The Irresponsible Captain Tylor – An oldie but goodie
The Irresponsible Captain Tylor might be old, but it’s still a good anime.
Our very first AJnet Anime Club article, “AJ’s Anime and Manga List, Vol. 1”, was published in March of 2023, but I actually came up with the idea for the series way back in 2017. I originally planned to call the series “Anime Patrol” (some of you might even remember that I used this name for my first few anime reviews before discovering that someone else was already using the name), and the idea was the same as it is now. I wanted to talk about anime I liked, with a focus on lesser-known series that I didn’t really see people talking about.
I ended up shelving the idea for five or six years, but I had already begun work on the first article, a piece about a little anime from the early 90’s called The Irresponsible Captain Tylor. I didn’t forget about the series though, and when I finally released “AJ’s Anime and Manga List, Vol. 1” the very first series on the list was The Irresponsible Captain Tylor.
But the series deserves much more than a couple of paragraphs. This space-faring comedy never seems to get a lot of love, and I have yet to actually meet another anime watcher who’s heard of it. So for this month’s AJnet Anime Club article, I’m going to finish what I started in 2017 and give The Irresponsible Captain Tylor the recognition it deserves, and hopefully turn some more people on to this amazing series in the process.
When people ask me to describe The Irresponsible Captain Tylor, I usually tell them it’s kind of like Star Trek but if Captain Kirk didn’t care. Like, really didn’t care. This is actually how I convinced my girlfriend to watch it with me. She doesn’t understand the appeal of watching Japanese cartoons and reading subtitles the entire time, but when I made the comparison to Star Trek (and told her that the version I watched was in English) she agreed to give it a shot and ended up enjoying it.
Normally I’ll suggest that any self-respecting otaku watch anime in Japanese with English subtitles since a lot of liberties tend to be taken in English dubs (how many people still think Crayon Shin-chan is an adult comedy?), but I’ll give The Irresponsible Captain Tylor a pass here. Delivery and tone are two of the most important parts of comedy, and a joke might be less likely to land when read instead of being heard. Not to mention that sometimes things just get lost in translation. The series is funny enough in English that it doesn’t really matter if some liberties were taken during dubbing.
The Irresponsible Captain Tylor is the story of Justy Ueki Tylor, a young man with no direction in life. After seeing an ad for the United Planets Space Force, Tylor decides to enlist with the hope that he can get a nice cushy desk job and take it easy until he can retire and collect a pension. After a mishap where he inadvertently saves a retired UPSF commander from a hostage situation, Tylor is promoted to the rank of major and placed in command of a spaceship, the destroyer Soyokaze. Tylor’s laid-back attitude often puts him at odds with his first officer, Lieutenant Makato Yamamoto, and the ship’s intelligence officer, Major Yuriko Star.
Despite his laid-back attitude though, Captain Tylor finds himself coming out on top in all kinds of situations. Through sheer luck, Tylor survives repeated assassination attempts from both the Holy Raalgon Empire (a race of elf-like humanoids who are at war with the UPSF) and his own superior officers, who want him dead because he makes them look bad.
The series implies that Tylor is just a lucky idiot, but the stuff he pulls off is still insane, and you’ll often find yourself wondering “Did he know that would happen the entire time?”. While taking an aptitude test during his enlistment Tylor manages to make the AI program break its programming and fall in love with him, culminating in the entire UPSF’s computer network crashing when he rejects her. In another instance, Tylor surrenders to a Raalgon fleet and gives them a disk with UPSF battle plans. As the Raalgon captain is leaving, Tylor hands him a gift wrapped box containing a bomb (which had been given to Tylor earlier by a crew member as a “prank”). The Raalgon captain returns to his ship and opens the box, accidentally decimating his own fleet. Tylor essentially Bugs Bunny’d the enemy by complete accident.
The series is full of funny moments like these, and much of the humor comes from everyone else being unsure if Captain Tylor is actually a master strategist doing these things on purpose or just an idiot coasting on luck.
Lucky idiot or not, Captain Tylor has a way of talking to people that tends to win them over. Later in the series, Tylor is finally captured by the Raalgon and taken prisoner. The Raalgon empress, 16 year old Azalyn, at first treats Tylor like a pet. But after talking to Tylor for a bit, Azalyn starts to become smitten with him, and also begins to realize that maybe the entire war is bullshit. Tylor wasn’t even trying to seduce her or even end the war, he was just being his usual laid-back self during capture. Much like the Raalgon empress Azalyn, as you watch the series you’ll find yourself falling in love with Captain Tylor’s devil-may-care attitude.
As I said before, the series is comparable to a light-hearted Star Trek. I know that Star Trek isn’t for everyone, so if you’re not a Trekkie don’t be put off by that comparison. It’s similar to Star Trek in the sense that it’s about a crew of soldiers traveling through space, Tylor is like a more laid-back Captain Kirk, and the United Planets Space Force kind of operates similar to Starfleet. Beyond that though it’s not too similar to the sci-fi franchise. There’s none of the sci-fi technobabble that tends to put people off from Star Trek, there isn’t any focus on other alien races aside from the Raalgon, and there’s none of the political or social commentary that Trek is known for. The Irresponsible Captain Tylor is simply a funny series about a lazy but perpetually lucky starship captain and his crew caught in the middle of a war. There’s just enough similarity with Star Trek for Trekkies to appreciate, but not enough similarity for people who aren’t Star Trek fans to be put off.
The Irresponsible Captain Tylor is definitely in my top ten favorite animes of all time, and I can’t recommend it enough. Some might find the animation style a bit rough, like a less polished Dragon Ball. It’s not horrible though, and most people will be able to overlook it in favor of the story.
The series had a 26 episode run, and was followed by several OVAs that continue the story, culminating in a final episode that left the series on a massive cliffhanger that, as far as I know, was never resolved. If I’m wrong about this then feel free to correct me in the comments because it’s frustrated me for the last ten years. There’s another series that came out in 2017, The Irresponsible Galaxy Tylor, but I’ve never watched it and from what I’ve read it doesn’t appear to really be connected to the other series aside from taking place in the future.
The Irresponsible Captain Tylor is a highly underrated and greatly underappreciated anime that more people should watch. I give this series an 8/10. The only thing holding it back for me is the frustrating lack of a proper conclusion. But aside from that, it’s a hilarious and wild ride that I think most people will love.
