Stellvia: Foundation I

Reviewed By:  Andrew Kaplan

DVD (Single Disk; volume 1 of 8) Genon/Pioneer

What it’s (basically) all about: In the year 2167, the shockwave from a nearby supernova devastates the surface of the Earth and fills space with a green gas.  Almost 200 years later, humanity has rebuilt the Earth, and created the Foundation program to deal with a second, more destructive shockwave heading towards the solar system.  Stellvia is one of the Foundation’s orbiting space stations, tasked to shield the Earth from the second wave and to train the best and the brightest of the world’s youth to help save the planet.  Shima Katase is one of the newest students on board Stellvia.  A genius programmer, her own insecurities, and lack of self-confidence keep her from becoming a truly great pilot.  Fortunately, with her friends—the wacky, flighty Arisa Glennorth, brainy Yayoi Fujisawa, and serious and bitchy Akira Kayama—Shima gradually breaks out of her shell and starts along the path to becoming a true defender of the Earth.

Nitty Gritty: While there’s nothing really wrong with this first volume of Stellvia, there’s nothing particularly outstanding about it either.  Following a plucky young group of cadets through flight school, watching them gradually grow from wet-behind-the-ears freshmen into expert pilots, is hardly a new formula, and from the four episodes presented on this disc, this series offers no new twists.  All the character types you expect are present and accounted for.  I feel like I shouldn’t judge too harshly until I’ve seen the whole series.  On the other hand, if Shima doesn’t gradually overcome her fears and become an ace pilot, only to have something go wrong with the Foundation program that only her superlative computer programming skills can fix, thus saving the planet—if not the solar system—at the last minute, I’d be shocked.  I’d like to be proven wrong, but if this series has something new or different to show me, it shouldn’t keep that completely hidden for the entire first four episodes.

Character designs are decent—each character has a distinctive look—but unspectacular, certainly nothing we haven’t seen elsewhere.  Same goes for the mecha designs, although the series does get points for a fairly smooth integration of cgi and cell animation whenever spaceships are involved.  I want to deduct points for the girls’ uniforms including short skirts, not to mention sculpted breasts on their flight suits, but after all the fan service in Najica, anything less seems the model of restraint.  (And while we see their legs, we don’t see any further up.)

The voice acting is adequate, although the English voices for Arisa and Shima are a little irritating.  However, while a little higher-pitched, they are otherwise similar to the tones of the original Japanese voices, so at least the English dub is faithful.

Extras include the standard clean opening and three fairly uninspiring trailers for other Genon products.  Soundtrack in English and Japanese, with two subtitle options: dialogue translation and Signs Only translation.

Survey says: All teens.  Genon rates the content as appropriate for 13 and up.  There are no language concerns in either the English dialogue or subtitles.  No nudity or sexual content.  No graphic violence, or indeed any sort of conflict of any kind.  The themes of teenagers developing their skills and personalities makes this better suited for a YA collection than a general juvenile collection, but in this volume, there are no mature content concerns to place it any higher.

Personal Ad: For people who like this sort of story, here’s another one.  There’s nothing to actively dislike here, but nothing to really win me over, either.