Technically this is a review of the just the novels, since they are the most recent (American) releases in this franchise, but I have the manga and anime on hand so they’re getting dragged into this, too.

Seikai Trilogy: Crest of the Stars

Volume one: Princess of the Empire
Volume two: A Modest War
Volume three: Return to a Strange World

Published by: Tokyopop
Written by: Hiroyuki Morioka
The novels contain some repeating design elements–logos used as chapter dividers and the like–but are not illustrated.

648 total (578 net) pages.
Original Language: Japanese
Orientation: Left to right.
Vintage: 1996. US editions September ‘06, January and May ‘07.
Translation: Sue Shambaugh
Adaptation: Benjamin Arntz
Fan Consultants: Troy Christopher Haskin, Daniel Bonnell [also credited as ACIDSTEALTH; all-caps theirs, not mine], and Larry S. Moreland II
Editor: Kara Stambach
Publisher’s Rating: None given. I’d go with ages 12+ (for some violence, and confusing invented language)

Rating: 4 out of 5

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Premise: Two young people get caught up in a much larger series of events, as the slow but relentless expansion of a galaxy-spanning empire is finally being opposed by an alliance of other interstellar nations. The twist: the forces of the invading empire are the good guys.

Synopsis:

17-year-old Jinto Linn is fair player on the baseball team, though he never really made any friends at the boarding school he attended. His life is about to change though, because today he’s transferring to a new school. Little does he know that while waiting at the station he will meet the girl that will change his life…

It’s a typical story, right? Except that Jinto Linn is waiting at a space station, the girl he meets is a beautiful alien, he himself is nobility — heir to a whole planetary system, and the local version of baseball is a weird soccer-roller-derby hybrid (the book doesn’t bother to explain how that works).

Jinto wasn’t born a noble; his father was merely the elected president of the planetary government when the Abh Empire invaded. He negotiated the peace: a surrender, actually, though one with a few compromises and no casualties — though he is seen as a traitor by his own people because the new masters of the Hyde system named him, president Rock Linn, as their new regent in the area. He is now Count Hyde, and his son Jinto had to be sent off-world for two reasons: not only to learn the alien Abh language (which no one on his home world can teach him) but mostly for his own safety.

All this is in the past, seven years ago. Now a teenager, and as nobility obligated to perform military service for the Empire, Jinto is transferring from the language & prep school to an officer’s training academy. His ride to the capital is a new battle cruiser (he rates at least that much as a noble) but they can’t park that much tonnage-of-mass-destruction at the dock, so they send a one of their pilot trainees with a shuttle to pick him up.

A female pilot. A hot, young female pilot. “Face it, Tiger, you just hit the jackpot” Well, almost.

This is a good a time as any to mention that the Abh (those of the evil empire, mentioned several times above) started out human, but they’ve used genetic engineering for generations and are now uniformly beautiful, talented, and capable, they live to be 200 or so but never seem to age physically past 25, and with a bit of tinkering have endowed themselves with a sixth, spatial sense, something like a cross between radar and sonar. They’re better than you, better looking than you, and they know it; oh, and they have that whole empire thing going for them. No wonder a good chunk of the rest of humanity hates them.

Jinto is legally an Abh (and a fairly high-ranking one) but his genes and upbringing make him a Lander, not one of the Kin of the Stars. He’s never even met another Abh, except briefly when he first left for boarding school and back then he didn’t speak the language. It takes him a while to get used to the rest of the Abh, including Lafiel — the pilot trainee sent to pick him up. Sure, she’s beautiful; all the Abh are, but she’s also arrogant, pushy, touchy, impatient, and a bit short-tempered.

Jinto manages to get on her good side and bad side simultaneously, even in the short flight from port to the waiting space cruiser. Despite the friction, the two seem to be coming to an understanding of sorts, but only until Jinto learns Lafiel’s family name: she’s an Abriel — Her dad was the guy who led the invasion fleet that took over Jinto’s home system (and made his dad the count; not really doing either Linn any favours with that), and her grandmother just happens to be Empress.

Lafiel doesn’t just act like a princess, she is one. Military rank matters more than titles and fiefdoms, though, so for now she is just Pilot Trainee Lafiel Abriel, and she’ll use every ounce of her Princess training and haughty, overbearing personality to make you regret it if you try to treat her otherwise. (Jinto should just step out an airlock now and save himself a lifetime of trouble. …but then we wouldn’t have a story)

When a war breaks out, literally in front of the ship that was taking Jinto to the capital, circumstances will force Jinto and Lafiel into closer quarters than either might wish. They will have to race ahead of the enemy, negotiate hostile territory both in space and on an unfamiliar planet, and deal with enemies who should be allies, allies who used to be terrorists, the local cops, an occupying army, armed maids, Jinto’s bad fashion sense, and a horrifyingly cute amusement park.

And the war is just getting started…

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Review:

Morioka has created a deep, detailed setting for his work: an intergalactic empire, the alien-but-human race that founded it, some intriguing mechanisms for interstellar travel (and combat) and on top of all of that, an invented language that rivals Klingon and Elvish in complexity and perceived detail. I use the qualifier because even though the Abh language seems rich and vast, we in fact only get small chunks in the book. It’s not a whole language, and instead is merely “local flavour”, a way to make anything — from a seat belt or uniform to laser pistols and space docks — seem that much more alien

The Abh language is laid on a bit thick, at least for my taste. It’s on every page. It’s almost in every sentence. Some exchanges of dialogue include nothing but Baronh nouns, with just enough English to string it together — the Abh is used to a point where it obstructs comprehension. And like many an invented language, in order to seem more foreign, consonants tend to stack up in odd ways and the whole seems more tongue twisting and complicated than it has to be.

The book does flow much smoother on a re-read, so some familiarity with the Seikai books will help. That may be why the fan consultants pushed Tokyopop to include so much of the invented language, and why it is often left untranslated in dialogue: since they themselves were already familiar with it, it just didn’t seem as odd to them. Another factor is that written Japanese uses kanji, individual characters for each word, and in the original the kanji were used with a Baronh equivalent written in a phonetic alphabet above it. (this is common to Japanese writing even in everyday use; less familiar kanji will be “spelled out” in hiragana to aid comprehension.) In Japanese, many of these “alien” words are thus read quite easily, and the Abh language can be picked up by many fans. The text itself serves as it’s own glossary.

The nearest English equivalent would be an interlinear publication, as is occasionally used in religious books to help scholars by printing the original Greek either above or below the translated lines. While Tokyopop’s editorial decision is the right one if the goal is to maintain as much of the flavour of the Japanese original as possible, If I had been adapting the text I probably would have backed off of “alien” language in order to make the story more accessible, particularly when there are generic sci-fi equivalents — I mean, come on, do we need a special name for laser pistols, computers, starship engines, carbon fibre, floating cars, and space elevators? Isn’t a floating car exotic enough?

The over-reliance on Baronh is one of the reasons the anime will be better than the novels for one’s first exposure to this franchise. While there are a few scenes in nothing but Abh language (just three, in fact: one to kick off each series) the same scenes play out fully translated later, and the use of full-on-Abh is only for foreshadowing, and because it is admittedly a cool gimmick. Other uses of the language are kept to a minimum and easy to pick up on, if only because there is a visual; typically these were restricted to the names of unusual concepts or objects that are repeatedly encountered in the show.

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Crest of the Stars

13 half-hour episodes, on 4 discs.
Original Language: Japanese
Vintage: 1999
Production: Bandai Visual, Sunrise, WOWOW
Director: Yasuchika Nagaoka

ADR Production: The Ocean Group
ADR Director: Teri Snelgrove
Translator: Paul Baldwin
ADR Writer: Robert Chomiak
DVD Production: Bandai Entertainment
US DVD releases from June-December 2001
Publisher’s Rating: ages 13 and up

Rating: 5 out of 5

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Premise and Synopsis, same as above.

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A remarkably faithful adaptation of the novels, The anime Crest of the Stars hits the same scenes and beats with the improvement that actual visuals provide for things like running gun fights and space battles.

This is grand space opera, as good an example of animated sci-fi as any out there. While there are some issues one could take with the English dub, the discs are bilingual so you have the option to watch in the original. (I think most of the acting was excellent, but the use of Wordfit does detract from the overall English localisation.)

Crest of the Stars was followed by two sequels, Banner of the Stars I and II. Your opinion of these might depend on whether you liked the original for it’s space setting, or for the interaction between our two leads. (If nothing else, if you like the first series you should rent the sequels.) Banner of the Stars has a greater focus on the space battles, so would be recommended for folks who liked that aspect of the books & anime. Though the third series is the weakest installment in the franchise, and shortest at only 10 episodes, it does the most to advance the relationship between Jinto and Lafiel, and seems to me like a transition to a different kind of anime — which never got made. Eh. There is a 2 ep direct to video release Banner of the Stars III but I doubt we’ll ever see it in English.

The popularity of the anime prompted the release of manga adaptations, also licensed by Tokyopop for the American market. This is basically a streamlined version of the anime, with a number of action sequences condensed or skipped in order to fit the story of Crest of the Stars into a single 256 page volume. Similar manga adaptations were done for the two anime sequels.

There are differences in translation across the 3 versions (novel, anime subtitles, and manga) that show up most frequently in how the Abh language is transliterated. The spellings in English of the same word will differ, depending on how a particular translator decided to attack the c-k and l-r letter pairs (the two liquids, L and R are interchangeable in Japanese and one of the difficulties presented to Japanese students as they try and learn English — this was actually a memorable visual gag in one sketch of the Colorful anime).

The manga is a brisk read and captures the dynamics and interactions between characters quite well, though the first volume seems a bit rushed compared to the two Banner of the Stars adaptations. I’ll rate the three manga volumes at a 3 out of 5, with a note that they really are for fans of one of the other two iterations, and not necessarily recommended as stand-alone purchases.

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I sincerely hope Tokyopop also choose to license the Seikai no Senki (Banner of the Stars) novels, which is an ongoing series currently standing at 4 volumes. I find I really like Jinto and Lafiel, and I’d enjoying reading more of their adventures.

a few links for the curious:

wiki: Crest of the Stars, Hiroyuki Morioka, Baronh, conlangs

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All titles mentioned above are available for purchase at TRSI –
The Seikai Trilogy: Princess of the Empire, A Modest War, Return to a Strange World
Anime sets: Crest of the Stars* (recommended), Banner of the Stars I, Banner of the Stars II
Manga: Crest of the Stars, Banner of the Stars I, Banner of the Stars II