Black Heaven/Kachou Ouji is one of the best shows that no one seems to know about. A 13 episode series from 1999 about Ouji, a guy who used to be a guitarist in a rock band before giving it up to get married, start a career, and have a family. Years later he’s a stressed, unfulfilled section chief at a nondescript company in Tokyo with a hyperactive kid and an insensitive wife, neither of whom seem to pay much attention to him. But someone is paying attention, as aliens happen to find out that his music is the key to activating an ultimate weapon to fight off their vastly numerically superior enemy. That’s the premise and Black Heaven uses it to its fullest to bring the viewer plenty of interesting themes, BURNING PASSION for music, and some slapstick comedy to wash it down with. It’s FLCL for the post-college crowd. Interested? Well read on as I tell you why more people should watch this.
Like FLCL which I just compared it to, the guitars and rock music and aliens are just the badass vehicles through which Black Heaven delivers its characters and themes. And while I can’t personally connect to a lot of them at my age and point in life, they have such genuine feeling behind them that even I can appreciate them. Ouji’s feeling of being trapped in a mundane life, trying to convince himself that he doesn’t want or deserve extraordinary things at the beginning of the show sets the tone. And then when Layla Yuki, an alien officer that has set herself up as a new hire in his office, encourages him and gives him a chance to play again he returns to his past dreams. But this show wouldn’t be worth me trying to sell you on it here if it was that simple. He’s also very attracted to Yuki at first sight, and especially when she pays attention to him and encourages his music when no one else in his life does. Throughout the series there’s that tension and conflict within him between Yuki and his wife Yokko, and the worlds they represent. But that’s just the start.
I fell in love at first sight too.
Without going into spoilers, later on Ouji’s dream of playing music interacts with other aspects of his life. Sometimes positively, sometimes negatively, and sometimes varying at different points in the story. Trying to connect with and come to terms with his family is one way, and there’s also the matter of his old bandmates and what’s become of them since. Again like FLCL, it’s got a lot of heavy stuff under the facade of guitars saving the world and mischievous aliens. But in this case it’s not about coming of age (at least in the classic sense), it’s about trying to come to terms with early-middle point in time where people are just beginning to start their families and careers. It’s almost like a sci-fi Solanin but set 5 to 10 years later in the characters’ lives. And to make sure that it’s not too heavy, there’s a good amount of humor and slapstick comedy delivered primarily by Kotoko, Eriko, and Rinko, a trio of aliens sent to observe and aid Ouji but who mostly stand out rather than blend in.
The three comic relief stooges.
For as much as I was blown away by the show, I do have to acknowledge its weaknesses. It seems like it was made on a low-ish budget, so for the space battles there is a lot of reused sequences and shots. But the creators did choose the right places for cost cutting. This isn’t Legend of the Galactic Heroes or Banner of the Stars where the battles and their details are important. Black Heaven is about Ouji and his struggle to embrace, integrate, or reject his passion for music in his life, and by extension whether to do the same with the other elements of his life that compliment or are in opposition to that passion. And the show does this excellently. And also of note is that it’s backed up by a great soundtrack, in both the rock music and the background music.
Ginga no hate made!
So if the themes and the rock music sound interesting to you then I would heartily recommend giving Black Heaven a try. There are subs out there as well as a DVD released by the now-defunct Pioneer entertainment group, with a dub of the series too, if you’re into that sort of thing (I took a momentary look at it and Ouji is voiced by the guy who did Jet in the dub of Cowboy Bebop so it has at least one good VA.) Whatever your preferred media format, Black Heaven is well worth your time.
36 Comments
Congratulations. Normally when people talk about the best show nobody knows, it’s usually something most people know but don’t talk about anymore. However this is a show I’ve genuinely never heard of before, something that hasn’t happened to me in a long time.
So yah, to-watch list it is now on
Hehe, I wouldn’t throw down the words “nobody seems to know about” if I wasn’t sure that they were true. I only heard about it in passing reference to an AMV when I was talking to the guy who ran the Gundam panel at Tekkoshocon, and when no one I mentioned it to had ever heard of it I knew that I needed to put it out there for more people to give it a try.
I have this, will watch after the ridiculously awesome Hataraki Man.
From your earlier tweet today it sounds like Hataraki Man has a terribly downer ending that has spoiled you on other social disillusionment themes, lol. Which means that I must at least try Hataraki Man. But don’t let another series color your perceptions for Black Heaven, I think that it’s a series that you should especially love given your other interests.
Yeah I need to take a break first and watch me some robots smashing each other or something. I’m still unable to write about Hataraki Man, because it just killed me.
Will watch this soon, too! Been listening to Cautionary Warning for a while and loving it~
Definitely a fun song, I’d love to get the soundtrack but I can’t seem to find it anywhere. For the BGM as well, I really liked a lot of that.
…That’s the premise and Black Heaven uses it to its fullest to bring the viewer plenty of interesting themes, BURNING PASSION for music, and some slapstick comedy to wash it down with. It’s FLCL for the post-college crowd. Interested?
- Hell yeah! With a premise like that, how can I not check it out? Lol. I hadn’t heard of it either, so thanks for the tip, EO!
No problem, I’m glad to see another person giving it a try
Very interesting review for an anime I’ve never heard of! Well done, will definitely check it out.
Yes! Glad to see you giving it a try, it’s obscure but definitely deserves more exposure. Hope you like it!
it is in AMV Code MOnkey
That’s where I had first heard about it actually.
Instead of FLCL, a better comparison would be to Beck. Beck’s about a kid trying to live his dream of being a musician while Black Heaven’s about a middle aged dude that’s lived that dream and desperately wants to relive it by any means necessary. And both series play up their music knowledge, albeit they tackle rock music from different angles (Beck was about the genre in general while Black Heaven focused on arena rock.). Those two series should work well together if you viewed them back to back– seeing the dream realized and seeing the years after that dream is long past its time.
I saw the series back when Pioneer/Geneon first released it on DVD way back when. It didn’t quite resonate with me at the time, but now that I’m a
littlegood bit older I can relate with Oji quite a bit in wanting to recapture certain things while realizing it isn’t really possible to do so.The only bad thing I can say about the series is the fact that they overuse the band’s main song. It was cool at first, but after you hear it at least once each episode during important scenes, it started to grate on me.
True, Cautionary Warning was over used, but it made the finale that much better by comparison. Still like it, though.
(Saw it back when it was first released by pioneer.)
Haven’t seen much of Beck, I remember dropping it back when it aired. Not because it was bad, but because it seemed like the music was more the focus than any themes and I’m not really a musically inclined person. But maybe I should give it another try someday, people keep mentioning how good it was.
The song was used a lot, probably also a budgetary issue, but I liked it so much that it never really got old for me. And as Onion commented, it made the final use of Ouji’s new song that much more significant.
That’s odd. I’d like to say I’m musically inclined (15 years playing bass, does that count?) and I felt that Beck wasn’t about the music enough. But I still dropped it in the same way with that in respect to the music aspect, it was lacking to me. If you’re going to give it another watch, don’t watch it for the music.
And.. WOW! Someone blogged about Black Heaven. I saw it once, and never again, even after looking for it everywhere locally for a physical copy for ages. Maybe I should just break down and order it online..
This definitely sounds interesting. Now I just have to thin out my to watch list a little…
Ah, the ever growing to-watch list. I actually had this lower down on my priorities until I mentioned it to Ghostlightning a few days ago and then talking about it kick-started my interest in watching it. It’s definitely a good sign if a series, even a 13 episode one, can compel me to watch all of it within a few days.
Sounds interesting (Lacking for a different/better word). Won’t take up too much of my time since it’s only 13 episodes long. For the art, so far so good, looks polished even for a series produced in 1999/2000.
The art I didn’t think was all that detailed, but maybe that’s just my modern standards talking. But it achieved what it needed to and the character designs were great. Give it a try, it’s a really fun series with a lot of depth and heart to it.
I know i downloaded this once before but it’s not in my anime folder. Downloading again~
Hmm, I cant believe its been years since this show came out. The first thing i thought when I saw it
was that if it was like some kind of spiritual successor to FLCL, only to know it wasnt made by Gainax. Funny thing is I thought FLCL was something for the college/post-college crowd. Nevertheless, this show was very wierd and didnt get much of the story (prolly cause i was like 10 when i saw it)
Thanks for reminding me of this show. I might just go look it up and rewatch it. Maybe ill understand it a little better. (although I do remember enjoying the music A LOT!)
FLCL definitely still resonates with me (a graduate student) and always will, I suspect. But I describe Black Heaven as I do because it directly addresses some of the issues that may face people a little older and/or a little farther along in life than myself. As with your going back to rewatch it later, I think I’ll have to watch through it again in five or ten years.
Never heard of it, but I’ll be sure to check it out! But my “Plan to watch” list is already absurdly long =.=;
Series tend to pile up there, don’t they? Get to it when you can, it’ll probably go quickly for you, it’s one of those shows that draws you in and makes you watch several episodes at once.
I am so watching this as soon as a certain “baka” site comes back up, I think you guys may have crashed it giving everyone a new show to watch.
Lol, hopefully not! And there are other sites you can use as well. Glad to see another reader giving it a try
I remember seeing a AMV that used this anime’s footage a few years back, but will definitely have to see it now.
Yeah, that’s how I originally found it, then checked what show the clips were from and went from there. Definitely the best find via AMV I’ve come across.
Loved this series. Was lucky enough to catch it on cable a few years ago.
Nice, I had no idea it was ever on TV, but I wouldn’t be surprised since a lot of Pioneer’s stuff made it to On-Demand sorts of services.
Just finished watching the entire series on your recommendation. I totally wanted to cry for him and esp his wife. I couldn’t help but look at it from the wife’s perspective and the fear she had of him having an affair. I was let down a bit at the end, but it made me question my own shortcomings. Thanks for the rec.
Glad you enjoyed it! I ended up not being very sympathetic to his wife though. Early on she was nice for a moment when she bought him the pink guitar, but other than that it seemed to me like she just hated on him for having a hobby and having fun. Yeah, there was the worry that she could have reasonably had about an affair, but at least from my point of view it seemed like that wasn’t even the focus of her anger.
For whatever reason she just appeared to want to crush his dream instead of trying to be understanding and encouraging, or at least be neutral about it and understand that he needed something in his life other than work and his daily home life. And not even talking about it with him definitely didn’t help things. And for his part he definitely tried to engage Yokko in his life outside of home, but she always shut him down. Despite my very high and strict standards when it comes to fidelity, I almost couldn’t blame him if he had an affair in that situation given how unbearable it seemed. But I guess my standards are also pretty high when it comes to communication and understanding accommodation in relationships too. I’m also looking at this from a male perspective as well, which may color my perception.
Wow, it’s been awhile since I’ve seen this. Man, the last episode of the series was just so, so a reverse of what I thought was going to happen. It’s like asking Ranka and Sheryl to perform death metal instead of J-pop in the end of Macross Frontier….
Interesting. I thought it ended about as I expected, though the final moment between Ouji and Yuki wasn’t something I expected. Trying to dance around the spoilers here, but I guess I was expecting more or less out of that moment instead of the in-between that did happen. But the finale was so much fun, the Macross Frontier comparison is definitely apt.
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[...] Jan 2011The Legend of Black Heaven is almost the greatest anime I have ever seenFirst, credit to EO for directing me to this anime in the first place. It may have taken me 6 months before I finally got around to watching the thing, but it was [...]