Outlaw Star

So I started watching Outlaw Star, I'm liking it, especially since I went to school with people who kept telling me how Firefly was so original.

What weirds me out is, there's Taoist Mages that somehow have superpowers from the Tao.

Normally this would go into the "white people complaining about how Voodoo is depicted file" but as of two months ago, I changed my Facebook profile's "Religion" part to Taoism from "Other". It's a big deal in young person terms. One of the boldest public statements one can make these days.

So I was left baffled as to where in the Penguin Classics translation of Lao Tzu was the part where it taught you how to summon energy dragons to smash warships that explode in outer space. That said, there's some bizarre superpowers alluded to in the non-Penguin translation I have on my Kindle which goes into both non-Lao Tzu sources and Chinese mythology, so I could be wrong.

Until then I'm as weirded out by this plot premise as I would be if I saw an anime where Rastafarians got superpowers from smoking weed. And I know most of you would watch that anyway, but yeah. Outlaw Star so far is pretty rad, but it's weird seeing an obscure religion I as of now belong to depicted as Jedi Expys in an anime.

I wouldn't take it very literally. It basically falls under Religion is Magic. I know some things about Taoism, but I'm no expert. I always just saw the magic as a Chinese form of sorcery.

That aside, Outlaw Star, as you can see from my usernamer, is my favorite anime of all time ever. I think probably the best all around episode is the one with the bomb threat, "Final Countdown."

Aisha's my favorite character, and Gene is a really cool main lead. Jim is an awesome kid sidekick, and Suzuka is badass. Melfina isn't a fighter, but she is a good character. In fact, just about every character in this show is awesome, especially Hilda. Plus it's narrated by Jet Black. It may not seem like it at first, but this anime has a lot of strong female characters, and I think that's one reason I like it so much. Melfina my not fit everyone's definition of strong as the female lead, but just about every other lady in the series is just plain cool.

Taoism is a fair bit more complex than that. It's not just the philosophical system of Lao Tzu. The standard term to differentiate is "Religious Daoism". Which is arguably the most common kind of people actually practice. (although the "magical" aspects of religiou daoism mostly seems to be concerned with alchemy and reaching immortality, rather than summoning space dragons)

nice old show.It reminds me how sad I was that Suzuka's japanese voice-actress passed away this year.