Mugen no Ryvius Review

Mugen no Ryvius is a 1999 anime which has been widely described as 'Lord of the flies in space'.

Ryvius is quite unlike anything I've seen before in anime, and is unfortunately a really overlooked series. The initial episodes had me expecting a happy-go-lucky Macross runaway spaceship style experience, where the passengers of the Ryvius hang about having fun in their little city in between battles; this would not be the case. As the months pass, things get really dire, and the ensemble cast combined with the slow pacing of the show really helps to create this atmosphere of paranoia and utter dread. I was skeptical of some of the annoying characters in the cast at first, "Oh great, another Gundam ZZ " I thought. Ryvius makes sure that plenty of them get hurt badly by the end of the series. When the character I found most irritating was being taken away by bullies I thought she'd just be taught a lesson, when she turned and screamed to her friend for help it was truly chilling, brilliant voice acting, and what followed only left another layer of dread and discomfort hanging over the remainder of the series. Do not be deceived, while Ryvius has a sci-fi setting, it is absolutely first and foremost a psychological drama. Do not expect political intrigue in the conventional space opera sense, but instead the politics of a spaceship full of teenagers on the verge of a mental breakdown trying to survive. There is a constant power struggle on the Ryvius, and the attempts to maintain order addresses moral and ethical questions about the use of power to prevent disorder.

Unfortunately, setting-wise, this series is not so smooth. The little focus given to external politics outside of the Ryvius is confusing, with the motivations of the antagonists being seemingly inconsistent, and the lengthy gaps between episodes that feature them only serve to cause more confusion. Likewise, the barrage of sci-fi gobbledygook distracts from, or almost masks the seriousness of certain situations. A throwaway comment made in episode 22 bothered me, as it attributed the actions of teenagers stuck on a spaceship for months not to the trauma and stress of their situation, but to some magical nonsense; this does not come up again luckily. I am still very conflicted about the epilogue given in the final episode, as it somewhat disregards the trauma and betrayal experienced by certain characters, although not completely and does make an effort to non-verbally show as such. These problems I have with Ryvius are what stop it from being more than just a 'good' show.

Despite not recognising many of the seiyuus, the voice acting in Ryvius is remarkable. Moments such as the aforementioned cry for help really moved me despite my previous lack of care for the character. The audio of the eyecatches changed each episode, and I felt some of them were innapropriate and out of place. The opening has to be one of my favourites of all time, a perfect combination of visuals and the song. Interestingly, both the Japanese and English versions of the opening were both done by one singer, Mika Arisaka, due to her bilingual upbringing. Now for the strange bit, I've seen some contention online about the appropriateness of the background music compared to what is happening on screen, I believe this is because, at least on the copy I watched, there are two different audio tracks offered: 2.1, which I used, and 5.1, which seems to move music around, insert tracks where there had been nothing playing previously, and even remove tracks altogether. I can only assume 2.1 is the correct version of the audio, as it was perfectly acceptable and appropriate in my experience. The animation is nothing special, although bear in mind that Ryvius was airing in the twilight years of cel animation, so it is done to a very high standard and has been beautifully remastered. Unfortunately, like other shows of the time, it is plagued by the occasional digipaint scene which sticks out like a sore thumb when compared to the remastered cel animation. Thankfully these digipaint scenes are brief and surprisingly become less common as the show goes on, meaning no scenes of major importance are impacted.

I recommend Ryvius to anyone who hasn't had their attention span rotted away by flashy 12 episode seasonals and can appreciate a slower paced story. I once again strongly advise that one approaches Ryvius as a psychological drama first and foremost, and a sci-fi with mecha and battles second, otherwise I think it is bound to end in disappointment. Despite my slight disapproval of the epilogue, it could not take away the enjoyment of watching the actual drama unfold for the 25 preceding episodes.