Review - The Legend of Black Heaven - Into the Arena
Reviewed by Richard Brownell on 6.30.2006.
Score: 8/10
With only three episodes left, the alien menace is at its most relentless. Oji is the hard rocking Gabriel as much as he ever was and now he has the power of the Black Heaven band behind him. The evil aliens are getting hit hard by the power of the metal Black Heaven throws at them.
With the band's former keyboardist dead, Layla decides to fill in. Being a super-intelligent alien, she can of course learn a musical instrument in record time. But as we know from previous volumes, her species doesn't really understand music. They don't know the true soul of music. And because of this shortcoming, Layla does not seem to be a suitable keyboardist, despite her insane technical ability.
But that's just one problem facing Oji Tanaka and Black Heaven. It seems the band's former keyboardist, Watanabe, has been resurrected to counteract the music of Black Heaven. And unfortunately, it works quite well. It seems his power can outmatch the entire group. They know they need to wage an all-out assault to have any chance of winning this war.
But Oji's wife, Yoko, still thinks Oji is simply having an affair. Oji's life could not be any more of a mess than it is in this volume. One of the messages of Black Heaven is the importance of family, in the relation sense and the friend sense, but Oji's family is backing out on him.
That doesn't mean Black Heaven is hung out to dry though. The enemy aliens may have Watanabe, but Black Heaven and the good aliens have their own tricks up their sleeves. It's an all out space opera battle for the stars. Hard Rock Saves Space indeed.
The stunning conclusion has some fantastic moments in it. The themes of the show are great and the essence of rock is definitely presented. But the pacing of the ending episodes is a bit off. The second to last episode has a lot of build-up, but it doesn't lead into an explosion of awesomeness. Thankfully there are a few new space battle segments here, but they still are the most stale part of the show.
Black Heaven is a great show for many reasons. We have epic space battles throughout the show. But that's not what the show is about. It is at its heart about Oji Tanaka's mid-life crisis. He finds his life boring and seemingly has no interest in his wife and boy. But he rejuvenates himself when Layla recruits him to play the Black Heaven music he played years ago. It's the dream of any musician of old to play again.
And playing his music again does so much. Sure, it saves the world. Big deal. More importantly, it makes Oji happy again. It brings him close to his son again. It gives him a reason to hang out with his bandmates again and talk of old times. It gives him a reason to write music again. And it does even more in the final episodes. It's important that Oji had no idea what effect his music had early on in the show. It shows that he was playing for himself. Even when he knew what was going on, he did not become a relentless defender of the human race. He was still a musician doing his best to make a good sound. What powers the Ultimate Weapon is not literally the notes that Oji plays; it's the soul.
Black Heaven isn't without its flaws though. The three annoying alien girls have some funny moments, but overall they are just goofy distractions. Some parts of the show, particularly involving those three, seem like filler to space out the real meat and potatoes of the show. That happens on a lot of anime, as typically they must fit into set standards, like 13 episodes or 26 episodes.
The Legend of Black Heaven is not an incredibly popular show. And it sadly still costs far too much at the time of this writing. But it's a solid show and I highly recommend it to anybody who has been a musician at one point in their life. It's got great music and most musicians will relate to the feelings Oji has and the experiences he goes through. So pick up your old guitar (or whatever); play a few tunes you haven't played in years; and pop in Black Heaven. Always remember: HARD ROCK SAVE THE SPACE.
