Anime, Reviews

Pilot Candidate: Quick Thoughts

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I first saw Pilot Candidate in Animax when I was still in my adolescence. Actually, I didn’t know the anime as “Pilot Candidate” but as “Candidate for Goddess” instead. Dunno why there was some changes in the title but all I know I actually liked this anime when I was young. Let’s see if the young version of me had a good taste.

Type: TV
Episodes: 12
Status: Finished Airing
Aired: Jan 20, 2000 to Mar 27, 2000
Premiered: Winter 2000
Studios: Xebec
Source: Manga
Genres: Action, Mecha, Military, Sci-Fi, Space
Duration: 24 min. per ep.
Rating: PG-13 – Teens 13 or older
Synopsis: In the future humankind has expanded and colonized other planets. Then an alien species, Victim, attacks the human colonies leaving only one planet, Zion. In an effort to stop Victim from destroying the last planet a training school, GOA, is set up to gather boys from the Zion colonies and train them to become pilots of the Ingrids AKA The Goddesses, five fighting robots that protect Zion. The boys must possess a rare blood type, EO, as well as a special ability, or EX. Zero (Candidate 88) has just arrived in GOA when he falls into the cockpit of the Ingrid Eeva-Leena. Since the synch between pilot and Ingrid are very sensitive everyone believes the Goddess will kill Zero in an attempt to synch. Just before Zero passes out he makes a full synch with the Goddess. Before he can find out more about the incident, his pilot training begins. (MAL)

Pilot Candidate was, in some ways, a good anime with a bad adaptation. I can totally tell from the premise and the direction the story was going that this anime would be really good. It’s just been held back by bad writing and bad storytelling. The story is definitely interesting, but there’s too much plot holes to even appreciate it. I’m definitely not a fan of the dialogues, it made the characters look worse than they already are. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate the characters, they are alright. But with a bad script, its kinda hard to like them.

I think the only redeeming factors of the anime would be the amazing soundtrack and the animation. For a 2000 anime, the quality of the music and animation of the anime were really really good. It’s been awhile since I had seen an anime with a full blown music and no singer OP. Then ED was cute too. But the best thing would be the soundtrack. It added alot of good and tense atmophere to the anime. I especially liked the music played during the fight scenes, its really intense. While for the art & animation, it was really good. The designs of the characters were really good too. Even the CG of the mecha and the villains looked slicked for an old show. It definitely made my watching alot better.

Overall, this anime was not that bad. It had huge potential but crashed cuz of the bad writing. I recently discovered that its source material is a manga, I might check that one out. Maybe it might answer some of the plotholes of the anime.

As a recommendation, I don’t think so. It’s not really worth someone’s time, but if you are interested, feel free to watch it. 🙂

That is all.
Thanks for reading!

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