Review - Freedom not for free

Freedom is one high-class anime, but it certainly is not a bargain. Bandai really shouldn't have chosen to release one episode on one DVD. After all, no one would even want to pay $27 for one episode. Despite this awful choice in marketing, this is a great anime.

The story is set in a lunar colony called Eden, where the remaining humans live after the disastrous pollution of Earth. Takeda is a bored worker on the colony who races his rival, Kazuma, in hovercraft races to pass the time. Despite help from his friends and his engineer, Alan, Takeda loses the race.

Then one day a picture of a girl falls onto the moon's surface. Takeda picks up the photo, which has the message, "Don't worry. We'll meet again soon." The photo looks as if it were taken from Earth. Yet, no matter how hard he tries, the colony administers refuse to let him onto the moon's surface to look at the Earth.

With Alan's lunar rover, Takeda and his friends set out to the side of the moon so that they could see the Earth. They discovered many photos and shells that had fallen from Earth in a lunar crater. And Earth was still blue--the surface was not polluted at all. But the colony officials were not happy--they sent robots to destroy Takeda.

While this series actually is a project to promote Nissin's Cup-of -Noodles, this series looks fantastic. The characters, after all, are designed by Katsuhiro Otomo, the director of "Akira." The series is entirely computer-generated, but the characters still carry the distinct outlines to make them look hand-drawn, unlike the CG-graphic movie "Appleseed." And although there are numerous shots focusing on the Cup-of-Noodles, the series still stands out as a great piece of work.

However, I have no idea whether these DVDs will actually make Bandai a profit in America. At a price of $27 per episode, this series is not a bargain. There are six DVDs in the series, but I would suggest waiting for a collection box of all the DVDs.