Small fandom pimping: Oban Star-Racers

[runespoor]

This is my baby. First time I read about it, it was... 2000, I think? 2001? I thought it looked awesome. It finally hit TV in 2006, after ten years of development hell.

You know that one fandom, when you're inarculate and bouncing up and down when it does something just right, and all you can say to sum it up is type "MY SHOW" in all caps? This is that for me.

Trigger warning for the show and what's under the cut for parental neglect, sexism, and imperialism.

Summary: In the year 2082, twenty years after the Earth was caught in an interplanetary war and only survived because their enemies inexplicably retreated from the Earth sky, the Earth government orders a small, elite racing team in an interplanetary race where losing would have disastrous consequences.

Eva Wei is 15. She is the only daughter of Don Wei, owner of the prime racing company and team on Earth. She has spent the last ten years of her life in a boarding school, up to her elbows in mechanics, as if to make up for her father's abandonment. When he doesn't call for her birthday, she runs from the school, intent on confronting him, reminding him he has a daughter, and living again as a family.

Instead, she finds herself accidentally registering as "Molly" to work for Wei Racing, and en route for the planet Oban, where the first part of the race takes place.

This series contains: a 15-year-old heroine that acts like a 15-year old, amazing 2D and 3D graphics, snappy dialogue, heartwrenching and heartwarming familial relationships, deeply flawed yet sympathetic characters, a handsome alien prince, conspiracies, love triangles, drama, humor, action, races with changing rules, original alien designs, the "you go girl" trope enforced, turned on its head, and forgotten entirely, daddy issues, mommy issues, questions of duty and loyalty, subtexty goodness, colonialism in space, badass lesbian bikers, shirtless male eye-candy, as much scenery porn as a Miyazaki movie, character development, a robot catgirl playing Dance Dance Revolution, podracing, the fate of the Earth hanging in the balance, and an ending that'll make you gasp, cry, and smile.

Format: 26 episodes. Short enough that it's not going to demand you to give up your social life, long enough that you can really sink your teeth in the material and let it take you places you never imagined it would go.

There's a Wikipedia and a TVTropes pages, but they contain heavy spoilers for the characters and the series, so go there at your own risk!

You can download it here or here (I think these are dubbed versions rather than subbed, if you find one with subs, please let me know!).