Irresponsible Captain Tylor: still fun after all these years

Some friends of mine sent me Tylor for Christmas, and what a great present he makes.  The remastered edition is really quite gorgeous.  It doesn't look its age at all.  That made this time through a lot more fun than the first couple back in the days of nauseating frame jitter.  Tylor's enough fun that I put up with the frame jitter twice.  The music was the only thing that occasionally dated this military screwball sci-fi space comedy.

If you don't know of the show, it was based on a series of light novels that will probably never see the light of day in English.  More's the pity; although the TV series and OVAs do a pretty good job of telling a story that feels completish. 

Tylor is a character we meet on the street.  In the background plays a recruitment add for the military.  He decides to join up because he wants an easy life.  Then he proceeds to lazily bumble his way to sort of saving the universe in his own special way, driving nearly everyone around him crazy en route.

I don't think I'd call him an antihero.  He seems more akin to an idiot savant, actually.  The jury is never unanimous on how much is planning and how much is unconscious genius or pure, dumb luck.  I think the novels might go a little more in depth because the liner notes included in the discs sketch out a biography for Tylor that indicates more than a little bit is genius.  One episode that goes into his mind seems to indicate that he is certainly not as dumb and happy-go-lucky as he pretends to be by default.

The dub often sounds like it was recorded in a tiled bathroom, but darn it if I don't still like Yamamoto the first mate's awesomely straight-laced performance.  Crispin Freeman is most impressive as Tylor, especially if you've only ever heard him in dark/broody/baritone/bass sexy roles like Fuma in X, or in Witch Hunter Robin or Wolf's Rain or any of the million other similar roles he's played because he is darned good at them, too. 

 Overall, it was a fun ride this time through with the crew of the Soyokaze, one I'd recommend to you if you need a few more laughs in your life.