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Pilot Candidate - The Test (Vol. 4)
Bandai // Unrated // May 21, 2002
List Price: $24.98 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
The Movie
Pilot Candidate – The Test is the final volume in the anime series. I have no idea if the manga version of this is still going, but it would certainly explain a lot with how we are left so high and dry at the end of this disc with supposedly nothing coming in the future.
That is right...this show has no true ending, much like another Bandai show The Big O which is fortunately being rectified with a second season coming. The problem with this release is that towards the end it is promising so much, but with it being the end we see no true payoff. Episode 9 (the series starts at Episode 0) starts with Zero dreaming that he is in a world that everyone from the Pilot group is in, including the instructor and the repairers. Through his dream he decides that he needs to be a pilot and he will put all of his energy toward reaching that goal. He believes everything about his past, including the reason he cannot see his mother's face when dreaming, will be answered when he becomes a Goddess pilot. Of course the problem is I did not get anything out of his dream about why he would choose this path that he has chosen. Sure, his mom gives him a lesson of the week, but I truly felt nothing here. This was another boring episode.
Then things get good. Episode 10 is where the academy decides to test for the new top candidate now that Erts has taken his brother's place as a Goddess pilot. Hiead, who I am guessing is supposed to be one of the evil pilots, decides he wants to become a Goddess pilot and he will kill every pilot if he has to. Hiead even goes so far as to try to kill one of his co-pilots with his EX power. This is one of the first examples of the EX power, it seems ever pilot has this power and it has different uses. As usual, nothing is explained and we are left to ponder what the heck is happening. Hiead's repairer, Ikuni, decides to sabotage Zero's Pro-Ing so that Hiead can win the spot and he will appreciate her. As it is now he just orders her around and she has no say in things. This turns horribly wrong as Virus starts to attack and the pilots are called to defend Zion and see their first real battle. But Zero is at a disadvantage with his controller being slightly off from his thoughts because of Ikuni's sabotage. Ikuni obviously did not want this.
Then there is the final episode. Basically it is a fight between Virus, the Goddesses and the pilots. Zero's Pro-Ing goes crazy thanks to the sabotage Ikuni did, but he eventually gets things under control and he and Hiead end up using their EX along with the female Goddess pilot to freeze all Virus and destroy the main Virus enemy. Everyone celebrates and the female pilot and some older guy talk about how things will get interesting…and then the show ends. Uh, what?
And that is the problem I have with this series. It leaves you so high and dry that you wish there was more. At the very end things were getting interesting and it looked like some question marks were going to be answered, but instead we have nothing. In some ways they could have eliminated the first 11 episodes and started with the 12th one and kept going. In one of the extras they talk about the manga and I wonder if it is still going on. This is another case along the lines of Trigun that may have been finished before the manga was done. In Trigun the manga's ending probably was better than the anime's, but that is just me. I love Trigun and it is hard to analogize that with this crap.
The DVD
Video: This series was done in 2000. The quality is top notch and I really cannot notch it lower because of that. The jarring changes between 2D and 3D are difficult to handle. Sometimes it is better to use less 3D or make it more seamless than is presented here.
Sound: Presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 and in English and Japanese language. The English track on this disc is bad because of the dubtitle mess. The Japanese language is the better track on this release, although I do not think the subtitles follow the actual words. The music can often overpower the voices in this release and some directionality is used.
Menus: A pretty boring menu with the loud, obnoxious theme song in the background.
Extras: There are some extras on this disc, but they are mostly useless
Voice Acting Academy: Wonderful idea that is poorly implemented. Basically this is a video of "you" going into the room to do voice acting for a scene. They run you through the dialogue for the scene and then you are expected to go through the dialogue. I could see maybe children liking this, but it is so dumb to me. It is really a waste of space in my opinion.
Director's Interview: The interesting thing here is that he says he followed the comic (manga) and made the show feel exciting with the 3D CGI effects and "a great story". My question is where is the good story and how the heck does this show feel exciting with such jarring 3D CGI effects? Maybe I am in the minority here. He goes nothing into how this show just stopped abruptly. If the manga was this poorly paced, I do not know if I would want to read it.
Trailers: Gundam 08th Team, The Big O, Cowboy Bebop and Gundam 0080. Nothing new, but I highly recommend Cowboy Bebop.
Final Thoughts: Watching the last volume hurt because at the very end things were looking slightly up for the series overall. Pilot Candidate – The Test still shares too much with other anime and mainstream titles to make a place of its own. It tries to make that place with 3D CGI, but a lot of other anime have done seamless transitions better than the ones presented here. I wish I could like this series, but I simply cannot. This is a rental at best even though it is graphically flawless in its presentation. Skip it.
Pilot Candidate – The Test is the final volume in the anime series. I have no idea if the manga version of this is still going, but it would certainly explain a lot with how we are left so high and dry at the end of this disc with supposedly nothing coming in the future.
That is right...this show has no true ending, much like another Bandai show The Big O which is fortunately being rectified with a second season coming. The problem with this release is that towards the end it is promising so much, but with it being the end we see no true payoff. Episode 9 (the series starts at Episode 0) starts with Zero dreaming that he is in a world that everyone from the Pilot group is in, including the instructor and the repairers. Through his dream he decides that he needs to be a pilot and he will put all of his energy toward reaching that goal. He believes everything about his past, including the reason he cannot see his mother's face when dreaming, will be answered when he becomes a Goddess pilot. Of course the problem is I did not get anything out of his dream about why he would choose this path that he has chosen. Sure, his mom gives him a lesson of the week, but I truly felt nothing here. This was another boring episode.
Then things get good. Episode 10 is where the academy decides to test for the new top candidate now that Erts has taken his brother's place as a Goddess pilot. Hiead, who I am guessing is supposed to be one of the evil pilots, decides he wants to become a Goddess pilot and he will kill every pilot if he has to. Hiead even goes so far as to try to kill one of his co-pilots with his EX power. This is one of the first examples of the EX power, it seems ever pilot has this power and it has different uses. As usual, nothing is explained and we are left to ponder what the heck is happening. Hiead's repairer, Ikuni, decides to sabotage Zero's Pro-Ing so that Hiead can win the spot and he will appreciate her. As it is now he just orders her around and she has no say in things. This turns horribly wrong as Virus starts to attack and the pilots are called to defend Zion and see their first real battle. But Zero is at a disadvantage with his controller being slightly off from his thoughts because of Ikuni's sabotage. Ikuni obviously did not want this.
Then there is the final episode. Basically it is a fight between Virus, the Goddesses and the pilots. Zero's Pro-Ing goes crazy thanks to the sabotage Ikuni did, but he eventually gets things under control and he and Hiead end up using their EX along with the female Goddess pilot to freeze all Virus and destroy the main Virus enemy. Everyone celebrates and the female pilot and some older guy talk about how things will get interesting…and then the show ends. Uh, what?
And that is the problem I have with this series. It leaves you so high and dry that you wish there was more. At the very end things were getting interesting and it looked like some question marks were going to be answered, but instead we have nothing. In some ways they could have eliminated the first 11 episodes and started with the 12th one and kept going. In one of the extras they talk about the manga and I wonder if it is still going on. This is another case along the lines of Trigun that may have been finished before the manga was done. In Trigun the manga's ending probably was better than the anime's, but that is just me. I love Trigun and it is hard to analogize that with this crap.
The DVD
Video: This series was done in 2000. The quality is top notch and I really cannot notch it lower because of that. The jarring changes between 2D and 3D are difficult to handle. Sometimes it is better to use less 3D or make it more seamless than is presented here.
Sound: Presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 and in English and Japanese language. The English track on this disc is bad because of the dubtitle mess. The Japanese language is the better track on this release, although I do not think the subtitles follow the actual words. The music can often overpower the voices in this release and some directionality is used.
Menus: A pretty boring menu with the loud, obnoxious theme song in the background.
Extras: There are some extras on this disc, but they are mostly useless
Voice Acting Academy: Wonderful idea that is poorly implemented. Basically this is a video of "you" going into the room to do voice acting for a scene. They run you through the dialogue for the scene and then you are expected to go through the dialogue. I could see maybe children liking this, but it is so dumb to me. It is really a waste of space in my opinion.
Director's Interview: The interesting thing here is that he says he followed the comic (manga) and made the show feel exciting with the 3D CGI effects and "a great story". My question is where is the good story and how the heck does this show feel exciting with such jarring 3D CGI effects? Maybe I am in the minority here. He goes nothing into how this show just stopped abruptly. If the manga was this poorly paced, I do not know if I would want to read it.
Trailers: Gundam 08th Team, The Big O, Cowboy Bebop and Gundam 0080. Nothing new, but I highly recommend Cowboy Bebop.
Final Thoughts: Watching the last volume hurt because at the very end things were looking slightly up for the series overall. Pilot Candidate – The Test still shares too much with other anime and mainstream titles to make a place of its own. It tries to make that place with 3D CGI, but a lot of other anime have done seamless transitions better than the ones presented here. I wish I could like this series, but I simply cannot. This is a rental at best even though it is graphically flawless in its presentation. Skip it.
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