#molly spring

So, Molly won the Great Race of Oban, giving her the right to become the next Avatar.

But she doesn’t WANT to be Avatar, and argues that her friend Prince Aikka should be the right man for the job. So she runs away from her crowning that would have made her the most powerful creature in the universe to find Aikka.

BIG MISTAKE!

By declining to be Avatar, she left Oban a very vulnerable place after the current Avater lost his powers due to the end of his 10000 year reign. And with no god-like creature to keep him in check... Canaletto is free to wreck havoc.

Canaletto has been mentioned a few times through the series, but we do not get to learn what he truly is until the three-part finale of the series.

Canaletto is a dark and powerful wizard. And he was Avatar 20000 years ago. A very merciless one who had a fixation of making the universe pure by destroying planets and races he thought did not fit into his image of a balanced universe. Chances are that had he stayed Avatar longer than the 10000 years his reign was suppose to last, he would most likely have destroyed all life in the universe for the sake of “balance”. And that’s the thing; Canaletto did not wish to give up his position as Avatar, he wanted to regain the title, and the new Avatar named Satis had to fight the dark wizard and lock him away in the Avatar’s temple to prevent him from doing any more harm. Losing his powers, Satis realized that he could not fight Canaletto in his weakened state, and instead destroyed the Pyramid of Power, the object that bestow you the powers of the Avatar, so that Canaletto could not use it to once more become master of the universe. Fleeing from the angry Canaletto, Satis manage to find our heroes and, before he dies, tells them that there is another pyramid hidden away in a temple that Molly(accompanied by Aikka and Jordan) has to find it so she can become Avatar before Canaletto tracks it down.

I love the series, but the finale was more or less standard final confrontation-ish. Heck we even learn that Canaletto was the one who killed Maya Wei by using his dark magic to make her ship crash, all in order to shape Molly into the pilot who would win the race since Molly would be the only one who would willingly decline the offer to become Avatar so that Canaletto could get his chance of being Avatar once more. This felt... I don’t know, kinda meh to me, and it also felt like it downplayed Molly and all her hard work and effort to win the race. YEAH, I KNOW, Canaletto only pushed Molly and gave her a motivation to win the race by killing her mother, but... still.

What is NOT meh-ish or standard-ish is Jordan’s great sacrifice.

Poor, loyal Jordan. A nature-born sidekick. Never considered that he could be more than someone who helped others achieve greatness.

When Molly was being tortured by Canaletto to help him get the power from the pyramid to become Avatar again, Jordan claimed the power for himself. Jordan became the new Avatar and defeated Canaletto once and for all.

What is so great about “Oban Star Racers” is how not-perfect the ending is. Not everything is hunkydory.

First of all, Jordan became the Avatar. An all-powerful being and master of the universe. But that also means that he can never go home. Jordan had to give up everything, and he won’t even get to know if Molly loved him the same way he loved her. Well, Molly could tell him, but it wouldn’t really matter, heck it could even make it worse. Sure, he puts on a brave face when he says goodbye to Molly and tells her that he will be fine, but he sheds a tear when he watches his friends from Earth go home to Earth without him.

So, Molly and the Earth team returns to Earth that is no longer being threatened by the Crogs. Jordan used his powers as the Avatar to disarm all the Earth and Crog warships, meaning that the was between the two races didn’t even start. Unable to do anything, the Crogs went home. Instead of telling the truth to the people of Earth, the government informed everyone that both sides had disarmed voluntarily. So when the Earth team set foot on the planet, they are met by soldiers, and instead of being praised as the heroes who saved the planet, they are informed to keep their mouths shut by the government. Not only is this a dick-move by the government, but it also means that Earth will never know about the Great Race of Oban and will be unprepared 10000 years later for the next race.

Molly... or rather Eva, that’s her real name after all... doesn’t get the traditional happy ending an animated series hero gets. She just gets one that is good enough.

She couldn’t bring back her mother from the death in order to fix her damaged family. But she decides to forgive her father and they become a family again. Eva still has to attend school, a nicer one closer to home, but still... you know... school. Rather tame when you consider that we are talking about the young girl who won an intergalactic race. But she IS still just a teenager, she has to get her education.

Not what she had hoped for, but even though much has happened, Eva and her dad has one very important thing in common: they loved Eva’s mother very much and they can mourn and remember her together.

And that was the ending of the series. Next time, I will give you my overall thoughts of the show.

Number 5: Rick Thunderbolt.

Even though we only see him race twice, we get that Rick is a great pilot if for no other reason because of the raw self-confidence he radiates. And I don’t mean in a douchy way, but in a knowing-you-are-great-because-you-ARE-great way without being arrogant. This makes it that much more tragic when his nerves becomes so damaged that he can’t race anymore after someone sabotaged his ship. But instead of having himself a little pity party, Rick decided to find out who sabotaged his ship, both so he could get some sort of closure but also to make sure no one would do the same to his replacement.

Unlike most of the characters during the beginning of the show, Rick didn’t see Molly as an annoyance or liability. He recognized right away that Molly had talent and made her feel appreciated and seen.

Rick was quite possible the most important character in season 1 after he became Molly’s coach and essentially the backbone of the Earth team. His experience with racing made him the perfect coach for Molly, making her go from being a good pilot to an EXCELLENT pilot. And most importantly, he actually believed in her, he didn't treat Molly like a poor replacement, but as the pilot who could win the race for Earth.

But he also reminded Don that his short temper was what resulting in Don firing Rick despite him being his champion racer and that Molly needed him to trust her instead of criticizing her all the time. Because of Rick, the Earth team became a strong unit instead of a bunch of people who were either yelling at each other or worrying who to listen to. The open communication made the Earth team successful.

Number 4: Spirit.

Shapeshifters are a dime a dozen in the sci-fi genre, but Spirit is still something special. Instead of just having a fluid body, he has one that is made to fold out like an accordion and then expand. There is something ominous about him without it being hammered in, giving him the subtle appearance of a villain until we realize that he is misunderstood. Also, the fact that he is his own ship in the Great Race of Oban is just fricking cool.

Number 3: Maya Wei.

We have come a long way with the portraile of women in TV, but it still feels like motherhood is too often a defining strength.

But in Oban Star Racers, Maya Wei is a badass who just so happen to be a mother as well. 

Maya was a champion racer who had an aura of confidence and courage and her husband and manager Don didn’t feel emasculated by her risk-taking living and celebrity status while he happily managing behind the scenes. He worried himself sick when she made stunts or participated in intense races, but he never made it her problem or told her to be a “better parent”. He was just so damn proud of his badass wife and championship racer queen.

When she died, NO ONE thought it was her fault. She wasn’t a bad mother because she was a race pilot, it was just dang tragic what happened to her.

Maya’s character design is a good mix, making her look like a badass but also as a loving character. It is not always easy to make someone radiate kindness and strength at the same time.

Number 2: Don Wei.

Don was one of the characters I grew to like more as I grew older.

He is a jerk, but then again... he kinda have to be one. As a race-manager, it is not his job to be liked, he just have to lead and make the show go on as best as possible. Especially in a contest like the Great Race of Oban where he serves his birth planet. And even though he is strict when it comes to Molly, it is essentially because he takes his responsibility seriously. He is an adult and Molly’s boss, her safety is his concern. And he is right: In any other scenarios, Molly SHOULDN’T be the one who raced for Earth in the Great Race of Oban, she is practically a child.

What is most interesting about him is how he tackles PTSD... poorly.

Don lost his wife when she died in a car crash during a race and he NEVER thought it was her fault, not even a little. He only blamed himself since he was her manager, meaning he was to blame for her being in that race to begin with. He was so devastated that he became self-destructive. And even though we can all agree that ditching your little daughter in a boarding school was just plain wrong, we can at least understand that he thought he did the right thing(he didn’t) as he worried that he could somehow harm her. It took him five years of wandered around aimlessly like a homeless man before he rebuild himself as a race manager. But even though he rise from the ashes and became successful again, he was still crippled as a human being as he STILL didn't face his daughter since he believed he killed her mother and was not worthy of seeing her again. But he decided to forget his family and “move on”, which only resulted in him being a dick to his new champion racer, straining his relationship to him and then eventually fired him. Don carried a little wooden box throughout the series that has a lock on it. Inside the box is the only picture he owns of himself and his family. He carried the box because the picture was important to him, yet he refused to open the box, since that would mean that he had to face his past. Don is probably one of the best written traumatized characters in animation.

Number 1: Ondai.

We have seen several robot characters in the sci-fi genre. Most of them are cold and calculative, usually very stiff and not very human-like.

Ondai is a fresh breath of air to the genre.

Ondai believes himself to be above organic lifeforms, but he is not evil. He is just smug as hell:) He brags and is sarcastic, but he is not the typical kill-all-humans machines. He is also very passionate, especially when it comes to mathematical calculations of probabilities and he can sometimes be in so much awe of possibilities and statistics that he forgets everything around him.

So, there is one of the contestants in the race called Sul.

To call Sul a magician is like calling Louis Armstrong a guy who owned a trumpet. Sul is so powerful that he has become a master of space, time, and even the course of destiny. Because he is in the race and has won first place in all the races except for one, he has no many points that it is barely a contest.

This is why Prince Aikka(under orders from Kross) forms a secret alliance with Ondai, Ning and Skun. They are rivals and all want the Ultimate Price for themselves, but Sul is there common enemy. As long as he is in the race, they have no chance of winning. So the four of them agrees to hurt Sul so badly during the next race that he won’t be able to finish the competition.

Our hero Molly learns about this conspiracy, and decides to warn Sul. But it is not exactly gratitude she is met with. Sul is just kinda annoyed, telling Molly that she is wasting his time and it doesn’t matter. He would in fact welcome a “surprise attack” since the race is getting dull for the magician. He even belittles Molly for warning him since it makes no sense as SHE as well has everything to gain if Aikka and his temporarily allies takes Sul out of the race. Out of curiosity, Molly asks Sul why he want to win the Ultimate Prize.

Sul’s answer is... that he doesn’t. He has no interest in being granted a wish by the all-powerful Avatar. Sul is so powerful that there is nothing left for him to wish for, he is simply in the race because winning the Great Race of Oban is something he has not done yet.

And this pisses off Molly beyond believe. And with good reason.

Every single racer who competes in the Great Race of Oban has each their reason to compete, each their reason to want a wish from the god-like Avatar. In theory, it doesn’t matter what they wish for or if it is something good or bad, what matters is the willpower that drives them to get what they want. They are all giving it their all to win the race. EXCEPT for Sul.

Sul is a being so powerful that he doesn’t HAVE to make an effort to win the race. And he doesn’t even want to win the Ultimate Prize, he just competes because he thought; “Eh, why not? It’s something to do.” He is robbing the others of the prize of a lifetime for no good reason.

This makes him, if you ask me, the most unlikable turd in all of animation.

Molly has a goal and reason to race: To ask the Avatar to bring her dead mother Maya back. So knowing that Sul is the god-like dick he is, she decides that it is not her problem once she notices the other racers going the wrong way during the next race, probably to assault Sul. A smart move, since she for once has a chance to get some more points and get a fighting chance of winning the damn race.

But the thing about Molly is that she is essentially a good person. She is not a saint, but she has a sense of honor and she won’t win at any cost, such as ignoring others playing dirty. So she ends up turning her ship around to stop Aikka and his accomplices in hurting Sul.

But Sul is a alien Doctor Manhattan, so he is fine. Aikka and the other racers who attacked him got the stuffing kicked out of them and Sul doesn’t even have a scratch. Unfazed, he flies with ridiculously high speed, catches up and leads the race.

And then he disappears.

Yeah... anticlimactic.

 The reason to why he disappears?

Canaletto.

Who is Canaletto?

Well, he is someone powerful enough to own the powerful Sul. And someone who has a great interest in the Great Race of Oban, and Sul being in the race is apparently a problem for Canaletto since Sul’s magic is powerful enough to alter destiny, something that interferes with Canaletto’s plans for the race.

So he makes Sul disappear.

The other pilots doesn’t know what happened to Sul besides that he is gone. But they are sure of two things:

Good news is that now that Sul is... gone, to put it mildly, everyone who anticipate in the race has a chance of winning the competition.

Bad news is that there is something on Oban powerful enough to make a demigod like Sul go away.

With four victories, Molly is one of the six pilots who made it to the semi-finals of the great race of Oban. In the semi-finals, each pilot has to compete against each other in individual races and then one more against the first racer they faced in the semi-finals. So six races in total. The three pilots with most wins then makes it to the finals that takes place on Oban, the home planet of the all-powerful Avatar.

But the Earth team gets a rotten start, being defeated by the Grog pilot Toros.

What is especially is frustrating is the fact that the Earth team didn’t make mistakes, they did extremely well, actually. Molly’s piloting skills was without faults. Toros was just tougher and had a much better ship that was faster and powerful enough to cut through the Earth ship like a knife through hot butter.

The worst part is not so much that Earth lost one of their six races, but the fact that the ship’s hyperdrive got completely destroyed. The ship can be fixed, but they can’t replace the hyperdrive with the resources they have at the moment.

The second race is an disaster as well, and in that case, it’s everyone on the Earth team’s fault. Molly has made a friendship with one of the other pilots, prince Aikka of the planet Nourasia. His “ship” is a gigantic beetle named G'dar. G'dar is fast and nimble, but he is organic, so the damages he receives can’t be fixed like the ones on an artificial vertical. Molly can relate to a degree since her ship is fragile, so they make a deal not to use weapons against each other when they compete.

The problem is that it is not her call to make. Sure, she is right, it is for the best since the prince has a magical bow and arrow much more powerful than the weapons the Earth ship has, but Molly’s partner Jordan who control the guns has no reason to trust him, and Don Wei has strict orders to win no matter what, so it is “logical” to attack Aikka before he can take them down. So Molly goes behind her team’s back and lock the weapons. She would have won the race if the weapons hadn’t been unlocked again, making Aikka believe he had been betrayed so he shot the Earth ship and won the race.

See, this points out the biggest problem with the Earth team: They don’t trust each other. It doesn’t matter who is right and wrong here, what matters is that they don’t work together that well since they keep bickering with each other.

Don realizes that Molly won’t listen to him, and that he doesn’t know how to talk to a teenager who won’t be impressed by his fierce temper. So he get’s Rick(the pilot who should have been the pilot for Earth until he ended up with nerve damage) to help him do something about the team.

Rick Thunderbolt was probably my favorite character in the show. He became the back bone of the team. His experience with racing makes him the perfect coach for Molly, making her go from being a good pilot to an EXCELLENT pilot. And most importantly, he actually believes in her, he doesn’t treat Molly like a fifth wheel, but as the pilot who can win the race for Earth.

But he also reminds Don that his short temper was what resulting in Don firing Rick despite him being his champion racer and that Molly needs him to trust her instead of criticizing her all the time. Because of Rick, the Earth team becomes a unit instead of a bunch of people who are either yelling at each other or worrying who to listen to. The open communication is what makes Molly win the next two races.

So, Earth has lost two of their six races, then won two of them. Next time, we will talk about the last two.

Before we talk about episode 4 to 6, did I mention that the opening to the show is kick-ass awesome?

Sure, it is a standard anime op, but a really GOOD standard one.

Anyway, let’s talk some more about Oban Star Racers.

As I mentioned last time, Don Wei decided to take the Earth team out of the Great Race of Oban, despite Molly being around to fly the ship. As a teenager, I thought that was a dick move, and so did Molly. But as an adult now, I can understand that Don is just doing his job. He is a leader, he is not meant to be liked, only to make the tough calls. And he is right, it is a terrible idea to let a young woman who is still practically a child compete in such a dangerous race. It doesn’t mater what she wants, Don is an adult and her boss, he is responsible for her. And, as we will soon learn, he already has one dead pilot on his conscience.

But Don has to answer to the Earth president who reminds him that being part of the race is what keeps their planet under the all-powerful Avatar’s protection, and that the Crogs are ready to attack as soon as the Earth team is out of the contest. So it doesn’t matter how old Molly is, she HAS to race.

But what is Molly doing, still believing that she is not allowed to be part of the great race of Oban?

She is drowning her frustrations in alien booze.

No kidding. A fifteen year old teenager in an animated show on a kids channel is trying to get drunk in a shady bar.

DUDE.

The bartender is even all “You had enough” with her telling him to mind his own damn business.

Luckily, she doesn't get wasted since she get’s to compete in the race anyway.

She was suppose to be a temporarily replacement until Rick Thunderbolt could return as the Earth team’s pilot, but Rick’s nerve system has become so damaged that whenever he experience too much stress, his arms shacks like crazy and his vision blurs. A huge tragedy on every level, especially since racing is Rick’s life.

But being the only pilot doesn’t mean that Don has to like it. In fact, he makes sure to remind Molly that if he had it his way, they would go home right away since he believes she is a disaster waiting to happen.

But since this is a series about racing, let’s talk about the actual racing.

The Earth team are a classic underdog in this show. They most likely have the most agile ship of all the racers, but it is also quite fragile compared to their alien competition. And that is not a good thing in a race where anything goes as long as you don’t actually kill the other racers. The different aliens Molly competes with have each their own unique ship, and they all have quirks and advanced weaponry ready to take her down. All she has is Jordan, her partner who control the ship’s laser guns that are precise but nothing else, really. So Molly has to rely on the ship’s speed and her reflexes. It’s like a ballerina who does her darn best to evade getting hit by a wrecking ball. Sure, she is agile, but all the wrecking ball has to do is get a clear hit ONCE!

What makes the show especially good are the different ships each pilot uses. My favorite is probably the one owned by Ceres, a creature that looks like something from an Inca temple. His ship is practically a gigantic tuning fork that floats because of some unknown form of planetary magnetism. When Ceres strikes his pole against it, it creates extremely devastating ultrasound waves. He could use this force to reflect enemy attacks back at them and also used a flute to create hallucinations.

The competition gets even more intense once we learn what the “Ultimate Prize” that is promised to the winner actually is. As I stated before, the Avatar who hosts the race is a god-like being who controls time and space, nothing is impossible for him. So it is quite a prize when the Avatar promises to grant the winner their deepest desire, no matter what it is. This makes it that more important for Molly to win the race, since her deepest desire is to bring her dead mother back.

Despite Don’s low expectations, Molly wins four races in a row, making it to the semi-finals. More of that next time.

Gather around, children, and let me tell you about a simpler time. A time where people rented DVDs. A time where we actually bought our stuff in local stores. A time where sunglasses were still somewhat kinda cool, I guess. A time where we still watched TV on the tube and didn’t just use it for our game console.

The year 2006.