Customer Reviews

Maetel Legend [VHS]

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I saw "Maetel Legend" on a region 2 DVD, and I am happy to see it's US release. Matsumoto Leiji is one of the greats of Japanese animation, and it is nice to see more of his work appearing in the US. (Aside from Star Blazers, of course!)

Matsumoto fills his universe with deep and mysterious characters, none more mysterious than Maetel. This 2-part series tells the origin of Maetel, the pirate queen Emeraldas, and the strange machine world from which they come. The planet La Metale drifts slowly towards a permanent ice age. Queen Promescium, along with her advisor Hard Gear, pushes the planet towards a solution that will guaranty immortality. She orders all the population to submit to the process of fully mechanizing the planet.

Maetel and Emeraldas resist. Hard Gear and his new mechanized army decide that it is not there choice. Drama ensues.

It is hard to see "Maetel Legend" as a stand alone. It really is a prequel to "Galaxy Express 999" which is currently unavailable. It does introduce some of the characters who appear in "Harlock Saga" and "Queen Emeraldas" and works well on that level.

An unfortunate draw back is the unnecessary combination of computer animation with cel animation. This is clearly a director that wants to embrace the new technology but doesn't really know how. All of Matsumoto's recent releases have this failing.

All in all, I enjoyed "Maetel Legend" enough to buy it. It is not the greatest of Matsumoto's work (That would be "Galaxy Express 999" or "Arcadia of my Youth") but it is good enough.

Though it is really nice to finally see Emereldas and Maetel's past as siblings and the downfall of their mother Queen Promethia, I think this anime sadly fell flat on it's face.

The only thing of interest was the fact that you got to see how Galaxy Express 999 came to happen, though most of us had a pretty good idea of what happened to begin with, and even then some of this still went unanswered even with the prequel. Which sat as a bitter pill in my book.

The animation was okay enough. One of my biggest gripes was the portrayl of Maetel and Em as teenagers. I don't believe they were quite so "school girlish" in their youths. This film's biggest flaw was the blatant reuse of footage, it really ruined what interest I had in this film. It recycled it's self over and over and was over used so poorly that I just felt like this could have easily been a single 60 minute OAV. By the end of the film, I could care less about the transformation of the Queen, because they had reshowed her transformation over several times, using the SAME footage.

While I really didn't care for it, if you have the patience to sit through the repitition I think this would make a lovely starting point for someone that has never seen Galaxy Express 999 before, my best suggestion is to rent it if possible!

What can I say? Maetel is a wonderful anime with a deep theme that really makes you think. I almost cried when I watched it...it's just that touching. However,I can't say if you personally will enjoy it. Fans of Matsumoto should enjoy this,but as for others unfamiliar with Matsumoto,it depends on what you like. If you're only into action,adventure or comedy anime,you'll probably be bored by this. Otherwise,I'd say if you like different and deep anime,you'll enjoy it! I know I did. This is my second Matsumoto film,my first was Harlock Saga. Both have been amazing and highly entertaining. I've done all-text reviews on other DVDs,but for these and any others later I'll be using a 1-10 scale,10 being the best possible. Oh, and just in case you're wondering, Maetel is rated 13+ for violence and grotesque imagery.

STORY: 10/10 - While some complain,I had no problem with the story at all. The slow pace of the plot is perfect for the "legend". I wasn't expecting much,but after watching Maetel,I was amazed and instantly a Matsumoto fan!

DVD: 9/10 - Not many special features,but the DVD itself was fine.

DUB: 7/10 - The dub was bearable,but the Japanese is far better.

OVERALL: 10/10 - If you can get it at a reasonable price,MAETEL LEGEND is an excellent addition to your anime!

A planet adrift in intersteller space -- dying. This is the story of technological and social evolution gone wrong. With her world no longer able to sustain life, the Queen of the planet LA MAETAL turns to the technician named Hardgear for a way for her people to survive. His solution is a procedure that comes right out of Clarke's novel 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY -- to transform the people of the planet into machines. The Queen, believing this to be the only way, foolishly submits to the procedure and commands all her people to submit to it as well. But it is not as beneficial as she was lead to believe. His techno-conversion technique has driven Hardgear insane.

Rating 13 and up: violence, grotesque imagery

This DVD is a really nice transfer, where the animation is very sharp and crisp. However, for a casual anime fan, this is a rather slow moving story. If you're a fan of the Galaxy Express 999 or Captain Harlock, you'll enjoy this tale about Maetel and Emeraldas as teenagers, which is really two 45-minute OAVs put together on this DVD.

Somewhat barebones DVD, just some character profiles, some brief notes on Leiji Matsumoto, a hokey trivia game, and some trailers to other CPM titles.

Unless you're a die-hard Matsumoto fan, I'd recommend renting this before buying it.

Leiji Matsumoto's Maetel Legend is a relentlessly somber tale of courage in the face of heart-wrenching tragedy. At once both profound and depressing, it's a thought-provoking story you won't soon forget.

The vast orbit of La Metalle has been disrupted by the black sun, Ra, and perpetual darkness has enveloped the frozen planet. As the ever-present whipping winds propel the swirling, stinging snowflakes, food supplies dwindle, shivering puppies die and hungry children sob uncontrollably. The inhabitants of the doomed ice world are faced with an impossibly difficult choice: either succumb to a slow and painful death of starvation and hypothermia, or receive the mechanization surgery offered by the sinister robot genius, Hardgear, and live painless eternal lives at the risk of their very souls. Against the advice of her two lovely daughters, La Metalle's Queen, La Andromeda Prometheum, unwisely decides on the second option. The beautiful Queen is encased in an iron box, where a thousand fork-like projections hold her in place while a small pink egg is inserted through her forehead and into the center of her brain. Shortly after the procedure, circular red dials begin to appear on the royal ruler's arms and hands, and soon cover her slim body like a mechanical rash. She shrieks in horror as she finally realizes she's been duped by the cackling humanoid fiend, Hardgear...but it's too late--La Andromeda Prometheum is helplessly under the maniacal mechanoid's vile control. With her robot master's instructions ringing unceasingly through her mind, the Queen orders each and every citizen of La Metalle to trade in their vulnerable human bodies of flesh and bone for immortal machine bodies of circuitry and steel. As the weeping masses roll through the heartless Hardgear's terrible device in assembly line fashion, the diabolical engineer callously tosses their lifeless corpses in a heap, to be devoured by the ravenous rats that populate the caverns beneath the black castle. His incessant mad laughter reverberates metallically, as if echoing from inside an aluminum garbage pail. And, while the blue-eyed android devil schemes to turn all of mankind into soulless automatons, he chugs a red beverage infused with humanity's essence, dribbling much of it messily out of the corners of his metal mouth.

With the Queen valiantly struggling to hold on to the last shreds of her ever-fading humanness, La Metalle's only hope against Hardgear's unspeakable evil rests in the slender hands of the brave princesses, Emeraldas and Maetel, both of whom steadfastly refuse to surrender their mortal hearts to mechanization. "Cut a man and he bleeds," says the crimson-clad Emeraldas, "that wound leaves a scar, the pain he feels makes him both stronger and also less willing to inflict pain on others."
"But if you become a machine," Maetel continues, "you can't feel pain anymore...or hear the whisper of the wind...or be moved by the brilliance of the stars. Your heart will turn cold, unable to feel anything at all."

With their flowing, ankle-length hair, and dark, sparkling eyes framed by long, lush lashes, the royal sisters could easily make millions doing mascara and shampoo commercials. Alas, armed only with their trusty laser rifles, the glamorous gunfighters are destined to spend their precious lives battling the Vaderesque Hardgear and his mechanoid minions for the freedom of the frigid, windswept wasteland they call home.

Maetel Legend is rated 13 and up due to violence. There's no blood or bad language, but there is quite a bit of screaming and crying. The story is told in two chapters, and it's a little slow and perhaps unnecessarily long. Parts of the second chapter seem like repeats from the first chapter. Still, this is a very worthwhile addition to any anime collection.

In the immortal words of Lady Emeraldas, "This isn't the time for tears. We have to turn to the future and live!"

this movie is basically an introduction to the anime hit Galaxy Express999.its a nice movie unfortunetley,it was made many years after GE999 which makes it pointless to watch now.
Thats all i can say

If you are unfamiliar with Leiji Matsumoto's work, this is not the introductory piece for you or anyone else. If you are a big fan, like I am, you might want this for your collection, but it's almost too insulting to watch.

There are not many redeeming factors about this two-part film aside from the fact that its cast of characters include a young Maetel and Emeraldas, and their mother Yayoi Yukino, the 1000-Year Queen.

The animation is extremely lazy. There are many close-up scenes which consist solely of the various women sadly closing their eyes. In at least three separate instances, there are mouth movements but absolutely no dialogue to fit them, in the original Japanese audio track. There are more recycled scenes in this movie than in your average Youtube AMV.

The music is not much better. For an OVA with episode names like "First Movement" and "Second Movement", you would think they would have actually bothered to get an actual orchestra. Unfortunately, they didn't. Instead you get to listen to some extremely underwhelming synthesizer music. They didn't even have a voiced opening or ending song. If you loved the beautiful vocal themes and gorgeous background music of Galaxy Express 999, well, don't expect it from Maetel Legend.

Even with lazy animation and a lackluster score, the story could have redeemed this OVA; instead it just makes it worse. Basically, it gets really cold on their planet and the Queen decides that everyone should become a robot for their own good. She is an early adopter of the mechanization technology promoted by a robot named Hardgear. Maetel and Emeraldas refuse to become mechanized and watch their mother suffer with her choice through the rest of the film. Hardgear comes after them and they have to fight him.

While this plot COULD have been a very wonderful vessel for philosophical exploration, it instead became a confusing, contradictory mess. It tries to be an action movie, but Maetel and Emeraldas do entirely too much standing around and looking grim for that. Despite being labeled a prequel, the viewer is thrown into the middle of the story in such a way that many things still need to be narrated to them. I was worried for a moment that the episode order on the disc had been scrambled. This is not good storytelling. I wondered at various points throughout whether the director was very sick when he worked on this film, or just stoned out of his mind.

What saved the movie for me was that after I got over my initial disappointment, it's actually rather humorous to watch something so convoluted. Lord Hardgear demonstrates that even if he is killed, he can be resurrected into any robotic body, which there are plenty of. This doesn't stop him from retreating from Maetel and Emeraldas when they have the chance to shoot him. The queen goes through the entire movie screaming and sobbing about how she is turning into a machine, yet at the end she asks her daughters, "Why don't you want to be a machine?" At one point, the planet is said to be about 600 degrees below zero and Emeraldas is forced to wear a space-suit just to survive. She wanders into the wilderness and meets... a pack of perfectly healthy wild dogs. How? Why? Who knows! At some point it just becomes too silly not to make fun of it.

Unfortunately, it wasn't supposed to be funny.

This is the sequel to "Queen Millennia", no to be confused with "Captain Harlock and the queen of a thousand years", which is a remake made in the US. In this story we see what becomes of Yayoi Yukino, of the Queen Millenia story arc, although some elements do vary, but the main charachters and drive remain the same. It's an excellent work by itself, but only comes to be fully appreciated following "Queen Millennia", which is Matsumoto's finest work.

i am a big fan of the series with Maetel and the others, seeing this movie that gave me a clear view as into why they had there bodys machined the way they did. this starts it all off with them, the movie Galaxy Express 999 being the recent one tells of what happened later on in the story.

all in all i would buy this if your just comeing into this series and want to know more and why they had there bodies the way they got them.