Somehow this title flew under the radar here in the US. Here's the basic idea. Valerian and Laureline meet in medieval France (AD 912). He is from the future, she is ahead of her times. Forty episodes of sheer entertainment.
Valerian is on his maiden(haha)voyage from a distant future(AD 2412)to prove he is capable of handling a space ship that can travel through time and space without damaging future reality. Easy, right? After much training he finds himself to be a Spatio-Temporal intern dumped into the past with an older space ship managed by a sassy, interactive computer. Upon his arrival in medieval Normandy France, he finds himself caught up in local politics. Quickly, our hero falls in love with Laureline while carrying out his duties. But since they are both unwilling to accept true love, and love at first sight, they must go through hell to get to heaven.
Okay. From there, Valerian finds himself jailed with, then escaping with Laureline. Laureline knows that Valerian is somehow better than a marriage forced upon her and sticks to him like medieval super-glue. Poor, poor Valerian. He is ready to be a hero from birth and forever unprepared for Laureline. Serving her own immediate needs, Laureline is attracted to our hero and follows him forever. Bam! End of story...or is it?
Narrowly escaping ancient France, our duo return to the future only to find that Earth has vanished! Somehow the Earth disappeared due to Valerian and Laureline's escape and it's effect on the future. The space-ship's temporal jumping ability was also damaged and repairs will be costly.
This is a great forty episode series. Pure entertainment from set one. While there are filler episodes and strange CGI, mostly Valerian and Laureline carry us through mercenary actions to always fill their purse in an ongoing attempt to find Earth. They spend more than they ever earn, or get ripped off by their dubious employers.
I enjoyed this series a lot. Despite the odd CGI (dedicated to the bad guys)and the soundtrack eclipsing voice at times(the English dub?), the characters are fully developed through and through. The story follows a solid arc beyond filler episodes and delivers a satisfying end. For SciFi fans this is a must watch. I viewed the original series with the wonderful, British talent employed by VSI, so I can not comment on the French original voices. The 2D animation is well done by Satellite, Japan in a generally anime form. Music is true to situation and general theme. It would be great to have this voiced by Japanese artists. Hoping.
Check out this title and it's source, comic, material. Oh, by the way, totally kid friendly. Easy eight out of ten. Two points off for the CGI incongruity and the music over voice at times. Still, well done VSI, well done.
