tarship Operators opens with the merest eyeblink of character establishment, as Sinon Kouzuki, a military cadet on the space battleship Amaterasu, has an odd moment with her commanding officer toward the end of the test flight that marks the end of her Space Battle Course. He tells her that her voice is comforting, "like I'm listening to instructions from a digital recording." Then he tells her she'd make an abysmal secretary. She's unsure what to make of that.
But before she can spend too much time thinking about it, her cadet class learns that their homeworld, Kibi, has come under attack from the powerful planetary alliance known as The Kingdom. Kibi's government quickly surrenders, and the Amaterasu's officers are evacuated to prevent them from mutinying and flying the ship to Kibi's defense. Fuming at the presumption that they aren't worthy of similar consideration, the cadets strike a deal with the Galaxy Network, which purchases the Amaterasu and puts the cadets under contract as reality-TV stars in a network show about their defensive war against their planet's conquerors.
Almost immediately, the Network's demands start to directly affect the Amaterasu's strategies, as the show's producer demands more combat—and more specific types of combat—for better visuals. In further displays of callousness, he discards a moment of heroism as "too perfect" to air and shrugs off the first casualties as good drama. ("Space funerals made great visuals. Tell them to make sure they have one.") While Kibi's prime minister joins the Amaterasu, making it a government in exile, the young crew remains at the insensitive behest of people who see them as "cast members of the show first and soldiers second."
But even as they're pushed to wear makeup and adhere to a network-dictated command hierarchy, the cadets band together and successfully begin prosecuting their private battle. Sinon is particularly effective, as she's often the one to decode the enemy tactics, even though no one on board is entirely familiar with Kingdom ships and plans. But she still questions whether everyone else is insane for wanting to fight.
Too much too fast to work
Starship Operators boasts a terrific concept, with a great deal of potential for both comedy and drama. It's got a big cast with a lot of personal entanglements, an appealing lead character torn between desires, and a strikingly original premise. And yet it just doesn't work, at least not in the initial installments. For one thing, it starts far too fast, before distinguishing its characters and almost before defining its universe. As a result, much of the dialogue is awkward exposition, or is just confusing. The story wades into deep waters quickly, but the action seems draggy and stilted as everything gets spelled out. The protagonists go to war so fast that the audience doesn't have time to develop a stake either in these protagonists or in what happens to the suddenly introduced planet they're defending.
Eventually, some of the characters besides Sinon begin to stand out, with one relationship in particular giving viewers something to root for, or at least wonder about. But the cast is so large that no one else gets more than a few lines. And while in a more character-driven show it might be useful to know that one character is particularly sensitive to radiation, another is really good with machines, and a third is a disobedient officer who stayed aboard to operate the ship's AI, Starship Operators throws such snippets out flatly, never focusing on anyone long enough to make them interesting. When the series stops trying to develop all its characters at once and focuses on the space battles, it perks up, but that's primarily because they're refreshingly unconventional, usually involving a lot of dialogue and problem solving rather than zippy combat.
In spite of the lack of kinetic action, Starship Operators is very pretty, with dark, broody visuals and very sharp color. And the gravity is unusual and enjoyable; instead of the standard comedy/drama blend, it's pretty much entirely serious. But while the pace is picking up a little by the end of the fourth episode, getting that far is an uphill struggle through a story that feels impersonal, calculated and far too busy to flow smoothly.
This reminded me quite a lot of Infinite Ryvius, which also put a bunch of space cadets into grownup-level action, also had pacing and cast-size problems and also never really hooked me in.
— Tasha
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