Irresponsible Captain Tylor

"Either he's a fool or an out-and-out genius."

—Dr. Kitaguchi on Justy Ueki Tylor

In the distant future, Earth is poised on the brink of war with a race of aliens known as the Raalgon. As the tensions start to boil over, along comes Justy Ueki Tylor, a young man who joins the military hoping to find a cushy office job somewhere and take it easy.

Fate has other things in mind for our hero, however: Tylor soon goes to deliver a pension check to the highly respected Admiral Hanner, and ends up accidentally saving him (along with Tsundere love-interest Yuriko Star, and Hanner's cute twin daughters Emi and Yumi) from Raalgon agents posing as anti-war terrorists. His "heroism" gains him a rapid promotion to lieutenant commander and an assignment to captain the destroyer Soyokaze (which translates to "Gentle Breeze").

Unbeknownst to Tylor, the Soyokaze is considered a dumping ground for the space fleet, and his frustrated superiors are trying to get rid of him before he causes any more chaos. Unfortunately, this backfires, and Tylor ends up leading his rag-tag crew into a series of victories (much to the chagrin of both his superiors and his subordinates, especially Yuriko and Tylor's straight-man second-in-command Lieutenant Yamamoto), with the fate of the whole war soon ending up in their hands.

He also manages to gain attention among the enemy, including the beautiful teenage Empress Azalyn. All the while, both the other characters and the audience are left wondering if Tylor is a lucky nimrod, or a brilliant strategist.

Interesting Fact: Captain Tylor's first and second name (Justy Ueki) is a pun on the words 'Just wake', as in "Just Wake Tylor." "Just Lucky" can be derived as well; seems appropriate.

Now has a characters page.

Tropes used in Irresponsible Captain Tylor include:

• Abandoned By the Cavalry: Yamamoto in Episode 22.
• Adaptation Distillation: The TV series apparently, according to the box set liner notes, cleaned up some Kudzu Plot, and got rid of one squick-inducing plot point: apparently the producers weren't keen on the light novels' original depiction of the romance between Tylor and Azalyn, not when Tylor was close to 30 and Azalyn was 10. One of the demands by the producers was that Tylor's age was to be reduced to 20, and Azalyn's was to be increased to 16. This is a textbook example of why Executive Meddling is not always bad.
• Adjective Noun Fred
• The Alcoholic / Drunken Master: Dr. Kitaguchi. If what he says is true, he's at his best for work when drunk.
• Aliens Speaking English: For that matter, humans speaking English, too. Nobody, Human or Raalgon, has any trouble communicating with anybody else, no matter where they're from.
• Armor-Piercing Slap: Subverted. The female characters in this show slap pretty hard, but the reaction is portrayed realistically. It's still painful though.
• Bait and Switch: Inverted in the final episode -- it looks like a relatively serious ending with the captain leaving,and most of his crew assigned to a brand-new, state-of-the-art cruiser, until they pull... it... off. You will not see it coming.
• Becoming the Mask: Harumi
• Bizarre Alien Biology: When Azalyn claims to be pregnant with Tylor's child after sneaking into bed with him in episode 21 "Paco-Paco Junior", she counters the crew's incredulity by invoking this trope. She's lying, of course, but they don't know that.
• Boisterous Bruiser: All the Marines.
• Born Lucky: About the only aspect of Tylor that both theories on his intelligence agree on. It really comes down to how much does Tylor make his own luck.
• Brick Joke: The bomb that Tylor receives early in Episode Three bails them out late in Episode Four--long enough to be forgotten by everyone present, except for Tylor.
• Bunny Ears Lawyer: Pretty much everyone.
• Captain Ersatz Several characters and organizations are based on those found in Star Trek, if skewed a little... sideways.
• Catch Phrase: "Just leave everything to me!" and "Don't worry!"
• Cliff Hanger: The OVA, The OVA, The OVA! The Soyokaze is destroyed, the Raalgon Empire is under attack by an unknown third party and Yamamoto of all people is placed in charge of the entire human fleet.) Wanna know what happens next? Too bad! They never made a sequel! If you can find the light novels maybe, maybe you can find out what happens next.
  • Except the light novels are an entirely different continuity. On the bright side, apparently there's a live action movie being worked on^[when?] in Japan... and there's a summation in the special features of the deluxe box sets which explains what was meant to happen afterward.
• Cool Ship: Subverted, the Soyokaze's a piece of junk.
  • Played somewhat straight in that the Soyokaze has, among other things, a bar, a spa, both a fighter quadron and a marine detachment and it's supposed to just be a lowly destroyer.
    • A squadron of maybe three fighters, and a marine detachment of five or six guys plus the dropship pilot.
    • Truth in Television: Larger ships often do have similar recreational areas for personnel to relax and blow off steam due to the relative isolation. Soyokaze's fighters and marines are analogous to the seaplanes and marines carried by WWII destroyers and cruisers.
• Drunken Montage: Tylor has a couple.^[context?]
• Freudian Trio: Tylor is Id, Yamamoto is Superego, and Yuriko is the ego.
• He-Man Woman Hater: Kojiro Sasaki never quite grew out of the Girls Have Cooties stage of childhood. (The liner notes say this is a phobia.) Naturally, this means that the ridiculously cute twins just have to latch on to him from day one onward.
• Heroic BSOD: Tylor, surprisingly enough; you'd think he'd be immune to such a thing, but after Admiral Hanner's death, he goes on autopilot for a little while, utterly disinterested in (and walking out on) a ceremony in his honor. It takes him a while to snap out of it, at which point he decides to leave the UPSF. It doesn't stick.
• Hockey Mask and Chainsaw: One of the marines, named Jason.
• Human Aliens: The Raalgon. Different biochemistry is alluded to, but Humans and Raalgon can eat the same things and the idea of Azalyn being pregnant via Tylor is not ruled out immediately.
• Human Outside, Alien Inside: Invoked in the dub. Azalyn claims that she was able to get pregnant merely by sleeping beside Tylor. (The original Japanese just says she claims to be bearing his child, and points out that they had plenty of time alone together while Tylor was being held prisoner.)
• Hyperspeed Escape: Subverted. The Soyokaze's engine's barely work well enough to hyperjump normally, much less in a pinch.
• Improbable Age: Not quite obvious until you realize that the oldest crew member of the Soyokaze is only 33. The average age of the crew seems to be 19.
  • Not factoring in Harumi, who is an android and only three years old - not that anybody else in the crew ends up caring about either of those facts.
• Instant AI, Just Add Water: Exposure to Tylor leads to android Harumi developing emotions. Not the first time his personality has affected a computer, either.
  • To be precise, the first time was in the first episode, where he only got into the army/space navy because the testing AI fell in love with him!
  • And he did both without trying or meaning to. Maybe.
• Journey to the Center of the Mind: Episode 19 - The Meat Circus has nothing on Tylor's subconscious.
• Kiss Me, I'm Virtual: The recruitment computer in the first episode ends up confessing her love for Tylor. She's not even supposed to have the ability to even do that!
• Lawyer-Friendly Cameo^[context?]
• Leitmotif: Every major character or group has one.
• Let's Get Dangerous: "As steady as a mountain. We stay... a mountain neither runs nor hides."
• Light Novels^[context?]
• Logic Bomb: Tylor accidentally seduces the psychological exam AI. This, naturally, causes the mainframe running it to explode.
• Maneki Neko: One of the good-luck charms used to try to keep the ship from being demoted. (Sometimes confused with the tanuki statue that's kept on the bridge.)
• Meaningful Name: Transliterated into Japanese, Tylor becomes "Taira", which means "calm" or "plain", and is the same Chinese Character as "Grunt/Peon".
  • Also his first two names, Justy Ueki, is a homophone for the English phrase "Just Lucky."
  • Inverted with Dom, who isn't. (Though he made a good effort with the whip.)
    • Any good Dom knows who's in charge at any time. When among his subordinates, he is the very image of control, but with the Empress, he knows exactly where his place is.
  • The ship name "Soyokaze" literally means "gentle breeze", and seems very out of place in the military. What better place to put all of the Space Force's misfits than a ship with a misfit name?
• The Messiah: Tylor. He views Raalgons as people, admires their strength, is understanding of his crew and figures out Harumi is a spy quite early on, yet never does anything about it even when admitting he knew. Treats her better than her own side does, too. Whether he's competent or not, there's no arguing that he's an extremely good person.
• The Mole: Harumi. Though, this is known by the viewers -- and likely Tylor -- by the midpoint of her introductory episode.
• Name's the Same: Pilot Kojiro Sakai shares last names with WWII ace Saburo Sakai. (Their first names mean respectively "second son" and "third son").
• Negative Space Wedgie: Where the haunted house episode takes place.
• One-Sided Arm Wrestling: Yuriko vs Andressen
• Organic Technology: The Raalgons are based around this.
• Peek-a-Bangs: Dom, for the entire series except for a couple of moments of surprise.
• Peek-a-Boo Corpse: In a haunted house episode... IN SPACE!
• Played for Laughs: So many Space Opera tropes.
• Playing Against Type: In the dub, Crispin Freeman. No, he doesn't voice the incredibly badass Andressen or Cryborne. He's Tylor. Justy-fied since this was his first portrayal of a lead role character in his voice acting career, so his acting type hadn't been defined yet.
• The Poor Mans Substitute: J. David Brimmer does his best Ron Perlman impression in voicing Yamamoto in the English dub.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The doctor's a drunkard; the marines are unprofessional and uncontrollable; two of the pilots are raw rookies, still learning how to fly their fighters, and the other one isn't comfortable enough around them to train them properly; the comms officer is skilled, but more interested in her appearance than her job; the XO is a stickler for regulations, which on this ship means he's a laughingstock; and the captain is a goofball.
• Ramming Always Works: In one episode, the Soyokaze rams clean through a much smaller enemy vessel.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: It's strongly suggested that the entire crew of the Soyokaze was put there for that purpose. It happens a couple of times through the series as well.
• Reassignment Backfire: Averted, as nothing relevant to the war with the Raalgon occurs until they're on their way back from the demotion sector.
  • Also played straight with Tyler's assignment to the Soyokaze in the first place: The admirals were hoping her notoriously unruly crew would kill him.
• Running Gag: Combined with Shout-Out: A guy in the marines has a familiar white hockey mask, and a very familiar name. Every time something gets destroyed unexpectedly, he's immediately blamed. Doesn't help that his Weapon of Choice is a chainsaw.
  • He's also something of a Woobie too, as it's rarely his fault and seems a bit less... psychotic than the other marines.
  • In episode 3 of the OVA, an excuse is made that Jason gets sick on Fridays. Really sick.
• Shout-Out:
  • The Soyokaze's shuttle is named Galileo, a name that sticks out in a space force that's in many respects the IJN in space. The Galileo is actually a reference to the shuttle of the same name that appeared several times in Star Trek.
  • The street lights in the park where Tylor and Yuriko have their conversation (while everyone else is celebrating Tylor's assignment to the Aso) look remarkably like the wand Sailor Moon was using in her anime at the same time Tylor was broadcast.
  • The new power armor in the OVA is named "Newtype", and the jeeps are similar to those in the UC Gundam series.
• Show Some Leg: Used in Episode 2.
• Silent Conversation: At various points later in the series such as Harumi to Tylor as he is being kidnapped, or Tylor to Yuriko after he resigns.
• Soldiers At the Rear: Tylor joined the military to get a cushy day job in the Pension Office. It doesn't go as planned.
• Somebody Set Up Us the Bomb: Tylor does this to an enemy captain, Completely by accident! Or was it?
• Spanner in the Works: Tylor -- though this may be deliberate.
• Strategy Schmategy: The less charitable interpretation of Tylor's antics is that he honestly doesn't know what he's doing, and therefore people can't predict his next action because he doesn't know "The Rules" that everyone else follows implicitly.
• Take a Third Option: Tylor always finds a third option out of a situation, whether it's intentional or not.
• Ten-Minute Retirement: Tylor, after Admiral Hanner's death. Goes hand-in-hand with the Bait and Switch ending, when we're led to believe Yamamoto's reunited the rest of the crew aboard the Aso, until he steps out of the way....
• The Thing That Goes Doink: In the second episode in a rooftop garden where Yamamoto is practicing kendo shirtless for his vacation.
• Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: In one episode, the crew encounters the ghosts of the previous crew of the Soyokaze, who were likewise demoted. They try to do their level best to drive Tylor and Yamamoto to despair and suicide. While they end up driving Yamamoto more-or-less insane, they finally decide Hell would be preferable to spending any more time with Tylor!
• Twin Threesome Fantasy: Tylor gets so damn close to achieving this, but... well, see Unwanted Harem below.
  • Considering how they've latched onto him, Kojiro Sasaki could have this to look forward to if he ever gets over his phobia.
• The Unintelligible: Admiral Hanner became this after being admitted to a nursing home where his health started to decline, but Tylor can understand him perfectly.
• Unwanted Harem: After being rescued, Tyler manages to avert this trope with Emi and Yumi by despairing that telling them "I'm sorry" won't be enough. Of course he appeared to actually ignore their confession completely and was instead voicing his thoughts on another matter entirely. He then manages to reject Bridge Bunny Kim in a similarly obtuse manner entirely. Whether this is him being thick or his sly ingenuity at work is, as with much of the rest of the story, a matter of viewer perspective.
  • Then played straight with Harumi.
  • Then subverted for laughs with the arrival of Yuriko. As soon as she arrives, Tylor comments "What, you too!?" and then tells her to ignore it as a private joke.
  • Meanwhile, Azalyn is wondering the entire time how she can succeed in capturing Tylor's heart.
    • All of the above come from the same half of one fabulous episode. It has to be seen to be believed.
• What a Piece of Junk!: The Soyokaze
• What Is This Thing You Call Love?: Harumi tries to come to understand what this emotion means, and Azalyn finds herself innocently curious towards Humans.
• Where Are They Now? Epilogue: Part of the final episode, which shows all of the crew following Tylor's advice before Yamamoto recruits them for the Aso. Of course, it becomes hilariously subverted in one of the most impressive Bait and Switch endings of all time. It has to be seen to be believed.
• X Meets Y: Imagine the cast of a Hot-Blooded sci-fi anime thrust into a wacky Sitcom...
  • Alternately, imagine the complete inverse.