"The Amaterasu's greatest weapon is its audience."
-Sinon Kouzuki
During the shakedown cruise of the Guard Ship Amaterasu, the Henrietta Alliance of Planetary Nations suddenly declared war on the Planetary Nation of Kibi. The government, seeking peace, immediately surrendered and the entire crew was ordered to leave the ship. Conveniently all the officers on the ship except one went on ahead. The remaining crew (All cadets and one officer) decide to declare war on the Henrietta Alliance of Planetary Nations using the justification that they are a government-in-exile.
Problem is, they have no funds, so they make a deal with Galaxy Network: The Galaxy Network gets to use their ship's struggle to reclaim their home as a reality show; in exchange the Galaxy Network will fund the government-in-exile's rebellion.
A 2005 anime adapted from (most of) the light novel by Ryo Mizuno, creator of Record of Lodoss War and Rune Soldier Louie, that is a rather hard science fiction. It aired in Japan via TV Tokyo from January 5 to March 30, 2005.
This show provides examples of:
- Anyone Can Die - And how. In fact, if you didn't see them have more than 5 lines of dialogue, and they suddenly get some character development, chances are good they're going to bite the dust. Some major characters also get killed, however, so it's hard to predict which people will die.
- Artistic License – Medicine - Coupled with creepy Fanservice when Renna dies. They discharge the defibrillator directly into her nipples, from the look of it.
- Badass Normal - Alley is the only member of the Amateras who has not received genetic enhancements, making her more susceptible to cosmic radiation. She's also one of the more battle-hardy members of the ship's crew.
- Bilingual Bonus - In episode 7, the piece of calligraphy that Captain Wong of the Shu lead ship Shenlong was viewing is actually the Chinese poem "Chunwang", or Spring View, written by famed Tang poet Du Fu, and its content about the desolation brought about by a coup d'état that a people was facing mirrored the situation Captain Wong and his nation, an Expy of China in this series, were undergoing.
- Bittersweet Ending - Turns out that the Earth Federation used the Amaterasu as an excuse to launch an invasion to takeover planets not already under their control. And they planned on destroying the Amaterasu and its crew in order to hide their true motives. But although the ship is destroyed, the remaining crew save for one person escapes and sends the attack on a live broadcast, showing the Earth Federation acting under less than pure motives, which no doubt is going to give them public backlash.
- The Bridge - 3 bridges in fact, and they are all cramped.
- Bridge Bunnies - Most of the action is set in the Amaterasu, and the producer deliberately got most of the female crew to be on the Primary Bridge, excepting The Captain.
- Colour-Coded for Your Convenience - The main cast's role on the ship is indicated by the uniform color much like a Real Life military would do.
- Cool Ship - The Amaterasu. Helps that it's crewed by relatively talented, albeit young and inexperienced, crew. And the fact that it is the most advanced ship shown in the series.
- Dialogue Reversal - Dita, the correspondent onboard the Amaterasu, used the same words the producer Peter had used when he implied that he was forewarned about a surprise raid on the Amaterasu by Henrietta, after the Amaterasu succeeded in its gambit to destroy four Henrietta warships and Peter inquired her about it.
- Does This Remind You of Anything? - The Earth Federation fleet is pretty much a thinly disguised United Nations, they even have "UN" written in big white letters on their ground vehicles.
- Energy Weapon - Done right, since laser travels at light speed, you can't dodge it, and you don't see it until it hits the target.
- The Federation - Earth Federation, but its plan later might make it not quite good.
- Guile Hero: Sinon comes up with some pretty outlandish ideas for fighting the Kingdom's ships, from using warp to cause an opposing attack ship to vanish from existence to taking advantage of gravitational disturbances to attack multiple ships in quick succession.
- Heroic Sacrifice - Peter overpowers his captors and infiltrate the TV station to get back to his studio and reopen the Starship Channel and reestablish communication with Dita to show what Earth Federation has done, knowing that he will die in the process. Also, Yuuki decide to stay on the ship and manually pilots it into the Earth Federation fleet for self-destruct to work properly, but it might be the case of Redemption Equals Death since he starts the whole fight against Henrietta plan in the first place, and the plan blew up in his face.
- Idiot Ball - Kouki inexplicably picks this up so he can die a pointless death and give Shinon another moment of Survivor Guilt.
- La Résistance - The cadets on the Amaterasu refuse to abandon their ship, nor do they want to give in despite their home planet/government giving up without a fight.
- Limited Animation - The creators use the zero-g environments inside the ship to float a character's single frame instead of walking.
- One-Hit Kill - Most of the ships the Amaterasu faces off against are prone to this. However, they attack pragmatically and often hit what could be a weak spot on the enemy ships. They never really duke it out with the enemy ships due to either being outnumbered, or in one case, being unable to detect the ship.
- Only a Flesh Wound - Averted: With the exception of the last episode, the end result of every battle is the complete destruction of ships that take fire, with the loss of all hands. People, too, all die whenever fighting breaks out.
- Played straight with the Amaterasu itself. No railgun or laser seemed to inflict any serious damage until the last episodes.
- Plasma Cannon - The Amaterasu's main weapon. Surprisingly it has a longer range than their laser.
- Redemption Equals Death
- Happens to Yuuki Shimei, the technical officer, who was originally the person to incite the ship takeover in the first place. He stays onboard the ship at the end to steer it towards the Earth Federation ships, in an act of Taking You with Me.
- Peter, who is shot dead by Federation soldiers as he reconnects the Amateras' live broadcast.
- Short-Range Long-Range Weapon - Averted. The range of fighting in the anime is really far.
- Space Friction - Averted. Ships have maximum acceleration, but not speed.
- Space Is an Ocean - When blown up, a ship is "sunk", and a stealth ship is referred to as a "submarine". Also, the ships have a complement of torpedoes. Wouldn't missiles make more sense?
- Space Is Cold - Completely averted. The Shu Guard Ship Shenlong and the Conquistador are destroyed by multiple pulse laser attacks that didn't produce any damage but heated the hull beyond the point where the heat could be radiated.
- Space Is Noisy - Subverted: In the outer space shots, we can hear a ship's engines, active thrusters, etc. However, in-universe it's acknowledged that sound doesn't travel through space. In the Show Within a Show, sounds were added by the studio.
- Space Cossacks: The crew of the Amaterasu was a bunch of space cadets on a training exercise when its homeworld was conquered. So they started a guerrilla war funded by filming their fights for a reality show.
- Spell My Name With An S - The Amateras(u). It's usually pronounced without the u and the name is written as such on computer screens in the background.
- Starship Luxurious - Averted with most ships, including the Amaterasu. Played straight, but justified with the Conquistador later in the series: the new chairman of the kingdom wants to turn it into a show of force flagship and tells captain Elroy she will make sure the ship is refit to "VIP standards", exclaiming that it will be "one hell of a comfortable ship". Of what little we get to see of the bridge, though, little is changed. It's possible that all the new luxuries were concentrated on the crew section, which makes sense.
- Stealth in Space - The space "submarine" that challenges the Amaterasu moves by initial speed before the jump, and runs with most systems off to reduce emission, making it nearly impossible to detect. It's finally found by the good old "looking out of the window" trick. But note that they used up almost their entire missile ammunition in storage to generate enough back lighting to see the stealth ship.
- Subspace Ansible - News broadcasts are instantaneous—somehow. Notable given the relatively hard science of the rest of the series.
- Taking You with Me - What Yuuki plans to do to the Earth Federation fleet after they learn about the Earth's true motives for "helping" out.
- Theme Naming - All the ships are named after something tied to their culture. Henrietta's ships are named after places in battles from European history, for example.
- We Will Not Use Photoshop in the Future - Averted. Photorealistic, computer-generated models of Amaterasu crew members starring in home shopping channel advertisements abound. The ending also features a complete faked newscast.
- Xanatos Gambit - Yuuki plans the whole ship buying thing, with the goal to gain sympathy with other factions to get them, or at least Earth Federation, to attack Henrietta Alliance. It works, but also backfires. There's benefit even though it didn't work perfectly.
