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+============================
+ Welcome to the Space Show!
+============================
+:CreationDate: 2012-09-23 19:40:04
+:Id: anime/review/space-show
+:tags: - anime
+       - review
+:rating: 3.5
+:original: http://www.easternkicks.com/reviews/welcome-to-the-space-show
+
+I really liked this movie while I was watching it. It's got likable
+characters, adventure, wonder, friendship, aliens, monsters. It relies
+on tried and safe tropes, with just that bit of originality needed to
+avoid being boring. The target audience is quite probably a bit below
+"14 years old", but the movie is still pleasantly watchable by
+adults. Unless, that is, you actually start thinking about what's
+going on. And, unfortunately, I tend to think about it :)
+
+Let's start with the story: in a village in the middle of the Japanese
+countryside, five young children, aged between 7 and 12, are having
+their summer camp in the empty school building: they're alone for a
+week, they've got food, homework, sleeping bags, and woods to play
+in. What they don't have is the pet rabbit that Natsuki lost in the
+woods weeks (days?) before. Amane is pretty angry about this, so they
+go back into the woods to search for the rabbit. What they find,
+instead, is a injured dog. They bring it to the school, clean and
+bandage it. They get a big surprise when the dog starts talking,
+revealing he's an alien called Pochi,, thanks them for saving his
+life, and offers them a trip to the Moon. And not only the visible
+side, but the far side, where a thriving spaceport awaits them. This
+"short" trip sees the group deal with a blockade of Earth-bound
+traffic, interstellar smuggler, aliens of all shapes and sizes, police
+operations, and the Space Show, the most popular broadcast
+entertainment across several galaxies.
+
+Of course there's a happy ending, nobody gets seriously hurt, and the
+movie closes with uplifting thoughts for the children's future. What's
+not to like? The animation is beautiful; the aliens are well varied,
+not all of them are humanoid; the architecture and technology are just
+unusual enough to feel extra-terrestrial but still be recognisable;
+the human children have their nice story arcs, they grow while
+maintaining their personalities. The good guys get rewarded, the bad
+guys get arrested.
+
+And yet, and yet. There are several problematic aspects to this
+movie. (Spoilers ahead! Stop reading now if you don't want to know
+details of the story!)
+
+Let's start with the depiction of the aliens: good guys look nice, bad
+guys look ugly. This trope has been around since ancient Greek
+tragedies, but it's particularly jarring when you can shape your
+characters any way you want, and still choose to play it "safe". Oh,
+and why, while the males "space dogs" look exactly like dogs (Natsuki
+even checks under Pochi's tail!), their females are taller, never walk
+on four legs, and have human-style breasts??
+
+Then, Pochi. He seems to be a researcher of some kind, but he also has
+an energy armour and works for some kind of law enforcement. He's also
+a University professor in Archaeology. He's got more connections and
+tricks up his sleeves than Indiana Jones (who, now that I think about
+it, did get his name from a dog…). He's a standard larger-than-life
+good guy, whose motivations are never very clear, but after all it
+does not matter much because he's fighting the good fight. So, even
+accepting that he's the least well rounded of the main characters, I
+can't wrap my head around the scene near the end, when he essentially
+confesses that he's in love with Amane. Now, keep in mind that Pochi,
+although young, can't be much younger than a human-equivalent late
+twenties: University professor, field researcher, et cetera. Amane
+is 7. I can understand her point of view: he's a nice doggy. But what
+is *he* thinking??
+
+Finally, although all the children, as I wrote above, gain experience
+and grow, there is a striking difference between the boys (Kouji wants
+to become an astronaut, or at least an astronomer, Kiyoshi wants to
+become a doctor) and the girls (Natsuki is more sure of herself, and
+will treat Amane better). Even if Natsuki is responsible for most of
+the positive outcomes of their adventures, and one of the main
+"villains" is a (dog) woman, the whole story seems to paint the boys
+in a better light.
+
+To give credit where it's due, the movie has a lot of nice little
+touches: the immigration controls, with age-dependent questioning; the
+"passports" which provide universal translation and also seem to
+instruct the artificial gravity generators to provide the correct
+amount of force; the scientifically sound doubts of the space
+enthusiast Kouji ("How can you broadcast live across interstellar
+distances?") not being brushed aside, but answered in a way that
+implies "yes, you're right, but it works; it would take too long to
+explain it properly, but rest assured that there is a sensible
+explanation".
+
+All in all, a very well executed average story, with some problematic
+and contradictory aspects that, nonetheless, don't detract too much
+from the enjoyment.