Shingu: Secret of the Stellar Wars 9/10

A show that's been around for awhile that I've always meant to see and it turned out pretty good. Hooray!

This show is called Gakuen Senki Muryo in Japan which translates to Record of the School Wars: Muryo. I have no idea why they changed it so much for North America (maybe it's that OTHER Record of the School Wars: Muryo show) but regardless of that it runs 26 episodes and aired in 2001. This series uses the old-school hand drawn animation and it's all old-school colouring and lighting effects. I LOVE the look of this show and I have no complaints since I enjoy the character designs as well. The music is pretty good, though I'm not a big fan of the OP or ED. Well done but not my style. I'm also a big fan of the VA's. This show has a large cast and they manage to keep the voices unique and well suited to the characters.

Shingu takes place in 2070 in a relatively small town in Japan and the main character, Hajime Murata, is a pretty average eighth grader. He's only lived in the town for four years or so and being one of the "new" kids he befriends a new transfer student, Muryou Subaru. Muryou is a little odd, he wears an old school uniform (uniforms haven't been the norm since the previous century), he's a rather bland kid though he's friendly enough, and he gets in some sort of super powered duel with Moriguchi Kyoichi, a rather excitable member of the student council.

It turns out that the student council is made up of 4 students who summon the creature Shingu to protect the town from invading aliens. Nayuta Moriyama is the angry tomboy type who actually transforms into the Shingu and is the main foil for Hajime and Muryou. She's pissed at Muryou for using his powers to save her on a couple of occasions and she's pissed at Hajime for the best reason of all, she likes him. This is doubly hilarious since Hajime and Muryou are somewhat clueless to the whole thing and can't understand why she gets so mad but they don't really react to her so it makes her more angry.

The student council members are descended from those who've summoned the Shingu for centuries, as are all the older famlies in the town. It turns out that this town has had diplomatic relations with aliens for centuries and there are several alien diplomats living in the town. There are a lot of mysterious goings on with the leaders of the town, the leaders of the U.N., and the leaders of the main alien factions. It's kinda like Star Trek where Earth is a planet not deemed advanced enough to join the Federation.

Most of the story revolves around various unknown aliens attacking the town in an effort to capture the Shingu, the advancement of the relations between Earth and the aliens, and the school life of the main characters. The kids aren't really involved in the diplomatic side of things so it's interesting how those who control this super weapon are pretty much out of the loop most of the time.

A lot of the story is told from Hajime's perspective and since he's the most normal of all the characters (no super powers or anything). It's a pretty interesting and unusual perspective for an anime of this type. It's also rather funny most of the time and reminded me of any number of good high school comedies at times. There are TONS of great characters and they all get a lot of screen time and character development and there are enough mysteries in this show to keep anyone watching until the end.

And what an end it is. There's something about how they did all the revelations and the final battle that I really loved in this show. The only reason it doesn't get a 10 is that the main characters don't really get together and I was a little disappointed. Watch this show for Muryou's atmospheric re-entries alone. Highly recommended.