Categories
Anime First Impressions

Queen Millennia – Anime First Impressions!

Queen Millennia 01.jpgQueen Millennia 02.jpgQueen Millennia 03.jpgQueen Millennia 04.jpgQueen Millennia 05.jpgQueen Millennia 06.jpgQueen Millennia 07.jpgQueen Millennia 08.jpgQueen Millennia 09.jpg

While perusing the torrents at Tokyotoshokan, I came across the first episode of an anime called "Queen Millennia." Not quite knowing what it was, I decided to go ahead and download it. It turns out that Queen Millennia is an old-school anime that came out in 1981, before I was even born! Not one to waste already used bandwidth, I decided to check it out anyway.

Queen Millennia 01.jpgQueen Millennia 02.jpgQueen Millennia 03.jpgQueen Millennia 04.jpgQueen Millennia 05.jpgQueen Millennia 06.jpgQueen Millennia 07.jpgQueen Millennia 08.jpgQueen Millennia 09.jpg

While perusing the torrents at Tokyotoshokan, I came across the first episode of an anime called "Queen Millennia." Not quite knowing what it was, I decided to go ahead and download it. It turns out that Queen Millennia is an old-school anime that came out in 1981, before I was even born! Not one to waste already used bandwidth, I decided to check it out anyway.

Queen Millennia 10.jpgQueen Millennia 11.jpgQueen Millennia 12.jpgQueen Millennia 13.jpgQueen Millennia 14.jpgQueen Millennia 15.jpgQueen Millennia 16.jpgQueen Millennia 17.jpgQueen Millennia 18.jpg

I’m not really sure what the story is for Queen Millennia. The first episode sets everything up but doesn’t really explain anything. Basically, there’s a 10th "nemesis" planet that crosses paths with the Earth every 1000 years. If it stays on course, it’ll hit the earth on 9-9-99 at 9:09:09! Talk about accurate! The first episode takes place in March of 1999, so imminent destruction is only 6 months away (or about 7 years ago for us)!

Queen Millennia 19.jpgQueen Millennia 20.jpgQueen Millennia 21.jpgQueen Millennia 22.jpgQueen Millennia 23.jpgQueen Millennia 24.jpgQueen Millennia 25.jpgQueen Millennia 26.jpgQueen Millennia 27.jpg

For main characters, it looks like we have Hajime and ramen store girl. Hajime is an annoying kid who seems to have eyes where his forehead should be. A few other male characters suffer from this phenomenon as well. This is by far this anime’s greatest shortcoming. The characters literally look deformed! Okay, so you could say this about all anime (what with the big eyes and weird noses and whatnot), but it’s really distracting!

Ramen store girl has got it goin’ on! She sorta has the Uma Thurman in Kill Bill look going for her. She also seems to have her face stuck in the same expression throughout the first episode. She reminds me of that girl in that one flash animation.

There’s also a trench coat guy that looks like Michael Jackson. Wait a minute! Maybe this anime predicted in 1981 what Michael Jackson would look like in 1999! Spooky!

The animation quality actually looks pretty good for something done in the early 80s. I think this must have been a DVD rip or something.

Queen Millennia 28.jpgQueen Millennia 29.jpgQueen Millennia 30.jpgQueen Millennia 31.jpgQueen Millennia 32.jpgQueen Millennia 33.jpgQueen Millennia 34.jpgQueen Millennia 35.jpgQueen Millennia 36.jpg

The OP and Ed sound… well… old. They are from the 1980s after all. They’re pretty cool, in that retro kind of way.

Overall, Queen Millennia is okay. I’m not going to try to judge it against the anime of today. The story looks like it could be interesting, and ramen store girl is hot! Unfortunately, the whole forehead eyes thing just gives me the creeps. Let’s see if Live-Evil continues to sub this classic anime.

Queen Millennia 37.jpgQueen Millennia 38.jpgQueen Millennia 39.jpgQueen Millennia 40.jpgQueen Millennia 41.jpgQueen Millennia 42.jpgQueen Millennia 43.jpgQueen Millennia 44.jpgQueen Millennia 45.jpg

10 replies on “Queen Millennia – Anime First Impressions!”

this is an amazing anime series the story is really good the music everything i see this anime when i have 7 years old and i try to found again butt is really dificult just i can say is really good and if you have oportunity for see the movie do it is good

HI!! You are such a lucky guy , Ive been trying to get that anime by dvd or torrent but its so hard to get the complete season (only season to be correct) .
I also watch it when I was 6 and since that moment I love it . You should try to get the other 41 episodes and if you get those , notify me please .

[…] As far as the character designs go, they work fairly well. The robot and the crazy scientist are really annoying, but I think they’re supposed to be. There’s also Nova, who looks exactly like the girl from Queen Millennia and Galaxy Railways and a ton of other retro anime. Can anyone explain to me why this character design pops up so frequently? […]

What you have discovered is THE BEST anime series ever created. To bad nobody knows about Queen Milenia in the U.S. I think 1981 was a time when americans had some kind of “japanese-phobia”.
“La reina de los mil anos” was the original title in spanish, it was a HUGE succes in asia and latin america. Ask any latino guy-girl over 28 “do you remember la reina de los mil anos?” and expect the answer to be “YES, I do”. I recomend you to get the whole series you will not regret it. trust me.

Absolutely! La Reina is the best anime ever, impressive animation and story. Matsumoto at his best from the golden age of true anime.
Hurra! Hurra! Vuelo, Vuelo!!!

Yeah, sadly, a lot of people forgot about this jewel of anime. It’s such a great anime once you get use to it, a wonderful example of old-school storytelling. Glad you found it. I also made a review about it.

This anime just rules! It is a real masterpiece. It has a story, nice graphics, symbolics, lyrics. The emotional dialogs, human relationship, friendiship, all is embedded in this art of a cartoon.

Now it even seems one can download it on Internet.

Oh, you didn’t need to say that you were born after this anime was aired. It would’ve been understood just by the sheer ignorance of your poor review.
You are talking about the anime that many people consider the very best one that has ever existed. Yet, with almost no knowledge about the subject, you treat it as “just one old anime more”.
You didn’t even care enough to research it’s author. We are talking about Leiji Matsumoto here, one of the best mangakas ever born. One of the few that can share the Olimpus of manga / anime creators together with Osamu Tezuka, Hayao Miyazaki (to name the best known ones) and a few more. A man whose work you should not disrespect at all.

Okay, you’ve seen only the first episode. How long have you been watching anime? Two weeks? Seemingly you still didn’t grasp the knowledge that many old anime with an excellent storytelling behind it takes it’s time to develope.
The deformed guys is a common feature in Matsumoto’s works. You could have known it after only a 15 minutes research.

On another note, how could you even have attempted to imply that this is nothing compared to modern anime? How so can’t you compare it with the shows we watch nowadays? Would it make Queen Millennia “no that okay”? This anime is far, far better than most of contemporary anime.
The drawing itself advanced a lot compared to that time, of course; although thanks mostly to technology advances. But the animation? Old anime features camera movements that you rarely see nowadays. It’s eerie to watch the background rotate nowadays, unless there’s a considerable budget behind the anime in question.

I’ve read your Yamato review as well. You state that you made “research” for that review. And you weren’t even able to write the serie’s author? What does “research” mean to you? 10 seconds in Google? It would’ve only taken going to google, typing “Queen Millennia Anime News Network” (without the quotes) and scrolling down to the place were the creators are.
You ask why do the characters in Yamato look like the characters in Queen Millennia. How DENSE can you be? Even if you weren’t willing to make REAL research… did the thought that maybe, just maybe, the author is the same, never came to your mind?
In both of your reviews I noticed that the people commenting them know far more about anime than you do. That should be embarassing.
Your age is no excuse. Most of the old Matsumoto’s work were done before I was born as well; I know many people who love his works in the same situation.
Furthermore, Matsumoto’s work and Gundam are the very reason that the otaku phenomena started in Japan. Once again, don’t disrespect the work of this man. Well, his old stuff anyway; in the late 90s and this decade he has done more bad than good. At least if you compare his recent work (neither excellent nor awful) with his classic work (manga and anime masterpieces).

I could go on and on, but anyway… The only thing I respect about you is that you are willing to watch older anime; not many anime fans are nowadays. But you are still far too green to do anime reviews, at least (or mostly) about classic anime. Whenever you talk about the past, you must understand how things worked at that time.
And the MOST IMPORTANT THING: be sure that the translation you have is an accurate one. In USA many anime suffered censorship and storyline editing. The very first one to be broadcasted, Tetsuwan Atom (Astroboy), was heavily censored. Queen Millennia was mixed with Captain Harlock as one story, with new dialogues everywhere (both different anime, although from the same author, treated as one single story; thanks God I never saw it).

Lastly, if you ever want to be taken seriously as a reviewer, even after doing all I said so far, do a lot of research. I’ve written reviews that costed me a full weekend of research, talking about subjects that I already knew a few things about. If you want to be lazy about it, just forget about reviewing at all.

Hi. I’m 43 years old, and i´have not seen many anime series during my “brief” life. But i think i can say that “Queen of Thousand Years” (or Q. Millennia, as you prefer) is a really outstanding work in the general context of japanese animation. It’s plot is quite rich and complex (not as naive and simple as other charming works by Matsumoto -GE 999 or Harlock, his main titles-), with its thriller structure,paused rithm, delicate music (the original soundtrack I mean, of course) and tragically doomed Yayoi Yukino -beatufully designed as a manieristic virgin that would have satisfied such a painter as Puvis de Chavannes or Delvaux-. By the way, I´m a painter too.
I hope, dear friend, you can find the original series, and, if you have the attitude, let yourself be enchanted by.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *