Moonlight Mile Season One - Anime DVD Review

The key to making a great anime series that has crossover potential is give it the element of a novel with some cool leads, crisscrossing storylines and an inherent visual style that is both real and engaging. The first season of "Moonlight Mile" which plays like a combination of "The Right Stuff" and "Armageddon" without the world ender is a great perception of the new frontier.Disc 1 The story begins with an interesting but removed occurrence on the moon where a woman is confronted after crash landing on the dark side by a platoon of robot soldiers seeking to kill her. It is a cinematic beginning for sure. The opening credits have a vibrancy and power with music that is bombastic and powers the entire series. The story centers around two men: Goro and Lostman. They are friends who have scaled all the biggest peaks on Earth. They conquer Everest but see a woman die in an avalanche in its wake. They then see the International Space Station from their vantage point on top of the world and their goals become higher. Goro gets to where he is going by being a construction worker and moving through the ranks to a lofty goal. But his approach seems organic and uses real world physics. When the brother of the girl he is dating is in mortal danger, he devices a very human "baseball" analogy to solve the problem and tests it in a practical way on Earth. It is very good storytelling.Lostman goes a different way becoming a Navy pilot. He too becomes sidetracked but is chasing his dream through the military. However before his dream is realized, he is shot down over an Arab country. The key in the argument was to protect the oil nations before the Moon is mined for Helium 3 which is what the race to space becomes all about (as it might be in real life). The piece of equipment the brother who almost died was operating was a new way to put ships together in orbit. Goro finally makes it to the space station and realizes that everything before in his life from an explosion on a launch pad in Japan to saving one of his friends by operating a robot arm intoxicated and getting it done is all about luck. The rest of the people on the space station are gamblers like him. By using unconventional thinking in the last episode of the disc he is able to free a trapped woman as they are doing a spacewalk. But he wants to get to the moon. The great thing about this first disc is how grounded it is. The inclusion of 3D models is becoming more invisible but doesn't give up the beauty of the anime art form which still has more of a real feel than the computer animation. The space scenes and launches like the approach of the space station and the launch from Star City are magnificent both because of their scope and the music. The characters are also flawed judging by their numerous affairs but the humor comes through as well especially with Goro's constant windmill antics in space and on the ground.Disc 2 Whereas the first disc showed only the dream of getting to the moon, the second disc begins to delve deeper into the politics that motivate it. Lostman seems behind the curve when a former commander comes back to see him. It was the same person that ordered him on a mission that landed him as a prisoner in the desert. Somehow he is bumped up to the seat on the shuttle flight despite being the sixth back-up. One can tell something is going on behind the scenes. When engine failures and program mishaps in the final burn into orbit seem to him to be set on purpose, Lostman works with his wits. He is able to perform a high end manuever that looks like something cool out of the "Buck Rogers" TV show He ends up meeting up with Goro on the space station. it seems hanky panky is in play no matter what happen. The girls are cute too. Soon after, a mishap from a private launch puts a odd spacehship in orbit on a deteriorating trajectory that will cause the massive piece of hardware to rain down on Sydney effectively destroying it. The tension in the scenes as they race against time with different intellectual perceptions and sheer macho perserverance works well. They save the crememeber and avert the disaster but both Goro and Lostman return to Earth. They must prepare for their second opportunity.Goro goes to Japan to work on new robotics project until he can get back on another shuttle mission. It turns out that the project he is working on is being subterfuged from the inside. With the help of Ryoko, his silent support ace and eventual lover, they are able to expose the problem. Goro heads back up the ISA Station. Lostman however gets to do something way cooler. He has been recruited into a top secret miltary space program. When he was on his initial shuttle flight, he was able to see the Enterprise, a top secret military station in high orbit. There is a substory about paparazzi chasing him before he leaves but it is not as interesting. It is the take off of the Nightmare spaceplane and the scramjet possiblities that are really cool. It shows how this might actually be done. It looks doable but it needs to be outside the system and not subjected to PC rules. That seems to be what is holding us back. The Japanese can see this and relates it in this anime. Very interesting. The 1st season of "Moonlight Mile" was made and released only last year in Japan which makes it very timely. Funimation scored a great one in this series.The extras are small but effective. The killer opening credit sequence without text is riveting as the score is a major part of the series. The closing song although inherently and culturally divided does grow on you. Out of the other DVD trailers, "Aquarion" stands out simply for its technical ingenuity. It however seems to be something else before it transforms into a battling robot storyline. "Balder Force EXE" is mind bending and looks like great late night fodder with some beautiful and disturbing visuals."Moonlight Mile: Season One" is one of the better anime series I have seen in a long time with great music, razor sharp story and killer visuals. Out of 5, I give it a 4.