The Daily Davis

Friends of mine should remember at some point of time a discussion with me where I sing the praises of Seikai, or, as it is better known in America as Crest of the Stars or Banner of the Stars. I first experienced Crest of the Stars back when TechTV was still TechTV. The channel had an anime block, and though I was out of my anime-phase of adolescence, something about Crest of the Stars really hooked me. For those who haven’t experienced the anime, manga, or novels, I will summarize the basic idea, courtesy of Wikipedia:

Crest of the Stars and Banner of the Stars (series I and II) follow Jinto Lynn, a young count whose world is taken over by the space-dwelling race of the Abh. When Jinto was a young boy, his father, Rock Lynn, under threat of invasion, handed over their world, Martine, to the Abh in exchange for a position within Abh society. Young Jinto is sent off to school to learn the ways of Abh nobility and the story of Crest of the Stars picks up as he meets the young Abh princess, Lafiel as they are about to travel to military school for Jinto’s further training.

However, in the midst of their travels, Lafiel and Jinto (along with the Abh ship Gothlauth, aka Gosroth) find themselves at the very beginnings of a war between the Abh Empire and the Four Nations Alliance of humankind—an anti-Abh alliance of the democratic nations of the United Mankind, the Federation of Hania, the Republic of Greater Alcont, and the People’s Sovereign Union of Planets.

That covers the first series, which the author of the original novels, Hiroyuki Morioka, did not consider the primary story.

The typical first impression I expect people to have after a first watch-through of the anime is “Wow. That’s slow”. Admittedly, Crest of the Stars does indeed feel slow for a space opera. Action is minimal and comes between long stretches of dialogue and character development. The show is definitely a space-opera, but with a very hard sci-fi backbone. As an action-fan, I was a bit surprised how taken I was by a minimal action sci-fi epic. I hope that speaks for the quality of the non-action elements.

Well, since seeing the show, and reading about the original novels, I’ve had a desire to one day spearhead a live-action adaptation of the series. Ideally, I would wanted to write and direct a film adaptation. I find myself oten thinking about the challenges in adapting such a layered and complex universe to fill a film, and I’ve devised some solutions. My hope is that one day, I might be able to tackle this project.

I could speak endlessly on why I love the series so much, or about how excited I am about shipping the English-translation of the first 3 books in the series (the rest have yet to be translated),  but that may be a post for another time. I really want to see Crest of the Stars brought over theatrically for American audiences. I only wish I knew the best place to start.