Intro
 
        A jump into my way back machine to look at this piece of anime history.       
 
The Story               
 
        Two thirty minute OVAs are shown on this release. In the first episode we meet Queen Emeraldas. Emeraldas pilots a ship in space like a pirate while searching for the love of her life that disappeared long ago. Traveling from place to place in a distant future.
 
        At the start of the episode, we see a ship from Earth flying around with a couple of stowaways including a young kid named Hiroshi and an old man when it is attacked by a mysterious race called Afressians who wish to rule the galaxy… but don’t they always?
 
        The ship is almost lost when out of nowhere comes a savior by the name of Emeraldas. When the ship lands, the stowaways depart onto the planet and Hiroshi instantly tries to get a job in the roughest bar in the town. He finally manages to get one after some persistence but that job is quickly sullied when the Afressians fleet commander that attacked the ship in space arrives.
 
        Hiroshi attempts to defend the bar and the customers but is quickly dispatched until Emeraldas comes to his rescue and chases everyone off and after a talk with Hiroshi about what he wants for his future, she leaves in her ship while the Afressians vow to destroy her.
 
        In the second episode, Hiroshi is starting to grow in his new job while Emeraldas is floating through space when she gets an SOS call from a fleet of oil tankers who are being attacked and request assistance. Answering the call, she goes in and instantly start attacking the Afressians only to find out quickly that it was a trap.
 
        Back on the planet, the bar is attacked by the Afressians fleet commander again and this time he takes prisoners including Hiroshi in an attempt to lure Emeraldas out. It doesn’t take long for Emeraldas to discover what has happened and rush in to the rescue, even though she is facing the entire Afressian fleet by herself.
 
        While Emeraldas faces the entire fleet on her own, the prisoners mount their own escape and mutiny. Until it becomes a battle of queen against queen as the Queen of the Afressians goes head on against the Queen Emeraldas.
 
The Good And The Bad
 
        Released back in 1999, this release takes it’s place among the Leiji Matsumoto’s
Star Blazers collection which has found a cult following over the last couple of decades. Though I haven’t seen the Star Blazers series as of yet, I am still finding that whenever I see a piece that belongs in the collection I am never at a loss when I watch it.
 
        There is so much history behind this and yet it’s never something that I am confused with. I enjoyed Maetel Legend without any problems and while I’d like to know what happened between that release and this release, I still found this to be a fun release.
 
        The animation in this release was actually vastly better than anything that I anticipated it to be. While the main animation with the characters planet side was about what I expected, the computer animation of the battles in space really blew me away. I had no idea what I was in for when I put this in.
 
Music
 
        Opening theme has a nice sound but it’s lyrics are cheesy and the ending theme is nice. The sound quality remained consistently good throughout the release with no drops in quality.
 
Dub vs. Sub
 
        Wow, this really was released back in the hey-day of ADV. I think I recognized maybe two names out of the entire cast. Ruth E. Heyman was rather good as Emeraldas though.
 
        The big issue that I came across was a glitch on chapter five that causes the French and Japanese audio tracks to be reversed. Very annoying but nothing that wasn’t easily fixed by switching the audio track. Just be aware that it is there.
 
Extras
 
        Character profiles and an art gallery that are programmed to run in one long string instead of being separated.
 
Overall
 
        For the most part I really enjoyed this release. It had good action (if not a bit overdone and a bit unbelievable) and the characters were easy to cheer for. While I would like to know a bit more about Emeraldas and her history, I think that’s going to have to wait for me to pick up the rest of this collection.
 
        If you haven’t seen this piece of anime history, you owe it to yourself to at least check it out. Even if it’s not a piece that you add to your collection, you should at least look at it so that you can say that you saw it. It won’t be long before titles that were released way back when are going to be forgotten entirely except by those few who saw them when they had the chance. Make sure that you’re one of the few and not one of the many.
 
Final Grade: 79% – C