Poly-Space

Poly-Space
Genre	Slice of life sitcom science fiction
Voices of	Erika Umeki Reina Sunada Desyé Nisa Taðe Ziriş Seán Mac Lochlainn Mario Stasio
Opening theme	"Aim for the Top! Fly Away~" by Yoko Kanno, sung by Erika Umeki and Reina Sunada
Ending theme	"Active Heart" by Yoko Kanno, sung by Erika Umeki
Composer(s)	Jane Birkin Yoko Kanno
Country of origin	Gylias
Original language(s)	Miranian French English various
No. of episodes	15
Production company(s)	Studio Fantasia Gylian National Film Institute
Release
Original network	GTV4
Original release	17 October – 31 October 1988
Chronology
Followed by	Mega-Space

Poly-Space is a Gylian animated series which aired on GTV4 in 1988. Produced by Studio Fantasia and the Gylian National Film Institute, it is a slice of life series with sitcom elements, which depicts life on a space station.

Plot

It is an unspecified year in the 21st century, and Tyran has a regional space program, which includes a Tyranian Space Station (TSS). The TSS includes an observatory, a workshop, and various scientific laboratories. The Gylian Space Agency is operating a program which allows non-astronaut civilians to work on the TSS, in order to spur interest in space exploration. The series follows two polytechnic Miranian Gylian students, Noriko Takaya and Kazumi Amano, who enroll in the program and study on the TSS.

Over the course of the series, Noriko and Kazumi work on the TSS and interact with other crew members, finish polytechnic, attend university, fall in love, graduate, and marry. The final scene shows them welcoming new polytechnic students onto the TSS, much as they had been at the beginning.

Characters

Noriko Takaya and Kazumi Amano, as shown in the Poly-Space artbook

Noriko Takaya

Voiced by: Erika Umeki

Noriko is a polytechnic student from Náras. She idolises her classmate Kazumi, and the two develop a romantic relationship, being married in the epilogue. Noriko's father is one of Gylias' best-known astronauts, and she joins the program to follow in his footsteps. She is highly enthusiastic, a quality which sustains her through her initial awkwardness in space, and learns and gets through challenges mainly by application of brute force.

Kazumi Amano

Voiced by: Reina Sunada

Kazumi is a polytechnic student from Náras. She reciprocates her classmate Noriko's attraction, and the two develop a romantic relationship, being married in the epilogue. Kazumi is the class idol: talented, beautiful, and refined. She has an innate talent for learning and seems to pick up things easily and face challenges without major effort, forming an effective partnership with the more energetic Noriko.

Ratira Serek

Voiced by: Desyé Nisa

Ratira is a Gylian spaceship pilot, a few years older than Noriko and Kazumi, who befriends them on the TSS. She is highly self-confident and boastful, and expresses her friendship by teasing Noriko and Kazumi, which they reciprocate enthusiastically. Her heavily Gylic-accented English is a running gag in the series, as other TSS crew are shown having difficulty understanding her.

Nene Áyrai

Voiced by: Taðe Ziriş

Noriko's classmate and friend, Nene has a slightly awkward and nerdy personality, and tends to be more level-headed and pragmatic. While she expresses skepticism of Noriko's flights of fancy, she strongly supports her friend's participation in the space program.

Fergus Ó Cillín

Voiced by: Seán Mac Lochlainn

An Ossorian senior scientist on the TSS, Fergus is unconvinced of the Gylian program's merits and sees Noriko and Kazumi's presence on the space station as a distraction.

Eugenio Monti

Voiced by: Mario Stasio

A Cacertian mechanical engineer and CRAF pilot, Eugenio finds himself often answering Noriko and Kazumi's questions about the TSS.

Production

Poly-Space originated as a collective Studio Fantasia project. The team drew inspiration from Virginia Gerstenfeld's social science fiction and sought to similarly think through all the implications and consequences of a scenario, with Valérian et Laureline as an additional inspiration. At times they spent more time developing the universe than the plot of the series.

The series was produced by Studio Fantasia and the Gylian National Film Institute between 1987 and 1988. While the majority of the series uses a straightforward anime style, the animation teams experimented with avant-garde and psychedelic elements. Both studios' animators teased each other during production over Kazumi's inconsistent hair colour, which alternates between dark blue, light blue, and light purple.

The team's initial focus on realism was largely abandoned during production in favour of comedy, giving a sitcom-like atmosphere. Poly-Space contains many references to Gylian pop culture, and allusions to the recent end of the wretched decade. Ratira Serek, the cocksure red-haired pilot, is modeled after Asuka, who had recently gained national popularity. The unnamed Gylian Prime Minister in episode 7 pokes fun at Filomena Pinheiro, showing her rambling philosophically and boring other heads of government at a regional conference. Noriko jokingly calls the TSS "Time and Space Station" in episode 1, alluding to Valérian et Laureline's Service Spatio-Temporel.

Fergus Ó Cillín's wariness towards the Gylian protagonists parodies the sometimes difficult relations between Gylias and Ossoria, and the popular stereotype that Ossorians think "Gylians are insane". The writing team cut down some of his scenes with Noriko and Kazumi to avoid viewers thinking they were mocking Filomena's efforts to rebuild relations after the Ossorian war crisis.

Jane Birkin and Yoko Kanno were the series' composers.

The series' soundtrack was mainly produced by Jane Birkin. For the space scenes, Jane used the template of Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks, creating ambient compositions with pedal steel guitar to to create the impression of weightlessness. The scenes set on Earth featured "alien funk" in the vein of Talking Heads, Interzone, and Bow Wow Wow.

The team also hired Yoko Kanno, then mainly known as a video game composer, to create the opening and ending themes, sung by Erika Umeki and Reina Sunada. At the team's request, Yoko also contributed a "cheesy montage theme" to one episode, arranging it as a cross between "Chariots of Fire" and "Danger Zone".

Besides Jane and Yoko's contributions, the production team also used various other songs in the series, including selections from Jane's Music for Films and More Music for Films, and several songs by Asuka and the Mighty Invincibles.

Reception

Poly-Space was modestly popular when it aired, and received generally positive reviews. Animonthly described it as "an enjoyable slice of life series with solid writing and good jokes", praising its plausible depiction of the future. Downtown highlighted the series' easygoing and self-referential tone, writing that it was "built on a surplus of pop culture references and inside jokes", and predicted that this aspect would appeal to the fans.

The series was released on LaserDisc shortly after it finished airing, and uploaded to Proton TV in 1995.

Poly-Space unexpectedly developed a larger following after its initial broadcast. Several commentators have seen it as reflecting the interlude between the end of the wretched decade and a revival of national optimism in the 1990s, and its eclectic sensibilities were shared by Neo-Gylian Sound and city pop. It has frequently been sampled in Gylian music. Stella Star's science fiction-themed remix album Space 2001 extensively used samples and images from Poly-Space in its music and artwork. PJ Harvey named her EP Polly Space after the series and her first name.

In 2005, Studio Fantasia produced a spiritual successor, Mega-Space.