Bypassing Crest of the Stars

In watching Banner of the Stars, it became immediately apparent that there was a lot of backstory. Indeed, after reading Steven Den Beste’s comments on my post, it has become even more apparent that Banner is set in a detailed and well thought-out universe. As such, I’m probably going to go back and watch Crest of the Stars (which tells the story of how Jinto and Lafiel met). Apparently, I’m not the only one who has run into this. Author has been reading about Crest and is questioning his decision to bypass Crest and go directly to Banner.

Author also shares an interesting anecdote sent by TheBigN:

I speak from limited experience, but at Cornell as a freshman, our college anime club showed both Banner series (one per semester). […] When there was a survey about the audience’s experiences with the clubs schedule, responses were divided with people who didn’t watch Crest before the Banner series tending to pan the series, while people who watched Crest before Banner tended to praise it. And it’s understandable, since Crest introduces you to the universe of the Abh and co, and as Banner of the Stars is just a continuation from there, people who watch Banner first tend to get dropped into the story without any information on how the world works.

Author thinks that Banner did an exemplary job setting up the backstory. Personally, I don’t think I’d go so far as Author, but I did find that the series did a good job establishing the backstory. However, I do want to go back and watch Crest. In recent years, I’ve become more of a completist in that I don’t generally want to jump into the middle of a series. I’d rather wait for the whole thing to be available and watch it all at once (hence my TV on DVD addiction). I probably should have taken a closer look at the original recommendations because Crest was mentioned, but my request at the time was for a more action oriented series (and Banner seems to be the better “action” series). It’s been over a year since that post, so some of the arbitrary restrictions I placed on series should probably be lifted. Some of the good Anime mentioned in that post that was ruled out for one reason or another is probably fair game now (for example, Noir seems like an interesting series, even if it is somewhat grueling). I should put together a future series type page. I’ll get right on that (in typical Kaedrin fashion, it should appear sometime next year and then promptly fall into disrepair as I neglect to update it).