s the 26-episode Irresponsible Captain Tylor television series wrapped up, the fractious crew of the undefeated United Planets Space Force vessel Soyokaze had come to terms with its unpredictable captain's haphazard leadership. The Raalgon Empire seemed ready for peace and even the UPSF had to admit Tylor's value to the organization. But six months later, chaos reasserts itself. Raalgon Princess Azalyn is ready for a vacation, which inevitably means surrendering her throne to an advisor who doesn't share her dedication to peace with humanity. The Raalgons have developed a devastating new weapon that can cut through UPSF ships' shields. The UPSF military is braced for a massive preemptive attack on the Raalgon Empire. And naturally enough, Tylor's disobeying orders and his underlings are trying to figure out whether he has the vaguest idea what he's doing.
This self-contained movie-length addition to the Irresponsible Captain Tylor continuum--the first in a series of original Video animations (OVAs) The Right Stuf International will be releasing over the next few months--effectively makes the last several installments of the TV series moot. Tylor may have matured a bit internally, but externally he's still generally the same blithe village idiot with unbelievable luck. Even after everything they've been through together, even after repeatedly coming to grips with Tylor's nature, his crew is still entirely willing to believe the worst of him at the drop of a hat.
Which makes things problematic when Tylor's latest surprise insubordination gets the Soyokaze captured by the Raalgons, who--despite Tylor's previous luck with them--are still known for executing all captives on sight. As Tylor pushes for a one-on-one meeting with his old friend Azalyn, his crew assume he's betraying them all for a hot date.
Meanwhile, Azalyn's advisors are attempting to block that meeting and get the Soyokaze crew interrogated and executed, and Azalyn herself is insisting she doesn't ever want to see Tylor again.
A most memorable anime series
As ever throughout Irresponsible Captain Tylor, the series' major flaw is that it's just slightly too exaggerated to be believed. In particular, Tylor's crew's apparent belief that he wants to meet the Raalgon Princess for a quickie, rather than to deal with the ramifications of their capture and the impending war, easily crosses the line between absurdist humor and downright idiocy. It's disappointing to see a series with this much sophistication and submerged tension falling back on sitcom clichés, preventing its characters from learning from their mistakes, and holding their personalities in stasis regardless of their experience.
Which is why many of this installment's other offerings are a relief.
An Exceptional Episode (a.k.a. Tylor's War) pushes the relationships among many of its characters to new levels, with surprising and sometimes touching results. Jealousy abounds in all directions, as Dom, Azalyn, Yuriko and Yamamoto chase their own buried dreams, unconsciously resisting Tylor's "do-what-makes-you-happy" path and struggling with their duties and their sense of honor. The results are sometimes funny--Yamamato's attempts to live up to standards suggested by other people's offhand comments provide some of the series' most ironically hysterical moments to date--and sometimes serious, as Azalyn's childish selfishness once again threatens the Soyokaze and even the Empire.
Many OVAs lose the sense of story of the TV series or manga from which they emerge. An Exceptional Episode is the exception to the rule. While it allows its story to regress before it can progress, it ultimately fits into the ongoing Tylor story and even takes several dramatic steps toward a real resolution. Koichi Mashimo's writing remains dead-on, and the animation and exceptionally fine coloring remain consistent. Once again, the directed emphasis on individual conflict rather than empire-scale conflict gives the series a down-to-earth, personable quality that reinforces rather than overpowers the series' dramatic overplot. And once again, Tylor exhibits the same unconventional blend of slapstick and space opera that made it one of the two most memorable anime series to see American release in the past several years.
