egend of Black Heaven cuts right to the chase, opening on a
pitched space battle between two unknown fleets. This prelude may be
designed to reassure viewers that they really are watching a
science-fiction series, as the show immediately crashes back to Earth
for
an extended look at the none-too-happy life of corporate schlep Oji
Tanaka.
Fifteen years before, Oji was the frontman for Black Heaven, a hard-rock
band
that cut a few albums and apparently packed a few houses. But
somewhere
along the line, that dream fell apart. Oji became just one more
unshaven,
unkempt salaryman, leaving his suburban home at the crack of dawn for
a
hellish commute into Tokyo, avoiding his boss's towering wrath all day,
and
slinking home late at night to a sleeping family and a microwaved
meal.
It's clear that Oji's reached rock bottom when his shrewish,
self-centered wife throws out his last electric guitar, his precious
Gibson
Flying V. In true take-no-prisoners rock-and-roll style, Oji reacts by
getting drunk and bawling mawkishly to a local food vendor. But before
he
can entirely resign himself to a life without this last physical
reminder
of his lost glory, a voluptuous blonde alien named Layla shows up to
reunite him with his beloved instrument, claim him as her race's
messiah
and invite him to play in order to win their ongoing space war.
It's never clear what Oji's music has to do with destroying space
fleets, and these episodes don't bother to address why his alien
patrons
are at war, or with whom, or even whether they're the good guys in
their
particular conflict. None of this particularly matters to Oji. All he
really cares about is that he has a venue to play, his old guitar back
in
his hands, and an enthusiastic audience of at least one. Before long,
he's
taking control at work, trying to patch up his strained relationship
with
his wife and repeatedly asking Layla for permission to go jam, much
like
a
bored child demanding to leave class to use the bathroom. The aliens
are
mostly happy, Oji is mostly happy, and the series could probably end
right
there, if not for Oji's suspicious wife, who thinks he's having an
affair
with the weird blonde with whom she keeps seeing him.
A teen angel saga, minus the teen
Black Heaven is an odd series in many ways. It's sort of
shaped
like a comedy, with chunks of the usual teen wish-fulfillment anime
drama
thrown in. But unlike the average teen-dream show, the
hero-whose-hitherto-unknown-superpower-is-revealed-as-the-salvation-of-a-mysterious-world is a scrawny, emotionally defeated, 30-something
husband
and
father whose considerable responsibilities don't keep him from
mentally
wandering off to a fantasyland out of his past. Oji's a nice enough
man,
but he's weak and unfocused in a very human way. His wife and son, who
casually trample on everything that's precious to him, are obnoxious
in
a
similarly human way. It's difficult to tell whether we're supposed to
be
rooting for Oji to come to acceptable terms with his mundane life, or
for
a
stray meteor to obliterate his sometimes infuriating family so he can
run
off and frolic with space-babes.
Possibly the best thing about the series is that Oji doesn't quite
know
either. Black Heaven is funny and outrageous in a few
ways--particularly regarding the trio of well-meaning alien dolt-ettes
assigned to spy on Oji and Layla. It's even got a little intrigue and
excitement going for it, as the aliens argue over the propriety of
letting
an outsider fight their battles for them. But mostly it's a sweet,
sad,
and
surprisingly significant mini-drama about a man struggling with his
lost
identity.
The series' big problem is that it gives a lot of lip service to
the
wonder and glory and freedom of rock, but never really lets the music
out
to play. At best, Heaven offers 10 or 15 seconds of
generic
electric riffs at a time, then submerges the music under dialogue or
other
action. The show could stand to take a few tips
from
Cowboy
Bebop, which puts its dynamic
musical score in a much more prominent position even though the
music's
a
motif rather than a main plot focus. Heaven could also learn
from
Bebop's daring visual style; Heaven's animation is
fairly
stilted, despite an ambitious and dynamic opening credit sequence
reminiscent of Ralph Bakshi.
Heaven may fly or falter from this point; the domestic
conflicts
are already getting a bit redundant, and Oji's starting to repeat some
of
his lines about how truly great rock and roll is. But this series
opener
has already achieved an important goal--it's unique enough to stand
out
strongly from the mecha-and-magic pack that comprises most of anime
today.
