n the last two installments of Irresponsible Captain Tylor, the crew of the Soyokaze was trying to live down the ignominy of a military downgrade and exile to a distant region of space. The ship's entire contingent of losers, neurotics and disciplinary nightmares blamed their captain, Justy Ueki Tylor--and with good reason. Faced with a tight deadline to formally protest his ship's reassignment, he'd once again proved inattentive, oblivious and just plain irresponsible.
So the Soyokaze headed out to idle on the border of United Planets territory, doomed to miss out on the action if the Raalgon Empire finally made its ultimate strike against the United Planets Space Force. But no one had a chance to get bored--not with the angry ghost of a former captain haunting the ship, a vengeful Raalgon Admiral chasing Tylor down, and a plague about to incapacitate virtually everyone but Tylor and the spy sent to capture him.
Things are so serious that Tylor actually has to pay attention for once, especially after he gets hauled off to the Raalgon Empress, who traditionally executes all prisoners on sight. Of course, Tylor happens to be the luckiest man in the universe, if not--it's still anybody's guess--secretly the craftiest. He may not actually have a plan to keep the young Raalgon leader from ordering him killed, but he does have coincidence on his side. Not to mention a crew that's suddenly decided they really do miss him for some reason.
Holy jumping genres, Batman!
Where previous episodes of Tylor stalled the larger plot in favor of silly yet deft character development, these two collections take the story forward at a breakneck pace. Tylor's confrontation with a predecessor's shade is a spooky but pointless aside, yet it leads into a surprising plot twist that sets the stage for this riotously goofy series to suddenly become serious, competently written space opera again. The generally convincing tenor of these repeated unexpected transitions between sitcom and drama is a strong testament to Koichi Mashimo's direction.
The story does stagger a bit along the way, with an overly conventional bit of romantic fluff between Empress Azalyn and Tylor, complete with a sappy pop song and an unnecessary amount of giggling. And there are certainly a lot fewer belly laughs--the action even becomes melodramatic at times, as Tylor seems to almost get serious, at least when dealing with the Raalgon spy.
But the characters remain likable and multifaceted, with heroes and villains on both the human and Raalgon side, and no clear overlord of evil taking on the stereotypical one-dimensional baddie role. The series' chameleon nature makes the plot wholly unpredictable and exciting. And the writing sparkles with wit and verve even as it lunges between seriousness and high farce. It's hard to pin down this series' nature or intent--but it's certainly easy to go along for the ride.
