In the distant future, Earth is poised on the brink of war with a race of aliens known as the Raalgon. As the tensions start to boil over, along comes Justy Ueki Tylor, a young man who joins the military hoping to find a cushy office job somewhere and take it easy.Fate has other things in mind for our hero, however: Tylor soon goes to deliver a pension check to the highly respected Admiral Hanner, and ends up accidentally saving him (along with Tsundere love-interest Yuriko Star, and Hanner's cute twin daughters Emi and Yumi) from Raalgon agents posing as anti-war terrorists. His "heroism" gains him a rapid promotion to lieutenant commander and an assignment to captain the destroyer Soyokaze (which translates to "Gentle Breeze").Unbeknownst to Tylor, the Soyokaze is considered a dumping ground for the space fleet, and his frustrated superiors are trying to get rid of him before he causes any more chaos. Unfortunately, this backfires, and Tylor ends up leading his rag-tag crew into a series of victories (much to the chagrin of both his superiors and his subordinates, especially Yuriko and Tylor's straight-man second-in-command Lieutenant Yamamoto), with the fate of the whole war soon ending up in their hands.He also manages to gain attention among the enemy, including the beautiful teenage Empress Azalyn. All the while, both the other characters and the audience are left wondering if Tylor is a lucky nimrod, or a brilliant strategist.Interesting Fact: Captain Tylor's first and second name (Justy Ueki) is a pun on the words 'Just wake', as in "Just Wake Tylor." "Just Lucky" can be derived as well; seems appropriate.
Adaptation Distillation: The TV series apparently, according to the box set liner notes, cleaned up some Kudzu Plot, and got rid of one squick-inducing plot point — apparently the producers weren't keen on the light novels' original depiction of the romance between Tylor and Azalyn, not when Tylor was close to 30 and Azalyn was 10... one of the demands by the producers was that Tylor's age was to be reduced to 20, and Azalyn's was to be increased to 16. This is a textbook example of why Executive Meddling is not always bad.
No, really. This trope is invoked and the tree is actively cultivated by the characters themselves. Summed up nicely by one of the final scenes, where Tylor clumsy tosses a dart behind his back, only to have it hit a dead bullseye.
Armor-Piercing Slap: Subverted. The female characters in this show slap pretty hard, but the reaction is portrayed realistically. It's still painful though.
Bait and Switch: Inverted in the final episode — it looks like a relatively serious ending with the captain leaving,and most of his crew assigned to a brand-new,state-of-the-art cruiser, until they pull... it... off. You will not see it coming.
Bizarre Alien Biology: When Azalyn claims to be pregnant with Tylor's child after sneaking into bed with him in episode 21 "Paco-Paco Junior", she counters the crew's incredulity by invoking this trope. She's lying, of course, but they don't know that...
Born Lucky: About the only aspect of Tylor that both theories on his intelligence agree on. It really comes down to how much does Tylor make his own luck.
Brick Joke: The bomb that Tylor receives early in Episode Three bails them out late in Episode Four—long enough to be forgotten by everyone present, except for Tylor.
Catch Phrase: "Just leave everything to me!" and "Don't worry!"
The Charmer: Tylor, who manages to gain the attention of every woman on his ship and similarly let them down gently (albeit, unintentionally) and also makes an android and a computer AI fall in love with him, despite the fact that neither of them were built with that ability!
It's not just the women. He convinces the chief petty officer to support him for enlisting with the 'I'll pay you back when I hit it big!' line and at the beginning of the next episode flatters someone into holding back against him in a game.
It's not even just human. He somehow charms a computer program into self-destruction by talking to it and blind luck. Maybe.
Cliff Hanger: The OVA, The OVA, The OVA! The Soyokaze is destroyed, the Raalgon Empire is under attack by an unknown third party and Yamamoto of all people is placed in charge of the entire human fleet.) Wanna know what happens next? Too bad! They never made a sequel! If you can find the light novels maybe, maybe you can find out what happens next.
Except the light novels are an entirely different continuity. On the bright side, apparently there's a live action movie being worked on in Japan...and there's a summation in the special features of the deluxe box sets which explains what was meant to happen afterward...
A squadron of maybe three fighters, and a marine detachment of five or six guys plus the dropship pilot.
Truth in Television: Larger ships often do have similar recreational areas for personnel to relax and blow off steam due to the relative isolation. Soyokaze's fighters and marines are analogous to the seaplanes and marines carried by WW 2 destroyers and cruisers.
General Ripper: Admiral Fuji, the most dog-kickingly gung-ho of the UPSF military leadership — he thought firing missiles at a hostage situation involving a war hero was a good idea because he didn't want the UPSF to look weak. His rival Admiral Mifune has moments of this, but is more of a Reasonable Authority Figure.
Guile Hero: Weather or not you believe him to be a Magnificent Bastard, you have to admit he's got a bit of a silver tongue.
Hello Nurse: Harumi. Pretty much the entire crew fakes sick just to be treated by her.
He-Man Woman Hater: Kojiro Sasaki never quite grew out of the Girls Have Cooties stage of childhood. Naturally, this means that the ridiculously cute twins just have to latch on to him from day one onward...
Heroic BSOD: Tylor, surprisingly enough; you'd think he'd be immune to such a thing, but after Admiral Hanner's death, he goes on autopilot for a little while, utterly disinterested in (and walking out on) a ceremony in his honor. It takes him a while to snap out of it, at which point he decides to leave the UPSF. It doesn't stick.
Human Aliens: The Raalgon. Different biochemistry is alluded to, but humans and raalgon can eat the same things and the idea of Azalyn being pregnant via Tylor is not ruled out immediately.
Human Outside, Alien Inside: Invoked. Azalyn claims that she was able to get pregnant merely by sleeping beside Tylor.
Hyperspeed Escape: Subverted. The Soyokaze's engine's barely work well enough to hyperjump normally, much less in a pinch.
Improbable Age: Not quite obvious until you realize that the oldest crew member of the Soyokaze is only 33. The average age of the crew seems to be 19.
Does that factor in Harumi? Frame-step through the eyecatch. It reveals her age to be THREE.
Not really considering she IS an android.
Instant A.I., Just Add Water: Exposure to Tylor leads to android Harumi developing emotions. Not the first time his personality has affected a computer, either.
To be precise, the first time was in the first episode, where he only got into the army/space navy because the testing AI fell in love with him!
And he did both without trying or meaning to. Maybe.
Invincible Incompetent: Nobody can decide if Tylor is an example of this trope, or if he's just that good but prefers to look like it.
Kiss Me, I'm Virtual: The recruitment computer in the first episode ends up confessing her love for Tylor. She's not even supposed to have the ability to even do that!
Meaningful Name: Transliterated into Japanese, Tylor becomes "Taira", which means "calm" or "plain", and is the same Chinese Character as "Grunt/Peon".
Also his first two names, Justy Ueki, is a homophone for the english phrase "Just Lucky."
Inverted with Dom, who isn't. (Though he made a good effort with the whip.)
Any good Dom knows who's in charge at any time. When among his subordinates, he is the very image of control, but with the Empress, he knows exactly where his place is.
The ship name "Soyokaze" literally means "gentle breeze", and seems very out of place in the military. What better place to put all of the Space Force's misfits than a ship with a misfit name?
The Messiah: Tylor. He views Raalgons as people, admires their strength, is understanding of his crew and figures out Harumi is a spy quite early on, yet never does anything about it even when admitting he knew. Treats her better than her own side does, too. Whether he's competent or not, there's no arguing that he's an extremely good person.
Military Brat: Yamamoto remarks that he was raised in a strict military household.
The Mole: Harumi. Though, this is known by the viewers — and likely Tylor — by the midpoint of her introductory episode.
Name's the Same: Pilot Kojiro Sakai shares last names with WWII ace Saburo Sakai. (Their first names mean respectively "2nd son" and "3rd son").
Pointy-Haired Military Boss: The two admirals, Mifune and Fuji. Mifune has a tendency of trying to commit seppuku after every setback, and their arguments always end with them trying to kill each other. (But they really are friends)
Poor Man's Substitute: J. David Brimmer does his best Ron Perlman impression in voicing Yamamoto in the English dub.
The Pornomancer: Tylor not only manages to get every female on the ship to confess their sexual desires for him, and an alien princess to fall for him, but even gets the recruitment computer when he wanted to join the military in the first place to confess her love for him against all logical functions it was built with! See Unwanted Harem below.
Power Trio: Tylor is Id, Yamamoto is Superego, and Yuriko is the ego.
Ramming Always Works: In one episode, the Soyokaze rams clean through a much smaller enemy vessel.
Real Men Wear Pink: Andressen is a Badass who likes nude modeling. Crybornes's mecha is bright pink.
Reassigned to Antarctica: It's strongly suggested that the entire crew of the Soyokaze was put there for that purpose. It happens a couple of times through the series as well.
Reassignment Backfire: Averted, as nothing relevant to the war with the Raalgon occurs until they're on their way back from the demotion sector.
Also played straight with Tyler's assignment to the Soyokaze in the first place: The admirals were hoping her notoriously unruly crew would kill him.
Running Gag: Combined with Shout Out: A guy in the marines has a familiar white hockey mask, and a very familiar name. Every time something gets destroyed unexpectedly, he's immediately blamed. Doesn't help that his Weapon of Choice is a chainsaw.
He's also something of a Woobie too, as it's rarely his fault and seems a bit less... psychotic than the other marines.
In episode 3 of the OVA, an excuse is made that Jason gets sick on Fridays. REALLY sick.
Shout Out: The Soyokaze's shuttle is named Galileo, a name that sticks out in a space force that's in many respects the IJN in space. The Galileo is actually a reference to the shuttle of the same name that appeared several times in Star Trek.
The new power armor in the OVA is named "Newtype", and the jeeps are similar to those in the UC Gundam series.
Strategy Schmategy: The less charitable interpretation of Tylor's antics is that he honestly doesn't know what he's doing, and therefore people can't predict his next action because he doesn't know "The Rules" that everyone else follows implicitly.
Stripperiffic: Azalyn and Shia Has, of which the latter's outfit doesn't seem to actually cover, so much as support, her... assets.
Take a Third Option: Tylor always finds a 3rd option out of a situation, whether it's intentional or not.
10-Minute Retirement: Tylor, after Admiral Hanner's death. Goes hand-in-hand with the Bait and Switch ending, when we're led to believe Yamamoto's reunited the rest of the crew aboard the Aso, until he steps out of the way....
The Thing That Goes Doink: In the second episode in a rooftop garden where Yamamoto is practicing kendo shirtless for his vacation.
Too Spicy for Yog Sothoth: This one deserves a bit more explanation. In one episode, the crew encounters the ghosts of the previous crew of the Soyokaze, who were likewise demoted. They try to do their level best to drive Tylor and Yamamoto to despair and suicide. While they end up driving Yamamoto more-or-less insane, they finally decide Hell would be preferable to spending any more time with Tylor!
Tsundere: Yuriko and arguably Harumi once she starts to figure out what all those emotion things are.
Yuriko is a rare example of a Tsundere whose behavior is due to environment rather than nature or issues; being as much the Straight Man (well, Straight Woman) as Yamamoto, yet lacking his reluctance to physically assault a superior officer, it's only natural she acts the way she does around an irritating, flirtatious goofball like Tylor. She's debatably the healthier one of the two - Yamamoto essentially ends up an addict to tranquilizers and something called a "neuro-cleanser".
He gets over it pretty quick and becomes much more just another of the guys, albeit one of the more high-strung ones.
Admiral Hanner's only ugly because he's really old, though. When he was younger, he was reasonably good looking.
The Unintelligible: Admiral Hanner became this after being admitted to a nursing home where his health started to decline, but Tylor can understand him perfectly.
Unwanted Harem: After being rescued, Tyler manages to AVERT this trope with Emi and Yumi by despairing that telling them "I'm sorry" won't be enough. Of course he appeared to actually ignore their confession completely and was instead voicing his thoughts on another matter entirely. He then manages to reject Bridge Bunny Kim in a similarly obtuse manner entirely. Whether this is him being thick or his sly ingenuity at work is, as with much of the rest of the story, a matter of viewer perspective.
Then played straight with Harumi.
Then subverted for laughs with the arrival of Yuriko. As soon as she arrives, Tylor comments "What, you too!?" and then tells her to ignore it as a private joke.
What Is This Thing You Call Love?: Harumi tries to come to understand what this emotion means, and Azalyn finds herself innocently curious towards Humans.
"Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: Part of the final episode, which shows all of the crew following Tylor's advice before Yamamoto recruits them for the Aso. Of course, it becomes hilariously subverted in one of the most impressive Bait and Switch endings of all time. It has to be seen to be believed.
Wrong Genre Savvy: Yamamoto, like most of the UPSF staff, has the right mindset for a Wooden Ships and Iron Men tale of Japanese-style militarism — and then Tylor makes them look like idiots.
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