#240: Starship Troopers (1988)

Studio: Sunrise

Director: Tetsurō Amino

Screenplay: Tsunehisa Ito and Shō Aikawa

Based on the novel by Robert A. Heinlein

Voice Cast: Yasunori Matsumoto as Juan "Johnnie" Rico; Akira Kamiya as Sgt. Charles Zim; Hirotaka Suzuoki as Greg Patterson; Kazuhiko Inoue as Alphard "Kitten" Smith; Masahiro Anzai as Cherenkov; Mika Doi as Captain Yvette Deladrier; Rei Sakuma as Carmencita Ibañez; Saeko Shimazu as Claire; Shingo Hiromori as Sgt. Dunn

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

I think you can sum up why few may know of the first adaptation of Robert A. Heinlein's 1959 sci-fi novel, a six part animated straight-to-video production from the legendary Japanese studio Sunrise no less, from watching what is in some episodes the opening credits animation or the end credits one. It is of Carmencita, the lead female character and love interest for Johnnie Rico, the good old son from New Buenos Aries joining the Mobile Infantry, frolicking on the beach contrasted by a song sung in English called WE CAN MAKE IT by Tsunoda☆Hiro, with her even turning into a seagull at some point between constantly cutting to the avian figure multiple times flying. Nothing perfectly encapsulates Heinlein's tale of Earth protecting itself in the far future from giant insects than an inspiration eighties Japanese lounge song of believing yourself and jump cut transmogrification into another species.

Starship Troopers is a work I really know from Paul Verhoeven's 1997 film adaptation, which you need to take with a pinch of salt as it is the result of the transgressive Dutch filmmaker attempting to read the novel itself, hating it and giving up part of the way through, and the final film reflecting an unfaithful adaptation and a deliberate sabotage of the source's ideals¹. It is an epic which I was allowed to get away with seeing at a much more early age than one probably should, appreciated then as a sci-fi fiction spectacle from the time, and still admired as an adult. When I became an adult too, it was also so visible that a layer of satire, and even loading in fascist readings of the human characters, was there all alone adding to the fun of the film. For me, you cannot hate a film with the line "I'm from Buenos Aires and I say kill them all!", but neither is this a faithful Starship Troopers adaptation, though the straight-to-video sequels attempted to move past the humour. More appropriate for a teenager was Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles (1999-2000), a CGI animated series which, just going from hazy memory, was an ambitious and admirable attempt at a serious sci-fi work, with a continuing narrative and even legitimately dangerous stakes for its cast, one I was glad to also see at this time and I have always wished to return to. Sunrise's adaptation though, even next to Verhoeven's, is weird in that until the sixth episode, you never get a proper moment of Rico, our lead, in the battlefield, whilst most of the show is a science fiction tale of learning to adapt to being in the army, not Starship Troopers' main story.

This is weirder as Starship Troopers presents an important influence on anime. Only seen in the third film in the live action adaptations, 2008's Marauder, the novel includes personal combat suits, giant robots for individuals to pilots, arguably among the earliest in science fiction. Those suits, and how publications of the source novel in Japan had illustrations of them designed, have a legitimate claim to having influenced a certain section of anime science fiction when it came to designs for personal combat suits², which makes Sunrise's decision to adapt the book at this time for them enticing to consider how it could have gone differently. Starship Troopers the anime (not to be confused with Shinji Aramaki's Starship Troopers: Invasion (2012) and Starship Troopers: Traitor of Mars (2017)) is a surprise in how the power suits and combat with the extraterrestrial threat in this adaptation is kept to about a minimum in favour of a story of Rico's progression through the Mobile Infantry to being combat ready, which is an acquired taste for taking up most of this three hour narrative altogether.

It is compelling, mostly because I have had such a low bar of expectation to this mini-series when I first heard of it. It is fascinating as this mix of almost light hearted drama, in which Rico and his band of miscreant fellow soldiers, from one with headphones always on to another obsessed with a nude photo of his older girlfriend he keeps with him, try to survive through the gruelling training with the Mobile Infrantry and try their hardest, only to cut to how Buenos Aires is attacked by the alien menace, leading to loss in Rico's family, or when cast die. The opening and ending songs, also one called BELIEVE by Tsunoda☆Hiro, also include animation set to Rico against the cosmos like a space exploration yearning towards the deep space, which does not suggest the peril of war which the source was about. Even Paul Verhoeven's piss take was, on the surface, an epic science fiction action film full of action that could still be appreciated for that. Able to get away with the gore it had alongside his interest in sexuality and brazen vulgarity, the bug menace in that film could decimate and render a human being into pieces, and the spectacle even with nineties CGI needing to be used is still impressive decades on.

The one sense of threat is in how, deciding against the bug aliens of the novel, these aliens are freakish in a credible way in their anime interpretation. Like crustacean, or something from the bottom of the sea, mixed with living pink bacterium, they are freakish and compelling as a truly alien form, which to travel in space (and even create their "bases" of operations) form together into mass of pink entity and can split off, including latch pieces onto human ships to than attack innocents on Earth. There is, as a result, enough here even as a lower budgeted production to have made this more of an action or intergalactic work, but instead emphasis was placed on the drama. This feels less like a compromise, or that this show was cancelled before it could progress, but a deliberate choice. This choice is going to make the show off-putting for some, simply because most of the 1988 Starship Troopers is a military training drama which, in context of its world and source, is a mistake for only three hours of a work, even if the scenes of contemplation or Rico being back on Earth, even fighting with local ruffians at a bar, were entertaining for me at least if for no one else.

I found it interesting in spite of this, even if details of the show do show a foot forward was not always the best in other areas as well, such as how, whilst the figure who keeps Rico strong, Carmencita was unfortunately drawn with eyes that can burn holes into people even when she is relaxed. Without the dramatic tension this animated work eventually brought in with the vast number of aerial combat scenes still within it too, what this feels like was Sunrise were taking a page from what Area 88 (1985-6) did perfectly, in terms of emphasising the human drama first, but here with the scene that it takes too much of the adaptation, even if I respect what this is as a strange curiosity. This is stranger knowing that half this series, arguably at some of the more interesting moments, is written by Shō Aikawa; infamous at one point for being the man penning the likes of Urotsukidôji to Violence Jack at this point, he became a well regarded screenwriter in the decades after, and he would have been the sort of person who would have cut to the chase and made this a more pulpy and dynamic work, alongside the virtues he showed as a writer in his career, with the sense here that was a choice left off the table.

The turnover between episodes, from October to December 1988³, also sadly suggests that the production was under the gun, undercutting the potential for the elaborate spectacle this adaptation could have provided. But this did not hurt anyone. This was just a script co-written by Shō Aikawa, who was working with Tsunehisa Ito, a prolific writer from anime before this adaptation as well such as Sherlock Hound (1984-5). Director Tetsurō Amino is prolific and would go on to his biggest work with Macross 7 as a franchise; starting with the 1994 TV series, this franchise entry, where music is literally the weapon in its take on the science-fiction and music from the Macross franchise, is one of the largest in quantity of material and did well. Sunrise is, well, Sunrise, prolific and making Gundam and non-Gundam shows and animation to the current day, and Robert A. Heinlein's source text, beyond the Paul Verhoven film, has had other adaptations even into video games. (There are the Shinji Aramaki anime films too, but that is for another day.) Suffice to say, no one lost any sleep about this barring the lost promise of an eighties hand drawn and lavish Starship Troopers adaptation from Sunrise, who were big even then, which is a disappointment. It is not going to cause me to lose sleep when, knowing this was the warning about this show, I came with nothing expectations and found joy here in spite of the creative decisions.

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1) Triple Dutch: Paul Verhoeven’s sci-fi trilogy, written Adam Smith and Owen Williams for Empire Online, published on February 12th 2014.

2) In Pursuit of the Powered Suit: The Class of '83, written by Sean O'Mara for Zimmerit, published on July 14th 2022.

3) Anime New Network's Episode listings for Starship Troopers.