Zone of the Enders: 2167 Idolo and Doloris, i

[Haseo-Skaith]

Ok I had found the games this anime is based on, Zone of the Enders, and Zone of the Enders: The Second Runner, at Game Stop and loved them. So I did some searching and found out that there was an anime based off these games, in which I managed to track down a copy of the dubbed anime.

And man I was not disapointed. The first part is an OAV called Z.O.E. 2167 Idolo. This tells the story of the first orbital frame, Idolo, that mars creates to help them rebel against earth. This one was very seriouse. It was manly about the pilot of Idolo and gives an origin of Viola, who is in the first game. Without giving out too much I will say that this ends on a sad note.

The second part was a 26 episode series called Z.O.E. Doloris, i. This one can go from being quite silly to being very seriouse at the drop of a hat. It takes place about 5 years after Idolo and some characters are carried over. We're introduced to James Link, a former earth forces soldier turned space trucker. He gets a container to deliver to earth from someone who even James doesn't even trust. As it turns out the container has an Orbital Frame in it, code named Isis(which is in keeping with the naming the frames after egyption gods). And that frame has a very advanced A.I. called Doloris, and for some reason she keeps calling James Sir Uncle. Doloris can be quite childish, but she also sings a lullaby that James Marshian Wife used to sing.

This series has a lot of interesting characters, especially Deloris and a very interesting story with so many plot twists it makes LOST look like Seseme Street. It tackles issues like racism, family relations, political intruige, love, and hate. It was so good that I even started crying during the last episode. And thats something that never happends with me.

I would recumend this anime to everyone. The dubbing is ecselent and the story is probably one of best I've seen in a long time.

[Haseo-Skaith]

Just thought I'd also mention that the anime also brings up one thing that would be a real problem with colonizing Mars. They refer to it as the Density Difference.

What they are talking about is that Mars has less gravity than Earth has. So people who are born and raised there will have weak bones and less developed mussles than people from Earth. And the reverse is also true that people from earth are considerably stronger on Mars than back on earth. So if a guy from earth and a guy from Mars got into a fight the guy from earth would win easily because he could break the mars guys bones easily. This is probably why Earth government looks down on mars and the root for the prejidus people from earth have against marians in the anime because they see the people on Mars as being weaklings and wouldn't be able to fight back very well.

Other examples of the effects of the low gravity on Mars comes in the form of Sea Weed that are in Mar's oceans are huge. Perhaps 10 times bigger than it would be on earth. Then there's Corn. They show the cobs growing to be as big as a watermellon.

In the Anime they have terraformed Mars to the point where liquid water exists on the serface and the sea weed is used to put oxygen into the air. But it hasn't gotten to the point where you can walk around on Mars without a space suit. So people have to live in domed cityies or in underground compounds.