The Romance of Space as an Ocean

So we all know I love space operas, right? I think that I have proven that on so many levels with so many blog posts already. So why write this post now? Because I want too honestly. I mean, there probably is something about me watching some Captain Harlock recently that might have something to do with it too, but I was the one who decided to write this post so I am taking the credit. You can take this argument anyway you want to, but I am right. So there. Hahaha, yes, I argue with myself a lot. Welcome to mind which is a zone of crazy.

As I have already stated, my love of space and science fiction comes from how I was raised. I was raised with Star Trek, Star Wars, Babylon 5, and Stargate SG-1. Series that spanned the cosmos in creativity and heart for a younger kid like me. That doesn’t say where my love of space as an ocean came from. This would be back in my first attempt at college. I was deep in science fiction there as well with finally discovering Firefly, BSG, and Farscape. I wondered what science fiction anime were out there, so I watched LOGH, the older Yamato Series, Gundam, Macross, and basically what I could find to relax myself from the stress of being an engineering student. It worked and my life changed forever.

Did I mention that space opera shows are in close competition in my mind with mecha as my favorite genre of anime? Do I have to? Does it matter? It does and doesn’t I think.

So what is the space as an ocean trope you may ask. Well, that’s very self-exclamatory because the concept is in the title. Space is treated as an ocean and space ships are the wooden ships of old stuck in the endless sea of space. What I think of is a modern version of the European myths of the unknowns of the sea. We could talk about the Odyssey and the ancient sailing maps of yore where the edges of the maps were filled with monsters and all sorts of strange phenomenon that were made up. Science Fiction in western media and anime that follow this are trope do that and have some fun creating their own myths.

There is a sort of dream and romance to space as an ocean concepts which speaks to the viewers imagination. The sense of realism, with wind making a sale flap in space, and other things, don’t really matter. This is the writer and/or creator’s imagination at work to show what could be out there in the unknown. Mainly because we don’t know what’s out there even if we have telescopes that can see deep in space nowadays. Space is a wonderful canvas of the unknown and can provide so much dream like imagery that no other kind of anime series can create. I can’t explain of this through words, but only images can say anything about it.

There is just a love that I have for Space as an Ocean that goes beyond words. It goes beyond having the colorful and beautiful space scenes in older anime to look at. It goes beyond people in a space ship travel from place to place to meet new and interesting things each episode. It’s the imagination that gets me. A creator’s imagination that taps into my own in the wonders of deep space and deep solitude of the unknown. At some point, I need to find my energy to create my own project motivated by it, but I find myself lacking any major time recently to do it. Sigh.

Space Operas are not as large of a thing in anime now and that’s fine. There are endless cycles of concepts and genres that go in and out of popularity and I am sure that energy might be there eventually. Right now, I miss the old styled colored space because having a lot of black space with white dots is pretty boring. For now, that energy belongs to someone cour series like Planet With and Astra Lost in Space, reboots of older franchises, and One Piece. Yeah, One Piece has is an ocean faring series, but has tons of imagination and heart in whatever location it presents to it. The energy is there. Space as an Ocean can never go away because it’s in the hearts and minds of people. Plus, a lot of older anime that we can still watch due to those series never really disappearing.

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