus on family and always finding the good in people.

The story can get a bit dark at times, but it lacks the heavy, oppressive and brooding atmosphere of Ghost in the Shell, Ergo Proxy and even Western cyberpunk such as William Gibson novels, Blade Runner and the like.

Even though the plot's a bit weak and the writing is mostly forgettable, I like to keep it around for its themes and overall atmosphere and feel--there just aren't very many "happy cyberpunk" stories out there. Most are so incredibly grimdark.