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| Overall | Art | Animation | Character Design | Music | Series Story | Episode Story | Reviewer | |
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| Watch | 7 | 7 | 6 | 6 | 5 |
 Ggultra2764
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[series:389#1552] | |
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Lily CAT is essentially a mish-mash of different plot elements from a number of American sci-fi movies like Alien and 2001: A Space Odyssey in its focus on a human crew of space explorers who find their shuttle threatened by a mysterious viral strain. Its horror and sci-fi elements are decently explored as there is genuine horror over the virus affecting the crew on the ship and the ramifications of cryogenic sleep and space travel are brought up thanks to the time and distance traveled which affect some of the older crew members' relations with friends and family on Earth. However when it comes to the show's efforts to attempt deeper story telling about connecting with the characters on an individual level, this approach is not so effective since the movie's 67 minute run time limits the amount of time that one can connect with individual characters and Lily CAT quite often relies on exposition to convey its story and character elements in a lazy attempt to try convincing the audience there is more depth to it than what it conveys. If you are into old-school OVAs and movies, Lily CAT would make for a decent rental. However if you are expecting a more fleshed-out sci-fi title, then look elsewhere.
Last updated Sunday, October 26 2014. Created Sunday, October 26 2014. | ||||||||
| Watch | 5 | 6 | 6 | 7 | 5 |
 Midnighter
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[series:389#94] | |
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Not bad enough to warrent an 'avoid' but not good enough to spend money on, this tepid "Alien" clone lurches along on ground tread by better movies before it. The plot revolves around a now familiar scenario involving a ship 20 years from Earth infected with a hostile organism. Naturally, it kills off the crew one by one, hoping to create dramatic intensity. The "Alien" plot points fly fast and furious, including a government android partially responsible for the crew's slaughter, use of flame throwers to fight the alien, and even a ship's computer called Mother. I half expected to hear "This is warrent officer Ripley, last survivor of the Nostromo, signing off" at the end. One of the main problems with Lily CAT is that there is little character development. The crew are just peices of meat that can talk while waiting for death. The audience doesn't even bother to remember their names. The attempt at the main character's back story, about avenging his sister, is heavy handed and ludicrous. The only peice of character development that works was the aging Captain's discussion of the emotional pain of coming out of cryo-sleep to find everybody one knows has grown old or died. Whereas one of "Alien" movies' strong points was the wonderful characterization of Ripley, Lily CAT lacks any character to empathize with or care about, thus destroying any chance of drama. The wooden dub didn't help, although there were a couple decent performances, including the gruff captain. The animation is OK, not bad, not good. The ship design is decent, and the jettisonable sections are a neat concept, but the art is more or less forgettable, lacking any really defining qualities. The character designs are one of the high points, as they were early Yasuomi Umetsu (Kite) work, and it's very interesting to see how his style has evolved and become more polished and unique. Also, the music was quite decent. Overall, if you catch Lily CAT on TV (the Sci-Fi Channel used to air it every now and then) by all means watch it, and fans of the "Alien" movies like myself will want to see it, but all in all, there are better examples of anime that I'd rather watch. 3-5-02 Last updated Tuesday, March 05 2002. Created Tuesday, March 05 2002. | ||||||||
