Another Anime: Oban Star Racers

This monring, I was browsing TV channels when I found an anime among the morning cartoons (which are generally child-oriented politically correct crap: Kim Possible is the most enjoyable of the lot...).

However, this anime looked good and recent - it blends 3D graphics and 2D drawings and animation is great. I avidly watched the whole episode - the first in the series, luckily - and was left with a urge to know more about the series.

Some Internet investigation yelded the needed results: the series is Oban Star-Racers, a fresh (2006) franco-japanese production which has gained many positive reviews.

A striking feature of this series is character design: noses in anime are notoriously small and flat, but Oban (I know it is also a whisky, and a fine one at that) just dispenses of noses entirely. The characters are not drawn very realistically, but their behaviour is definitely human.

There are elements of this anime that remind me of some other show (or shows) that I saw as a child, but none I can pin down. Eva, the main character, has something in common with Nausicaa - but she's not a ripoff.

Eva, her estranged father, a champion of aircraft races and a couple of mechanics are called to compete in a pan-galactic race against teams from the whole galaxy, and the first episode ends with them being carried away in the mysterious Avatar's spaceship.

And I can't wait for the next episodes: a good reason to get up early.

Update: Second espisode, and I'm hooked. I go through the empty day and night only to watch another episode of Oban Star-Racers. Well, not quite but I'm almost there...