This show is essentially "Lord of the Flies" on a spaceship combined with mecha fights. Children are trapped on a spaceship, attempt to form their own civilization, and fend off unknown enemies for as long as they can. As time goes on, their morale breaks down, and their civilization begins to crumble.
This show has the pieces to make something special: characters, setting, animation, and story, but average execution affected the overall result.
There are themes of forgiveness, standing up for what you believe in, and redemption, but some characters often go way beyond delinquent into straight up evil. By the end, I thought some characters were irredeemable and could not stand them anymore, even when they learned their wrongs. Having to watch a few of these insufferable characters was rough.
The overall plot felt underdeveloped, with me constantly questioning the motives of the outisde-ship villains, the Sphinx, and the Geduld phenomenon. While aspects can be left up to mystery just fine, other parts I felt were critical to become invested in the story. Therefore, with those parts being barely addressed, it made the situation feel less urgent and meaningful.
I did appreciate many scenes and character arcs that happened throughout the story, which is probably why i continued to watch all the way to the end. The shows does make you care about the main characters as they are constantly pushed to their mental limits.
The story takes a while to get going. The real meat of the emotional drama starts around episode 19. Had they kept that level of drama earlier, it would've made me more invested.
Animation, while hand drawn well, had a severe lack of variety of the ships and combat. All the colors were the same, and made it very difficult to follow along with the action.
Overall, a decent watch for space and sci-fi fans, but I don't see it as an underrated gem. If it were available on blu-ray, it would have to be at a big discount sale for me to pick it up.
