"Every generation has a legend."

"Every journey has a first step."

"Every saga has a beginning."

Okay, I know this isn't a George Lucas flick. However, when I watched these videos, I had feeling similar to when I went to see THE PHANTOM MENACE. Actually, I had a better feeling watching MAETEL LEGEND since there were no pod races or comedic camels on crack in this series. I got to see a totally serious account of the origins of the GALAXY EXPRESS 999 saga based on stories and characters by Matsumoto Leiji.

The story takes place on the planet La Metale (last seen in QUEEN MILLENIA), which is now drifting aimlessly toward a never-ending ice age. Its ruler, Queen Promescium, is being advised by her assistant Hard Gear to take special treatments that will ensure her immortality. Her daughters Maetel and Emeraldas are skeptical, but Promescium undergoes the process.

Soon, the glowing queen orders all the population to submit to the process of fully mechanizing the planet. The people are loaded into the machines and become unwilling components of the electric empire as their souls are stripped away. (Very reminiscent of the life-force stealing operation in ADIEU GE 999.) Others are pressed into the metallic army. Seeing what's happening to the people and the painful metamorphosis their mother is enduring, Maetel and Emeraldas elect not to participate and they seek ways to stop the program. However, Hard Gear and his newly-created machine men don't seem to understand the word "no" very well.

MAETEL LEGEND is a good two-part series, though it probably would've functioned better as a single movie. The animation is pretty standard mid-1990s OVA quality (without the CGI of other recent Matsumoto-related works). Most action sequences play out pretty decently, and wide angle and close-ups are used intermittently.

What caught me about ML was the character designs. Something kept throwing me off every time I looked at Maetel and Emeraldas. I knew they were meant to be young ladies at this point (about late teens or early twenties), but they seemed different. Finally, it dawned on me: their eyes. For once, these characters have wide eyes full of hope and energy, instead of the tired & cynical natures I've been so used to seeing on them in the past. This gave me a new dynamic to enjoy in these characters, as the series felt like Matsumoto's answer to the DIRTY PAIR at times (though they aren't quite that destructive.)

All in all, while not a super good work, MAETEL LEGEND does provide a good starting point for newer fans of Matsumoto lore, and it provides veteran viewers solid insight to two of anime's most established characters. I enjoyed learning about these people and I hope someday a U.S. company decides to import these videos so others can learn as well.