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Tita is a cute, energetic 17-year-old with a heart of gold. She's also the captain of the pet-shop hunting ship Cha Cha Maru, a battleship that cruises the Sea of Clouds to capture whale-sized creatures for export to rich collectors offworld. One day while her ship is in port, Tita rescues teenage girl Elysse from a squad of government thugs, placing herself and her crew at the focus of a murderous conspiracy. Evil Lord Guizel has converted the gravitational engine that keeps the port city afloat on the Sea of Clouds into a terrifying weapon--but he needs Elysse's knowledge to activate it. ... It will take all of Tita's courage, together with the power of the Cha Cha Maru and the skill of her gallant crew, to protect Elysse, defeat Guizel, and save the day.

Don't be confused by the title. Plastic Little is an entertaining science-fiction adventure that will appeal to anyone who loved Star Wars but wished that Carrie Fisher and Natalie Portman would wear more revealing costumes. Explosions, gun battles, and chase scenes abound. Occasional bits of slapstick humor and exaggerated facial expressions keep the atmosphere light. The uncomplicated 45-minute story is paced rapidly, but it does take time to cement the friendship between Tita and Elysse and to explain why the adults on the Cha Cha Maru respect the authority of their young captain. There is one outstanding plot weakness, which is Guizel's drive to destroy the port city. No motive is given, and it appears that he is wiping out his own home and livelihood. And why turn the gravity machine into a weapon when the same result could be achieved by just turning it off and letting the colony sink? Viewers unwilling to forgive such oversights should watch something else.

Everyone else is in for a visual treat. The strength of Plastic Little is its art. The mechanical designs are detailed and weird. Tita's motorcycle, with its high handlebars and spiked rear axle, is an extreme-chopper enthusiast's wet dream; another vehicle skims across the clouds on legs like a water-strider's. Guizel is deliciously malevolent, with a build and wardrobe like Darth Vader and the beautiful face of a Noh mask. The Sea of Clouds flows like a gas, but its surface reflects sunlight like water. Sunlight is also used for dramatic effect when the sun is off-camera, with streaks of light across the screen. The character designs are standard for light sci-fi anime, with a few notable exceptions. Only Nichol, pilot of the Cha Cha Maru, has a hair color not found in nature. When shown in profile, the younger characters have snoutlike faces--their noses are nearly horizontal, with their mouths well forward of their eyes. This style was common in early '90s anime, but it may seem dated to modern viewers. The adult characters look more realistic.

A showcase of Plastic Little's art is its bath scene, a helping of fanservice so lovingly presented that it threatens to unbalance the plot. This part of the show is all about breasts. What meticulous attention to anatomic detail! What careful rendering of fluid mechanics! What cunning selection of camera angles! For those tempted to watch the bath scene over and over, the DVD comes with a reversible cover sheet. On the back is an illustration of the girls wearing swimsuits about one molecule thick.

Thankfully, it's not just female bodies that are capably animated in this show. Motion is smooth and professionally executed. In crowd scenes, most of the people move independently. The backgrounds are detailed and interesting. A scene of destruction does an impressive job with collapsing buildings, and portrays billowing clouds of dust comparable in quality (if not duration) to those in the last minutes of Akira. There are a few shortcuts and derivative scenes. Tita races past at least one repeating background, and a "thermal limpet" melts through a metal door in a way that might make a robot from Laputa sue for copyright infringement.

As easy as it is on the eyes, Plastic Little is somewhat less fun for the ears. The voice acting on the dub is mediocre. The voices match the characters well, but Tita sounds inauthentic at times. Other characters have foreign accents that drift in and out. None of those difficulties are evident in the Japanese version, but reading subtitles leaves the viewer less bandwidth for the visuals. An interesting feature of the dub is the use of Russian accents for two of Tita's crewmates, one of whom also reads a Cyrillic newspaper. The dub also adds a few Russian words not heard in the Japanese track. With a few exceptions (such as a dozen guards charging across a metal catwalk sounding like only two) the sound effects are a good complement to the visuals. The incidental music is generic and unobtrusive. The closing theme is forgettable, but the Wagnerian anthem that accompanies the climactic ship battle is brilliant.

In summary, this is by no means a perfect anime. It's shallow, it's dated, it's incompletely developed, and the dub is weak. But if you're looking for a fun, futuristic, action-packed romp with plenty of eye candy and fanservice, you can't do much better than Plastic Little.

A nostalgic favorite--and a strong isekai work from before the genre got overstuffed with titles. Its strongest point is its gorgeous girls. Makoto, the male lead, is unusually brave and capable--much more so than the Ordinary High School Boy (TM) we so frequently see in anime. His friend Nanami is also a refreshingly strong character. Some of the battles, especially Shayla-Shayla versus Ifurita in Episode 4, are amazing to watch. This show has one of the most satisfying endings in all of anime. The English dub is quite good and is my preferred way to watch this. The humor is appreciated but provokes only smiles, ... not laughing out loud. The animation is beginning to look dated.

A classic favorite. Good comedy and action sequences, and of course the joy of seeing Nuku Nuku battling in swimsuits, volleyball shorts, maid dresses, and other revealing outfits. High points include evil henchwomen Arisa and Kyouko, the tech designs (Gainax appears in the credits), and the tension between Ryunosuke's separated parents. Episode 6, with a ride on the Space Shuttle, shows evidence of science homework. The art style is diagnostic of the early 1990s. The animation is lazy in places, with repeating backgrounds and pans across still pictures. I watched the subtitled version in order to enjoy the angelic voice of Megumi Hayashibara as the ... title character.