Odin Photon Sailor Space Starlight

By Chris Beveridge     June 01, 1999
Release Date: June 01, 1999



What They Say
History is marked by daring voyages across unexplored oceans. Now another such voyage is about to begin in the year 2099 as the futuristic spacecraft Starlight prepares to venture forth in grand tradition. Equipped with an experimental, gravity control drive, the ornate vessel is staffed by wizened officers and impetuous young people eager for adventure...But as they launch into the ocean of space, more danger lies in store than any could have imagined!
Pausing in their journey to rescue a young girl from the wreck of a spaceship, the crew is mystified by her familiarity with alien artifacts. Mysteriously, she is able to decipher the location of what she calls Odin...apparently the birthplace of humanity itself! Defying orders to return to Earth, the Starlight's young crew mutinies against its officers and plunges into the depths of the galaxy...where a seemingly infinite army of robotic foes blocks the gates of paradise itself!

The Review!
In the year 2099, the futuristic spacecraft Starlight ventures into space encountering danger and discovery of the unknown. Includes volumes 1 and 2.

Before we get into the technical side of this disc, let me get one thing mentioned right up front: Odin is a dual layered disc with a total running time of 235 minutes, or nearly four hours, which is close to the average decent length that a full dual layered disc can handle.

The audio on this disc isn't too much out of the ordinary, a simple stereo mix. With Odin released in 1985, there certainly shouldn't be much reason to expect a heck of a lot out of it, but there was no hint of distortion or anything wrong with the audio. I spot checked the English dub (yuck) and it sounded well recorded.

The video on this disc is amazingly clean and clear, considering the age of the material itself (1985), the source elements that CPM licensed back in 1992, and the fact that there's nearly four hours of video on this disc. I noticed maybe one or two very brief moments of rainbow effects, but they were so negligible it's almost not worth mentioning. I spot checked the bit rates after finishing the disc, and found that it averaged around 5 bitrate which is pretty average. Sequences like the ending credits on the Directors Cut were all up in the 8 section and looked excellent.

The packaging is typical of what we've seen from DVD Ltd. The cover artwork is the same used for previous incarnations of Odin, and there is the ever present mention of liner notes on the back which DVD Ltd. once again failed to put on there, or failed to take off of the back insert. I'd almost say it's not a DVD Ltd. disc without that occurring now!

The menu is very plain and bare, but functional and does what it sets out to do. With the sheer amount of space used for the video, I can't say I'm surprised at all with the bare menu. I'm glad to see the bits went to the video instead of something flashy here.

As for the show itself? Well, therein lies the rub. I had originally bought this as a VHS tape when it first came out back in 1992. It practically turned me off of anime. I had a succession of shows I bought (because back then, all you could do was purchase these 29.99-39.99 tapes) like the Wanna-Be's, Fist of the Northstar and MD Geist. Then came Odin. The first time I watched it, it put me to sleep. But I got myself into the right mindset and watched it again. Overall, it's an okay show, and considering the time it was written and produced, pretty good, but it's just not terribly exciting for a lot of it.

Which may explain the International Version. This DVD contains two versions of the movie. The International Version is about 90 minutes long, contains an English and Japanese track and English subtitles. There is also the Directors Cut, which was what the first VHS tape was back before dubbing started up. That clocks in at about 2 hours and 15 minutes. Maybe a bit longer. So, as you can gather, there was a lot cut out to make a more streamlined International Edition.

For the purpose of the review, I watched the extended version and poke around the International version. The International Version features some great looking white bordered subtitles for the English subtitles and looks pretty great throughout.

The directors cut features the hard-matted yellow bordered subtitles that was found on the VHS release. While I would normally rant and rave about it being done this way, I can understand the reasoning behind it from a financial standpoint, especially for a title that will almost certainly not be a top drawer seller, and the directors cut being something most people probably would fall asleep during and would rather watch the international version.

It also probably allowed for a higher bitrate with less subtitle storage space being allocated to the subtitles.

Odin is definitely not a fan favorite, and I don't know if it's even a cult favorite. It's a romantic vision of space sailing that tries to back it up with science, and it all falls around a 70's-ish style. Comparisons are naturally drawn to the Yamato from the ship design alone, and the uniforms of the crew certainly don't distinguish it either.

I'm still pretty ambivalent about this movie. It's definitely not an essential title, but maybe something for the dry week or two when there's no new anime releases coming out.

Features
English Language,English Subtitles,Japanese Language,Contains directors cut and international edition

Review Equipment
Toshiba CF36H50 36" TV, Pioneer 414 codefree DVD player, Sony STR-DE915 DD receiver, Monster S-Video cable and Sony speakers.