Pilot Candidate, Volumes 1-4. © Yukiru Sugisaki·WANI BOOKS/Bandai Visual·TCFG Committee. English adaptation © Bandai Visual. All rights reserved.

Pilot Candidate. V.1, The Academy. V.2, Training. V.3, Working Together. V.4, The Test.
TV series (12 episodes), 2000. Director: Mitsuru Hongo. 3 episodes/75 minutes. Price & format: DVD bilingual $24.98. Distributor: Bandai Entertainment.

When this debuted on Japanese TV as The Candidate for Goddess (12 episodes cutely numbered 0 through 11, January 11 through March 27, 2000), it was heralded for its unusually high-quality CGI sequences in the traditional cel-animation TV anime medium, as well as being an anime version of the popular sci-fi manga serial by Yukiru Sugisaki. The CGI work is of almost theatrical quality, and is emphasized in DVD extras with CGI supervisor Shinji Takagi talking about the challenges of working with CGI for a low-budget TV production. This was a co-production of the Production I.G. and Xebec animation studios; presumably the former did the CGI and the latter did the cel work.

Unfortunately, stunning CGI visuals and some imaginative clothing designs are about all that Pilot Candidate has to offer. The 4088 A.D. "space cadet" plot follows Rei "Zero" Enna as he and other mid-teens from various artificial space colonies come together at an interstellar training academy to learn to pilot giant battle robots against living space monsters, which threaten humanity's "holy" last habitable planet. Zero and his dorm-mates become pals (except for the one ruthless kid determined to outscore everybody else); they learn to get along with their tough-but-fatherly instructor; they come to idolize the actual robot pilots who are barely older than they are, and are traumatized when one is killed in battle; they discover that training is tougher than they imagined but they sweat it out; they face the tensions of their first real missions; and so on.

Screenshot from Pilot Candidate. © Yukiru Sugisaki·WANI BOOKS/Bandai Visual·TCFG Committee. English adaptation © Bandai Visual. All rights reserved.

But beyond the cliches, the story is so incoherent as to imply that a lot of background from the original manga story has been left out. Why are all the giant battle robots built in the form of stylized Greco-Roman goddesses like the Statue of Liberty and the Clio Awards statuette; and why can there be no more than five of them? Why can only boys pilot the Goddesses (except that the ace Goddess pilot is a woman; a commented-upon but unexplained exception), while their "repairers" (mechanics) must be girls? Why are the fearsome CGI space monsters called "Victims," and why are humans barred from living on the last planet under their control? The planet is named Zion but it looks exactly like Earth; is this unimaginative art design or is it supposed to signify that Zion is Earth renamed? After his first couple of weeks at the academy, Zero comments offhandedly that he is being kept so busy that he has forgotten what his mother and friends back home look like; it soon becomes clear that he really has forgotten everything about his past. This attention-getting clue that there is something mysterious about him is not followed up. Considering that the final episode ends frustratingly on a cliffhanger, these and other undeveloped plot threads suggest that Pilot Candidate was intended for a much longer series but was aborted early. Bad ratings, or was the budget used up by the CGI work sooner than expected? There are also incongruities that cannot be excused by an unfinished story, such as the far-future culture with strange names such as Hiead Gner and Rioroute Vilgyna, exotic architectural and clothing designs, and references to improved medicine and genetic engineering for better bodies; but the brainy nerds still wear thick glasses and people light their filter-tip cigarettes with Bics. And dig the funky American 1950s beauty-pageant style opening theme music!