Venus Wars – Review

When you go back to the 80s anime and early anime, you see it had more of the violence and grit you would crave for. It had less of that feeling where it’s quickly hashed out, or obviously influenced and tailored to the American viewers. Venus Wars is such an anime, that it took me only one viewing of this revolutionary feature to make me fall in love with Japanimation forever years and years ago. A group of friends who are in a sort of Xtreme motorcycle sport find themselves in the middle of their nation Aphrodia invaded by the nation of their enemy Ishtar. They quickly find themselves under military rule, and have to deal with life changing in such a time period. The group eventually decides to do some guerilla action and attack an enemy tank that is always in their stadium. The animation is refreshing and very crisp, and it sounds as if some real thought went into the music as well. The added extras are a joke, but I bought this disc for the film, not for any sort of flashy extras. If you’re a fan of old-school anime, then Venus Wars definitely belongs in your DVD collection.

Gundam veteran Yoshikazu Yasuhiko’s The Venus Wars admittedly does have somewhat cliched plot but it has surprisingly deep characters. The action scenes are fast paced and well directed, the scene where Hiro and his team decide to take on an Ishtari tank occupying the stadium is especially well handled. With the characters treating the attack as a game until they realize just how dangerous their situation is. It manages to paint a vivid picture without getting preachy or becoming insipid.

Plus the great story of a CIVIL war rather than the usual played out drama about a war with aliens really gave this film a good plot. Good story telling with a science fiction twist, and the characters where well developed. Venus Wars feels like an epic movie, but without have the epic length of one.  All of the combat takes place while the characters are riding on futuristic motorcycles, so the movie is very fast paced. Venus Wars is definitely middle ground for anyone who wants to start watching anime. It makes you want to run out and race on a motorbike yourself.

To conclude, it’s about a hostile takeover in Venus and a group of ordinary people try to survive the war-torn planet. The story line seems believeable, in my eyes, and its an anime movie that doesn’t do anything so unrealistic that its totally unbelieveable. The big influence comes from Hiro – he’s a boy, deeply interested and amazed by all the unfairness in this world, and as we can see, does everything in his powers to fix it all. He’s an amazing character cause of his seriousness and bravery. The Venus Wars is a classic piece of Japanese Animation with a story that never grows old. Fantastic vistas and fantastic confrontations make this a valuable addition to anyone’s anime collection.