Flying Phantom Ship 720p Sora tobu yûreisen - (1969 Lang: Japanese, Russian, Sub: English Russian)

Animated satire pointed unto us.

It is one of those anime samples (together with "Barefoot Gen"), which were shown in our country during the Soviet era. It went under the title "Ghost Ship". It does not evoke any memories inside me because I did not watch this anime then. So, my comment is free from that overwhelming factor.

Negative points will go first.

Bad design of "Golem", damn it. The design of this evil robot is awful - this is my main complain. It should have been impressive instead of being a piece of flying round-shaped metal-looking dumb thing with rockets. Minus two points because of that poor-looking "Golem" (it's one of the main mechanical villains after all).

Still, this major drawback does not spoil the shiny entertainment. It's not animation but the message that matters here. Or rather, messages.

Time for good ones.

This anime has got messages, which stretch much further than usual animated kid stuff:

1. The arms race of the government presented in this anime is not so far from the truth. There are talks and myths about the aggressors to back up billions of green bucks spent on all manner of U-boats, jets, aircraft carriers, tanks, and other junk. Good job, animators.

2. "BOA" aggressor is a good metaphor. The devilish star serves as the entrance to the dark underwater empire of evil that tries to rule the world with candy and whip. Very keen insight, animators.

3. "Boa Juice" commercials are funny and resemble the situation with the ads on out TV nowadays where the serious programs are being interrupted by some stupid "bubble" nonsense. "How can they interrupt THIS and air a commercial?!?!" sounds very true-to-life.

In addition to all these thought-provoking messages (which put this anime on a very high level - sorry, but there's great doubt in me that in this field even the best Pixar/Disney cartoons of the top 250 can be respectable rivals) there are:

- a great music score that varies from light childish melodies to the tragic orchestra themes; - a very unpredictable main hero: a boy who is good, cool, and reserved in some situations (helps people during catastrophes, ready to fight evil anytime and even to sacrifice his own life) and bad, nervous and wicked in the others (from time to time has some fits of uncontrollable anger - remember him throwing a loaf into the dog's mug?); - an interesting background story about the "ghost ship"; - a bunch of minor jokes that make this anime enjoyable for children too (the dog's mishaps, the hero's grimaces and his funny way of thinking and yelling, etc.).

8 out of 10 - for being clever and satirical alone it deserves a high mark (for instance, remove all the "classy" computer technology from most modern animation "masterpieces", and what would you get?). Thank you for attention.