The Irresponsible Captain Tylor: #4 The Rightstuf 150 minutes English/Japanse English Subtitles 03/14/2000

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Sometimes things are better left unsaid. Here's a little bit of trivia for you: The tanooki, pictured left, was purported in the myths to be able to swell its testicles up to a size of approximately 3 x 3 meters and play them like drums. What practical applications this has, aside from the obvious sadomasochistic implications, eludes me and I don't particularly feel better for knowing it. Now, if I remember correctly, the function of the tanooki statute is somewhat similar to the shiwase neko, the cat greeting statue outside many eateries and stores. Only the cat doesn't have giant balls that scrape along the ground. Tylor, gratefully, does not expound on the mystical tanooki and its giantic scrotum like one might expect a Japanese source of entertainment to do. I know, I know, you'd figure an anime would jump on the chance. Being that this is the last six episodes of the show we all love so dearly, it's not surprising that they don't bombard us with images of the t'ain'ts and grundles of whatever fantasy animals might suit their fancy. Bless you Tylor creators. Surely "Filming is Job #1" is not just a saying to you, but it is your mantra, your creed. Thanks for not making it as evident as it could've been, anyway.

Tylor finishes off with about as much as a bang as we possibly could have hoped. While I can admit that the "throw a general at Tylor and have him amazed by his WILD'N'CRAZY TACTICS!" is getting a bit old, but it's not old enough to shoo someone like me away. As deeply entrenched in a show as one gets at episode 21 or 22, I mean, there's probably not a lot that could turn me sour towards it. The human heart is a fickle thing, and there's nothing I can really give to you that would justify my actions. Why do I love this show so when I hate...well, everything else? I don't know, but I think it's because when a chick slaps Tylor, he just gets a red mark on his face instead of blasting off to Jupiter. That's kinda cool. And it only happens once, and for a good reason, and it's delivered by the super sassy Yuriko Star. I mentioned this last time, but if she wants to slap me, that's totally cool. What's even better, though, is that she learns not to slap, which is like, the only time that this has happened in anything even peripherally related to the animated medium. Not only star though, but Yamamoto with his clever lines like "I knew it! No girl could get pregnant in one night!", which is kind of a weird closer to a weird episode...but it's obvious that the space force doesn't sink much of their budget into sex ed courses.

One imagines that, in the case of Tylor, this is just a clever quip about Yamamoto's personality, or the culture of Japan, or the culture of space aliens who live in bioelectric goo. It's one of those, probably, but I'm not really given any impetus to find out. I don't care to discover the really herky-jerky stuff about alien physiology. Let's assume that the weird, redheaded pseudo-bedouins, reproduce like everyone else in a way that totally doesn't involve the use of bioelectric goo. It's a small dream, yes, but an important one. I know that I'm particularly glad no jubblies have to be involved with the making or presentation of this show. It leaves plenty of time for attack robots codenamed after early 90s rappers and a serious amount of philosophy, Tylor style. While the Tylor crew is a little late on the uptake, the whole "Do what thou wilt" having been espoused by Gargantua to Pantagruel about five hundred years ago, the point is no less valid. Follow your heart, whether that involves being a monk who wears a wig, or a communcations expert/model, or even a super angry redheaded alien who everyone loves referring to by their full name, it's okay to be who you are...except if you're fat and eat a lot of chicken. We learned THAT lesson back in the second disc.

Everyone else works things out pretty fine though, and we can only hope that the vile counselor Wang gets his up and comings. Maybe the name was punishment enough, I don't know. With all loose ends tied up and even the stoic Yamamoto showing some signs of fidelity to the beloved captain (yeah, for like the third SURPRISE TIME in the show) it looks like all those fun little loose ends have been tied up. Shows gotta end sometime, right? I'm just glad that those behind Tylor knew that episode 26 was the time to do it, and not episode 52 or episode 78. You'll feel as if a weight has been lefted off of your sohulders with the advent of the last episode, as no Rumiko Takashi-ism is present here, thank god. And Tylor has about as fitting an ending as one could expect from it anyway. It's rare that something can be consistently entertaining as Tylor manages to be. Though it doesn't really bring anything to the table that wasn't shown to us by French critics of the Catholic church, it's something nice and fun to experience all the same. Loveable characters down to the roughnecked marines and lovestruck killer robot nurses. A war show without any significant violence is a rarity, sure, but one that doesn't descend into ass grabbing and other forms of animated debauchery is even less common. Like the tanooki, Tylor is a mythical creature that must be seen to be believed. Fortunately, the seeing involves less testicles than one might expect.