The Great Crossroads

There is something to be said about how films are such huge meeting places for creators that are still established and new creators in the same place at the same time. Crusher Joe The Movie is in a lot of ways. Coming in 1983, it was a collaborative effort between Studios Sunrise and Nue. This film is also directed by and had its character designs made by the amazing Yoshikazu Yasahiko who did Gundam right before. You can tell because the character designs are very Og Gundam like. The mechanical designs are mostly by the now famous Shoji Kawamori of then, Macross. It’s a really good combination of a wild time.

Especially when mentioning other people that designed one character or another before they became more famous. Rumiko Takashi designed something, Akira Toriyama designed a character, and even Katsuhiro Otomo created a character. The connections to other things, like the source material of this show, is also rather fascinating too. For instance, the author of the novel Crusher Joe was written by, Haruka Takachico, also wrote the novels for Dirty Pair. Isn’t it crazy that compared to Dirty Pair, Crusher Joe hasn’t had as much of an impact in the anime sphere.

When Everything Goes Wrong

Crushers are intergalactic handymen. They aren’t mercenaries because they aren’t after bounties, they are hired by people all across the galaxy to pull off different kinds of jobs. The difficulty doesn’t matter as long as they are paid a high price. With that in mind, the 19 year old Crusher Joe and his crew of the Minerva (Alfin the runaway princess, Talos the experienced second in command who used to work with Joe’s father back in the day, and Ricky the fifteen year old smart mouthed Engineer) take a job to take a cryogenically frozen heiress to a medical facility for a lot of money and of course, everything goes wrong instantly during warp. 

Space pirates have taken advantage of the crew through some kind of advanced warp technology, the Minerva crew get in trouble with the United Space Forces in suspicion of piracy for some reason, and the crew may be grounded for a year for breaking some rules. So after some drinking and destroying an entire pub, it’s time to get even on their way home. After gaining some intelligence on where the pirates are, Crusher Joe and his crew on the Minerva, make a stop on their way home to cause some chaos and get some payback. Of course there is a lot of space combat, a lot of ground combat, a planet that has strange creatures. It is a very classic sort of plot where Joe and his crew defeat an entire pirate organization with some help.

Simple Plots with More World Building

So once again, the story of Crusher Joe: The Movie is a classic space adventure film. It features, of course, Joe and his crew in so many places and interacting with a lot of people. The settings are pretty believable because of the memorable amount of side characters. For instance, Colonel Kowalski of the United Space Forces is clearly inspired by Zenigata from Lupin the Third. There are so many characters that you don’t know the backstory like him but you just instantly like Josh from how he is presented. Norma is a buff henchwoman who had a relationship with another henchman that died earlier and is out for revenge. Just having such entertaining characters that you may not remember their names, but you remember their personalities. Then there is a scene where Kei and Yuri from dirty pair are in a movie in the background kicking ass. 

Also, there are a lot of little turns and changes which increase a lot of the uniqueness a bit. For instance, the disco bar where Joe and Farlin get drunk and dance is a very cool scene that feels natural for young people to blow off steam after failing it. Or the entire somewhat complicated political situation Joe and his crusher squad walked into where they work for that government to take out the pirates was so interesting. So many little bits of layers here and there because backroom dealings are happening throughout the film. Crusher Joe and his squad just happen to be in-between it all and are never a part of any of it because it’s about pure revenge for them. The crew really is only one small cog in the machine. 

It’s All About Joe

I mean, this is kind of an obvious thing because the film is named after him in particular, but Joe is a pretty complex character. He’s a nineteen year old going on space missions working odd jobs and doing whatever and the crazy thing is that his father was the one who started the idea of the Crusher business. There was a market out there that the United Space Forces couldn’t do because of how large civilization has become in the galaxy and it became huge. Here is Joe trying his best to live up to what his father did and suddenly, his license is going to be on probation and he wants revenge for it.

He is such a well written character that has his strengths in charisma and athletic prowess like every classic sci fi action has. Though he has that edge of being somewhat business savvy to fund his way across the universe with his crew. The failures were his failures and the crew was just along for the ride and the camera is more focused on him because of just genuinely believable and dynamic he is. I don’t think he has changed that much personally from the beginning to the end of the film or learned any sort of lesson, but that’s ok because this is just another job until the next one. I find that so fascinating because these are just what the characters despite the trauma and losses they may have had to face.

I do have to mention that the main cast is really good, but they aren’t as layered. Talos is close because he has been around the crusher block for a long time and everyone knows him. Other people used to be Crushers alongside Talos including Joe’s father so there is clearly a lot of history around him. It is mentioned that Alfin is a princess and there are some clues to that by the way she acts uptight and prissy when she isn’t doing bad ass. It’s pretty clear she was raised in a higher class place is what I am saying. Ricky is the one who isn’t giving any sort of backstory but he is a very fun, smart mouth character. I should say that I really enjoy just being thrown into this world where every character isn’t explained to the highest level of detail. It’s kind of refreshing honestly. 

A Gorgeous Film

This film is so stunning. I can honestly compare the character designs and animation from this film to Yas’ most recent film Cucuruz Doan’s island. There is no difference between the character design and character animation levels at all and I mean that. There are also a lot of amazing and well detailed settings all over the place that you can’t help but vibe too with great creature designs and animation. This is before mentioning all the things Shoji Kawamori design spaceship wise which are so good. The space battles are crazy good alongside the character shootout scenes that are still astonishing. This came out in 1983 and you can’t even tell. It’s worth watching just for the visuals alone.

So yeah, Crusher Joe: The movie rocks. It is pure classic retro sci fi goodness with enough angles and twists that it is a bit more than a classic sort of story. I loved the whole experience of this film. I am reiterating a lot of things, but I love the characters and the world that we get a little bit of seeing because this definitely feels like an old fashioned serial novel where the adventures with this crew will face another thing next time. That does lead to some limitations from the characters in the film growing much, but it doesn’t matter that much when the characters and the adventures are so good like this. Yeah, if this sounds like your thing go check it out. Once again, Crusher Joe: The Movie rocks.