THE IRRESPONSIBLE TYLOR OVA

TONY T. - Writer, 3rd Year, Economics and Data Science

Narrative Scope or: Why I Learned to Keep Worrying and Not Enjoy The Irresponsible Captain Tylor.

The Irresponsible Captain Tylor is the type of series that generally won’t work on its own due to its status as a parody of stories with structured militaristic organizations. Yet, due to featuring a character who subverts the understanding of the leader of a serious organization as being the most responsible capable individual of said group, the series avoids the trap of needing further context. After all, the dynamic which it satirizes is inherently fairly obvious; coupled with wider mainstream understanding of science fiction and political stories thanks to series like Star Trek, Captain Tylor is consequently an extremely accessible series. Its appeal in escapism and comedy lies in the same roots as something like Great Teacher Onizuka. An under qualified individual being given a role with high responsibility and prestige, yet nailing it due to their unconventional tactics which break conservative expectations of what that role should entail. It’s a setup as old as time, transcending time and culture.

Where those two differ, though, is in how they are serialized. Where GTO is a series that lasts a while due to how it utilizes a formula of focusing arcs on different individuals which its protagonist must help and thus demonstrate the merit of his ways, Tylor instead works as one cohesive story. The entire original television series’ run focuses primarily on one period of time where the protagonist proves himself and his tactics worthy. Justy Tylor, as a sort of satirization of ‘Genius Captain’ characters like Legend of the Galactic Heroes’ Yang Wenli, is a rather stagnant character as the main arc of the series focuses on how his subordinates change their views on him. Furthermore, the actual setting of The Irresponsible Captain Tylor is not really all that important; given the series’ focus on comedy, it mostly acts as a sort of backdrop for gags that provide some level of catharsis. The Irresponsible Captain Tylor is thus a fundamentally solid gag parody series over its 26 episode run, with the main struggle of the plot, that of the main character overcoming the odds in increasingly unpredictable ways, coming to a logical conclusion by the final episode where, with his crew’s approval, he ditches the structured organization that he is a part of in search for adventure. It’s nothing special or unique, and to be frank, Tylor can get fairly crass or lowbrow at points, but there’s a lot of heart and effort put into the series’ portrayal of this aspect, which is why this finale comes across well.

In some regards, you can’t really tell that The Irresponsible Captain Tylor is based off of a light novel series. Partially, one could boil this down to an understanding that the tropes and conventions commonly associated with modern light novel writing were not nearly as potent in the era of Tylor’s release. There’s some truth to that, but it’s still striking how the series feels animated with goofy expressions and overblown reactions doing a lot to imply how characters are feeling. It’s not like the series has amazing production values or anything, but a part of its charm is in how kinetic it feels. The sequences of Tylor avoiding danger by accident are made all the more compelling due to how the series is directed, something which I think speaks to the strength of it as an adaptation. There’s some parts that really don’t look great, but the bombastic portions that really matter are done well. As a whole, Tylor really isn’t something that I consider an outstanding masterpiece of its era or anything, but it’s enjoyable and there’s nothing wrong with that. A solid 7/10, if you will, which in some part is down to how the conclusion of the series contains a large amount of energy in its direction and presentation.

That said, the followup OVA series consisting of ten episodes seems to waver with its understanding of what makes Tylor work. The first two episodes follow up the television series relatively well, or at least as well as you can do in succeeding a story which seems pretty concluded. There’s some aspects of its construction that feel disjointed, such as the main conflict in the story’s background still occurring despite the television series closing up that plot point, but it seems like something that would be the result of the television series choosing a specific point to end in its adaptation of a still-serialized novel series. Having never read the series, I can’t necessarily say this with any level of certainty, but I would not be surprised if the television finale took certain liberties, which is why I don’t necessarily mind. The plot of the first two episodes aren’t anything groundbreaking, but then again, that isn’t really a big deal as they deliver a similar sort of dynamic as the series with everything feeling truly concluded by the end. One aspect in which they exceed the television series is in their production, which is something of a given due to being OVAs. Still, despite my personal predilection towards the television series’ Tatsunoko Production over the OVAs’ Studio Deen, the OVAs undoubtedly look better. There’s a real focus on delivering the sort of science fiction aesthetic that something like The Irresponsible Captain Tylor warrants in the sort of series it satirizes, and yet the series still feels whimsical as it is, after all, a parody.

Where I get a bit more negative is with the following eight OVA episodes, which seem to eschew the series’ strengths in favor of adhering to source material. Again, I’ve never read the novel series, nor do I plan to, so I can’t exactly make comparisons with too much authority. Yet, the way the rest of the Tylor OVAs are written feels distinctly like the product of a light novel, which is the opposite of the way the television series came across. They feature a sharp increase in pondering monologues from various characters, as well as elaborations on the wider universe of The Irresponsible Captain Tylor This doesn’t necessarily sound like a terrible thing, but it isn’t all that preferred given the type of story Tylor is; while the background characters are important features of Tylor, they don’t necessarily warrant extra elaboration into their deeper thoughts or focuses. After all, they primarily work as reactionary figures to the bizarre shenanigans that Tylor gets them in.

Beyond that, the setting of The Irresponsible Captain Tylor is also something which the television series rightfully lacked more detail in. In part, extra detail on the workings of Tylor’s world was unnecessary due to the dynamic of the series as it serves to bog down the pacing of the story even more in the OVA. The Irresponsible Captain Tylor in part works due to, again, the audience’s vague understanding of tropes within these sorts of political and science fiction narratives. Something like Legend of the Galactic Heroes was able to serialize itself further with its Gaiden episodes due to how the entire point of the franchise was its presentation of a fascinating multi-layered world with numerous parties, factions, and agendas at play. That sort of series was thus highly conducive to further material being made to give more understanding to different characters and the world as a whole. Tylor, on the other hand, is far more of a story that mainly focuses on one character. After all, there’s a reason why the protagonists’ name is in the title – he fundamentally drives the plot. Even episodes of the television series where he does not physically appear still work because he remains a narratively important subject that the other characters ponder upon. As several of the OVA’s episodes strongly focus on other background elements, they lose the series’ charm and become basically any other military science fiction story.

Generally speaking, I tend to have biases towards stories that truly work on their own without any need for outside information on tropes or conventions of a given genre. While the television series of The Irresponsible Captain Tylor sometimes relies on some understanding of a sort of story type, it remains entertaining even without that context due to its fundamentally simple premise. The complex political/military dynamics and the world being fairly scientifically developed are, if anything, gimmicks for a story which is in reality a simple comedy about a fool who is in reality hypercompetent due to his idiosyncratic behaviors. In that way, it draws comparisons to, say, comedy series like The Office (US) or Great Teacher Onizuka After all, it’s fun to consider that even those we consider worthy of respect are, in reality, fools who just get lucky. It subverts our understanding of societal norms while also allowing viewers to feel better about their own lives, likely as a small part of larger organizations, whether that be the military, a place of education, or a workplace.

Excluding the enjoyable first two entries, the followup OVA series for Tylor runs into issues as its style is more conducive to comparisons to more serious science fiction stories rather than comedies. The Irresponsible Captain Tylor is far less equipped to deal with a different set of expectations akin something like Legend of the Galactic Heroes or Star Trek, as its roots are primarily in comedy. In some regard, the issues with Tylor’s later entries are somewhat similar to my issues with the follow-ups to Crest of the Stars. As I mention in my article, Crest of the Stars works as a romance-adventure series with a scientific backdrop. The later Banner of the Stars entries fail due to focusing far more on political exchanges in said science fiction world. In the case of both Banner of the Stars and the Tylor OVAs, the focus on background elements draws unneeded comparisons to works of a different genre which they ultimately pale in comparison to. In some regard, the fact that they are both light novel adaptations likely contribute to this issue. Given my speculation, I believe that Tylor is indicative of issues that light novel authors encounter in not recognizing their own strengths and weaknesses. It’s not terrible, but it serves as a good case study of narrative scope. In some regards, I think that more focus should be emphasized in media. There are exceptions where it works out, but often, a lot of stories try unsuccessfully to be thirty different things at once where they could be one or two things superbly.