Maps: Legendary Space Wanderers
Entry updated 6 April 2026. Tagged: TV.
Japanese Original Video Animation (OVA) (1987; original title Mappusu: Densetsu no Masayoeru seijintachi; vt Maps; vt Star Quest). Studio Gallop. Based on the Manga by Yuichi Hasegawa. Directed by Keiji Hayakawa. Written by Kenji Terada. Voice cast includes Akira Kamiya, Yūko Minaguchi, Hidekatsu Shibata, Mayumi Tanaka and Hiromi Tsuru. 52 minutes. Colour.
16 year old Gen Tokishima (Tanakais) is abducted whilst playing football – along with girlfriend Hoshimi Kimizuka (Minaguchi) – by a giant angel-shaped Spaceship. On board, they meet Lipmira Geiss (Tsuru) and Gen asks why he was kidnapped (Hoshimi: "Yeah! He's a generic, ordinary air-headed, high school student, you know?"). Lipmira explains that 200,000 years ago the Nomad Star Tribe came to Earth and hid a treasure called the Surging Light whose nature is unknown but whose location is concealed on the Mapman's body: Gen, a descendant of the tribe, is the Mapman. They are interrupted by an attack from Captain Abe (Kamiya) of the Space Patrol which injures Lipmira: Hoshimi notices that her wounds match the damage to her spaceship; she explains she is "the half-organic artificial brain of the ship" (see AI; Androids; Avatars). The Space Patrol – or at least Abe – plans to conquer the universe and believes the Surging Light to be a Weapon that will help achieve this. A prolonged and painful examination of Gen's body reveals nothing about its location. Abe plans to torture Lipmira (whose non-intrusive scans have already shown it to be in Antarctica) when Gen – suddenly heroic – escapes with Hoshimi and frees Lipmara, who then battles Abe and his Psi Powers. They are interrupted when the Space Patrol's ships are destroyed, the perpetrator identified as the "Mythic Breed": this forces Abe to join the other three as ship's cook. They fly to Antarctica.
En route Lipmara explains she was built by Space Pirate Calion, who died 300 years ago, and continues the search to which he dedicated his life. The Mythic Breed, she adds, "cornered your ancestors on Earth and brought them to ruin". On arrival, responding to Abe's brain waves, the ruins of a Nomad Star Tribe City erupt from the ice; Time is frozen (see Time Distortion) and the Earth splits in two. Lipmara explains the Surging Light is at the centre of the Earth and they have ten minutes to retrieve it before the halves rejoin ... but a vast, monstrous tentacled head with a protruding brain arrives first: Mibarihan (Shibata), last survivor of the Mythic Breed, who has erupted from the Moon. Mibarihan's tentacles hold the spaceship; Lipmara flies out to attack him with a Ray Gun; Gen puts on a spacesuit and grabs a pistol to help her, but Mibarihan takes control of his body, forcing him to fire at Lipmara. We learn that 300 years ago, in a similar situation, Calion – tormented by Mibarihan – had begged her to kill him: she did so, and it was this act that compelled her to continue Calion's search. Gen manages to break free of the other's grip and retrieve the conveniently close Surging Light (a small prism); but Mibarihan's powers disable the spaceship's systems. In desperation, Gen fires the Surging Light at him, hoping he will be appeased; it embeds in his brain. Its flood of information overloads Mibarihan's mind, leaving him defenceless; Lipmara explains the Surging Light was "a star map created by the Nomad Star Tribe ... now all its memories have been released ... of stars spanning 6,000,000 light years." Her ship's weaponry can now destroy Mibarihan and they escape just as the Earth's halves rejoin and time unfreezes (with life continuing as if nothing had happened).
The Surging Light has become a blank map and Lipmara laments that her life now has no purpose, but Gen says a blank map should be filled, and the other three enthusiastically say they will join her in that task: moved, Lipmara realizes the treasure the Shining Light represented was not the star map after all, and that Calion had known this.
Gen's character fluctuates to suit the plot, though Hoshimi's summary reflects his default personality; Hoshimi herself is mainly comic, as is Abe; Lipmara provides a more melancholy touch. The animation is solid, particularly the spaceships and Mibarihan. Maps: Legendary Space Wanderers is a reasonably good action Anime with hit-or-miss Humour; its plot is busy but occasionally incoherent. There is an uncomfortable scene where Gen distracts a guard by assaulting Hoshimi.
In the mid-1990s a new four-part OVA of Yuichi Hasegawa's manga was released by TMS Entertainment, titled MAPS (1994-1995; vt Maps densetsu no fukkatsu), directed by Susumu Nishizawa and written by Masaki Tsuji. This, more serious in tone, was well received. [SP]
links
- Internet Movie Database
- Internet Movie Database (1994-1995)
previous versions of this entry