Hakugei—Legend of
the Moby Dick

A classic novel transported to space in a classic animation style in this case doesn't equal an instant classic

	Hakugei—Legend of the Moby Dick
	Vol. 1: Ahab Awaits (episodes 1-5)
	ADV Films
	125 mins.
	MSRP: $29.98 hybrid DVD

Review by Tasha Robinson

n the year 4699, the universe is packed with the wreckage of old spaceships, hulks abandoned when the companies that put them in space went under, or when they became obsolete or otherwise unwanted. The roughneck crews that salvage and strip these wrecks used to be called scrap traders or space recyclers, but by the time Hakugei—Legend of the Moby Dick begins, the derelict ships have commonly become known as "whales" and the salvagers as "whale hunters." One of the most famous, Captain Ahab, heads up an unusually small, tight-knit crew, including a tattooed giant named Barba and an 11-year-old tough called Atre. And then there's the young adventurer Lucky Luck, who opens the series by looking for Ahab, hoping to join his crew.

But first the series introduces an android named Dew (or Due, or Duew, according to various versions of his name that appear onscreen). Capable of surviving in extreme environments and used to exploring and cataloguing intensely hostile planets on behalf of the governing Federation, Dew lives a simple, quiet life searching for life forms, documenting weather patterns and examining the crystalline structure of snowflakes up close. Then, just as the Federation sends him a new assignment, he's picked up by a giant white whale-shaped ship that cuts him open and alters his inner workings, stating that they will henceforth have a deep bond. Then it casts the traumatized android into the vacuum of space in a coffin-capsule.

Meanwhile, Lucky endures his own trauma as Ahab's crew demands he pass some tests before joining their crew. But after Ahab intervenes to prevent one such test from turning fatal, they relent and let him in, just in time to let him witness their latest salvage operation, which proves surprisingly challenging when the ship they're after turns out to have some serious automated defenses. That operation also brings them into contact with the frozen Dew, whom they take for a whale hunter given a space burial. They bring him aboard in order to give him a respectful new funeral, but he revives and attacks them, still disoriented and frightened. But Ahab doesn't seem much fazed; he sees the android as a potentially valuable new crew member, worth recruiting in spite of all the problems he causes.

Not quite a whale of a tale

With the initial installments of Samurai 7 and Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo just out on DVD, it seems the season is right for anime adaptations of classic stories. But this loose Moby Dick adaptation isn't initially as appealing as its sister series; where they both go for cutting-edge storytelling and computer-assisted visuals, Hakugei—Legend of the Moby Dick feels like a throwback to 1982.

The series initially aired in 1997, but director Osamu Dezaki has given it a look very much in the spirit of his early works, like Space Adventure Cobra, which was made in 1982 but was itself something of a '70s throwback. Fans of classic anime will certainly find a lot of familiar things here: gigantic soulful eyes, spiky hair, motion lines, choppy movement, dramatic cuts to penciled still frames, quick triple repetitions of action shots, a high-contrast cast that includes an immense character and a tiny yapping kid, and an overall square-faced, heavy-lined aesthetic that makes the non-kid characters look like extras from Dezaki's BlackJack. Not that there's anything wrong with pastiches of '80s anime, but Hakugei's jagged pacing, shrill stereotyped characters and improbable premise don't offer a whole lot of allure either, and where the stiff, stylized visuals might have proved their own draw, they mostly just make the series look dated.

Admittedly, the opening scenes, with Dew exploring a frozen planet, are touching, and they hold some of the quiet, lonely mystique of a Leiji Matsumoto story. The first glimpses of the stately Moby Dick are intriguing, as are its motives. And it's hard not to draw parallels between the distant, grumpy Captain Ahab and Captain Harlock, which gives Hakugei a little more initial weight than it probably deserves. But the initial episodes are mostly taken up with frantic and fairly pointless action and a lot of yelling and jerky flailing by an over-large cast of characters who don't much distinguish themselves, except in the broadest comic sense. There's a lot more to Moby Dick, and there'll presumably be a lot more to this series, but the series launch doesn't inspire as much confidence as it should.

Somehow, the conceit of spaceships as "whales" just doesn't work for me. It's just a little hard to get excited about a crew leaping into action to snare a dead and drifting ship, no matter how much energy they put into it, or how many automatic lasers it has. — Tasha

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