Thread: What Happened with Outlaw Star 2?

So I recently announced I was going to start writing Outlaw Star articles on a regular basis. Unsurprisingly, when I asked what people wanted, an article about Outlaw Star 2 was by far at the top of the list. Well, I'm the kind of person to research something quite deeply so I hope this will satisfy you. It may also disappoint you, however. You may like that it will clear things up a little bit. You'll probably hate the proposed storyline of the sequel. There are also two*Outlaw Star sequels. I also heard a thing or two about a prequel to Outlaw Star, but that was probably just a rumour, though anybody can come forward with information about that.

First of the two sequels is called the Sword of Wind, and was first planned in 1998. It was going to be an OVA. This stands for Original Video Animation. Sometimes OVAs are short anime series with just a few episodes. However, in the preliminary plan of Sword of Wind, it was specified that it would only be a single episode, set three years after the original Outlaw Star's ending. I do have quite a lot to say about this, and I've translated Morning Star Studio's plan which was on their site in Japanese for a short while in 2002. However, later that year in 2002, Sword of Wind was cancelled. Outlaw Star's creator, Takehiko Ito, confirmed this himself, when he was asked about it.

"Hello. My name is Takehiko Ito. I can speak a little English. You looks project in my site contents. It's plan for Outlaw Star 2. But, that title is only plan and frozen yet. We planning new and different project now. Sorry. I love Outlaw Star too. Maybe I continue Outlaw Star by comic. Thank you!"

However, eventually it was discovered that a sequel to the manga was being made. Indeed, Takehiko Ito did mention this in the comment above. Its working title was Outlaw Star 2: Retaliation. Unfortunately, I can't provide much speculation or much of anything. Probably like most readers of this article, I've only seen a little of the manga. I know that it has a darker theme and Hilda's role is considerably different, but since only a small amount of the manga has been fan-translated (an English version was never published), there isn't really much I can say about it. Myself and other members of Outlaw Star UK have been discussing getting a fan translation project going, and it seems that our member SethClanclan has already figured out a lot of the storyline and deciphered a fair bit of the rare novels! I look forward to the day we'll have the manga complete in English. So, let me tell you about Outlaw Star 2...

 

Outlaw Star 2: Sword of Wind

It's very possible you really*won't like the storyline of this. So, for a short amount of time in 2002 Morning Star put some information on their site about Sword of Wind. It didn't stay on there for long, but a few pulled the information off the site and tried to understand it. Fortunately, thanks to the existence of the Wayback Machine, you can still view the original Japanese page. I've researched this quite a bit and the conclusions others have come up with. First of all, I should leave a little disclaimer here. It's possible I've screwed up big time with my translation that will follow. However, it's also possible that the Outlaw Star fans' who tried to translate it in 2002 were incorrect and that incorrect information has circulated across the Internet.

For the most part, my translation was completed with the assistance of Google and quite a lot of improvisation since some of it was so hard to translate using these methods. A lot of it wasn't so difficult. The problem is that my translation contradicts what is posted nearly everywhere online. Common belief is that Jim gains possession of the ship called the Sword of Wind, is good friends with a new character (a spacecraft engineer) and goes to help Fred Luo. From my translation, it seems these things happen with Gene, not Jim, although Jim still knows the doctor and is attracted to his daughter, Diva. You might want to search online for what others have written about this and compare it with my own findings, as I make no guarantees about my translation's accuracy.

PDF of Sword of Wind Translation

You should probably read that first. I translated about 90-95% of the original document, although I didn't include a couple of sentences I could not translate. That document should tell you the basic gist if you want to trust my translation. (Hell, I don't know if I do! But if you can improve it get in touch.) To summarise, Fred Luo goes to the Oracion Star System to try and arrange a business deal with the Links group (I'll delve more into this below since this interests me) but does not meet their expectations. When leaving, Fred Luo's transport ship mysteriously explodes. Gene Starwind is no longer working closely with Jim, and Melfina has become a secondary character and is simply attending college. During his travels sometime in the three years since the end of Outlaw Star, Gene met a spacecraft engineer who he became friends with. Said engineer builds incredible new ship: the Sword of Wind. Jim is attracted to the engineer's daughter, Diva. This engineer is called Doctor—



(Robotnik/Scratch images created by Rock-Zilla at deviantART.)

No! Holy shit, NO! God damn it, that's wrong. He's Dr. Sputnik, not Dr. Robotnik. So, Gene is pretty good pals with this guy. He sees a news report on TV about Fred Luo, stating that it is unknown whether he's alive or dead, and Gene decides to go and rescue him. That's pretty much where it ends. Morning Star makes it very clear many times that this is an early plan of the OVA and isn't final. I've been thinking about a few things. You might remember that at the end of Outlaw Star, Gene decides to head to the Oracion System. I will assume he has stayed there since. After all, if he was elsewhere in the Toward Stars universe it would take Gene a long time to reach Fred after the crash. Dr. Sputnik escaped with his daughter as an exile from the Pyotr Empire. Here is a map that shows where it is. (For your convenience here is the map without any arrows. Thanks a lot to Seth who identified and translated everything on this map.)



In case you haven't already spotted it, below you can see the Oracion System.



Okay, so you can see from how far away Oracion is from say Sentinel or Heifong (and it took Gene days to travel to and from those two in Outlaw Star) that they're probably in Oracion near Fred like I said earlier. So what's my point? Well, I noticed something about the series Angel Links. First of all let me say that I think Angel Links is very mediocre and contradicts a lot of the things in Outlaw Star. (For instance, Saurians such as Duuz in Law and Lawlessness are naturally born races, whereas in Outlaw Star they are created artificially by humans using dinosaur genes. Instead of Saurians they are also called Dragonites, which is even more confusing since that's the name of the very rare and expensive gems in Outlaw Star, which they called "dragon stones" instead.) I also really don't like Sword of Wind's story, but regardless, I noticed something very interesting. In the first episode of Angel Links, Fred Luo is seen for a few seconds in an extremely posh building where the Links group (who are very*wealthy, I should add) are. Now, let me paste this part of my translation from the PDF...

Fred Luo exits sub-ether in his transport ship and arrives at the Oracion Star System. Soon after
reaching his destination, Fred expresses his disappointment; “These Oracion System people
from the Links group just say I am poor, and insist I’m only offering bribes for men.” His two
bodyguards awkwardly nod.

Take a look at this crappy (I don't own Angel Links and I never will; I grabbed this from YouTube) screenshot of Fred from the first episode:

Could this just merely be a coincidence? In Sword of Wind unless my translation is wrong, he is in the same building as the Links group and soon after leaves, just as depicted here, with two bodyguards. I must deduce that Morning Star was considering some kind of merge of the storylines of Sword of Wind with Angel Links. Indeed, Outlaw Star was already set up for this since Gene went to Oracion. I believe that eventually Takehiko Ito abandoned Sword of Wind but still decided to keep a Fred Luo cameo in Angel Links. Well, that was extremely long-winded. I'm looking to personally ask Takehiko Ito quite a few questions, but unfortunately he's like a phantom. Did you know Takehiko Ito is only a pen name and he has many of them? Well, time to wrap this up with Retaliation, which I don't really have a lot to say. Just pictures.

 

Outlaw Star 2: Retaliation

These are some images of what was apparently going to be a manga sequel. (As explained earlier in the article, this became apparent after Sword of Wind was officially canned.) I don't think any information was released about this and just the artwork below.











This confuses me a little bit, because you can clearly see Hilda in the final image and her ship, Horace. Maybe it's Retaliation that was meant to be the prequel? A prequel about Hilda would really kick ass. So I'm not really sure about Retaliation, but if anyone can shed some light that would be great. One other "sequel" is a fifth volume to the manga. The manga consisted of three volumes, but this small image of a fifth volume was posted quite some time ago. Where's volume four?

Great article. I genuinely learned something from reading this. From what I've read, I don't think I would have liked Outlaw Star 2 anyway, but It's good to finally know a little more about it. As for your further articles, I'll reiterate my votes.

Character Development of Gene Starwind
Differences between the Censored and Uncensored Versions of Outlaw Star
The Rare Outlaw Star Novels

Terrific Article that you put a lot of time into clearly..Great job..I learned a lot

As i Told you in the Chat

Excellent work, Mantis. Not only did you "tell it like it is", you gave me a good, much needed laugh as well. If I don't get drafted for driving people places this weekend, I'll dive into the translation check on Saturday/Sunday. : P "Because at Dairy Queen, good isn't good enough"

I'm glad you guys enjoyed it, and that's good news, Seth. I may well take on one of those for my next article, Lloyd.

Awesome sauce.

Very interesting...

I'm not to sure how I feel on that plot? So long as they reconciled by the end, it may have been okay.

Yeah, definitely don't like the idea that they had for Outlaw Star 2, the Sword of Wind idea to me is god awful in my opinion. But I discussed more about that in the thread of what should be in an Outlaw Star sequel. But yeah, I WISH they made a sequel, but I really can't say I have much hope for it anymore. Been wishing for it for the past 14 years and nothing so far =\

Still won't deter me from keeping the legacy alive. ;-) There's so much work to do. Translations for a start. And how can we know for sure that Takehiko Ito won't have a change of heart one day? Perhaps even come to the conclusion that SoW was a shitty idea and produce something good. No harm in hoping.

Originally Posted by Mantis

And how can we know for sure that Takehiko Ito won't have a change of heart one day? Perhaps even come to the conclusion that SoW was a shitty idea and produce something good. No harm in hoping.

Amen to that. I'd be interested to see what he can come up with that meets or exceeds the expectations set by the original.