Somewhere in the depths of space two mighty space fleets clash. Meanwhile, back on Earth Oji Tanaka, once the lead guitarist for the hot heavy metal band Black Heaven has hit the wall. Oji cashed out of the rock biz and is now trapped in a life he considers a lie - that of a dull salaryman with a young family. But even as Oji tries to cling to his past, his ruthlessly practical wife Yoshiko, once the founder of his fan club, is throwing out his prized rock mementos to make room for their growing family. On the day he hits rock bottom, she trashes his last and most cherished Flying V guitar. His life changes forever when he meets the lovely Layla Yuki, a new employee in his office. Professing to be an old fan, she ushers a drunken Oji to a private stage secreted in the back of an empty model home and up a glowing stairway where she reunites him with his lost Flying V. Oji is overjoyed, and plays for her. But Layla isn't what she seems.

Oji wakes up the next morning wondering if his time with Layla was a dream, but she soon appears to assure him it wasn't, asking for his help to save her people. Oji assumes she's joking about inter-stellar battles, but he can't wait to play his guitar again, so he plays along with her story. They step through an office door and onto a large stage, where he plays the night away.

Oji's recent all-night disappearances have got Yoshiko steamed, but to make it up to her, Oji offers to take her to tour the new model homes in a nearby development. While there, though, Layla appears to tell him his playing is desperately needed, and leaves her three ditzy lackeys Kotoko, Eriko and Rinko to keep Yoshiko distracted. Oji really cranks his guitar this time. But while he beams, thinking he's playing in a trendy nightclub, his music is actually powering a super-powerful weapon that destroys an enemy fleet.

Layla's commander and ex-lover Fomalhaut is determined to reproduce Oji's killer sound without depending on the artist himself. He dispatches her to more closely observe Oji, and, as a backup, also sends Kotoko, Eriko and Rinko to make more remote observations. Meanwhile, the other housewives living in the Tanakas' apartment building buzz with rumors that Oji has taken a lover, and while Yoshiko doesn't believe it, she is none-too-pleased when beautiful Layla shows up on their doorstep, on the young couple's anniversary no less, and proceeds to spend the entire day mooning over Oji's career. Matters don't improve when Kotoko, Eriko and Rinko decide to create a love nest for Layla and Oji when Yoshiko steps out to shop.

Oji agrees to watch Gen, the couple's son, while Yoshiko heads to a high school reunion. While strolling with the little tike in the park, Oji realizes that he knows virtually nothing about his son aside from the boy's total obsession over the TV show "UFO Ranger Flying 5" (which curiously stars a woman who looks just like Layla and seems to feature adventures which parallel Oji's own).

While watching Gen play, Oji gets a cell call from Layla who, with her fleet under attack, insists that he perform immediately. Oji drops everything, leaving his son in the park. As Oji revs up his sound, Gen sneaks aboard the mothership and immediately becomes a target for the ship's deadly defense systems.

Music as a space-opera anime weapon was first introduced when Minmay took to the stage in 1983's "Macross" and now finds new life as a plot device in "Black Heaven." The music, though, surprisingly, isn't as much of a centerpiece for the show as the premise suggests. Aside from a few brief guitar licks to establish the fact that Oji Tanaka can wail on his Flying V in the midst of battle, the anime isn't scored with any cohesive tunes.

Mari Iijima's Minmay tunes made hay for "Macross." And other band-oriented titles ranging from "Megazone 23" to "Bubblegum Crisis" and even "Perfect Blue" have capitalized on a couple of stirring numbers. "Black Heaven" stews in a soup of sound.

Fortunately, there's more to this series than its lack of music. Character designer Nakazawa Noboru renders a great-looking cast and even manages to impart a visual sign of Oji's submerged rebellion in the form of stray chin hairs he refuses to shave. For some of his characters, Noboru, who has previously designed for the "El Hazard" OVA series, evokes the spiky style of "Aeon Flux" creator Peter Chung. Commander Fomalhaut in particular looks like he'd feel right at home on MTV's defunct "Liquid Television." And "Heaven's" opening credits features a lingering shot of a quivering eyeball that can pretty much do anything with its lashes short of catching flies. This curious blend of styles lends "Black Heaven" a unique aesthetic suited to its hard-rock-gone-mainstream-gone-clear-into-space premise.

There's one overriding and obvious theme to "Black Heaven," and it's pretty hard to miss: an artist who denies himself expression will wilt and die. Oji is a failure as a salaryman and husband not because of any character flaw or mental shortcomings, but because he's shut himself off from his musical gift. Only when he meets the vibrant and beautiful Layla and resumes playing his guitar does he awaken from his long slumber and take notice of the world around him. While most anime created in this schticky, killer music vein address issues resonant with adolescents - first loves, building self-confidence, forming fast friendships - "Black Heaven" is a tale meant for people like Oji- thirty-somethings who came of age in a 1980s Japan of pop idols, big hair bands, a booming economy and a limitless optimism about the future. But somewhere along the way, Japan's economic bubble burst, and the hopes and dreams of a generation got smothered in a society that prizes conformity and compromise above all else. "Black Heaven" asks the questions salarymen across the world are surely thinking while crammed into their office cubicles: Who am I? Where did my hopes and dreams go? How did I wind up where I am? Who is this person I married? Why are my own children strangers to me?

If "Black Heaven" has any one overriding flaw, it's withholding an understanding of the aliens and their conflict. It might be argued, perhaps, that that isn't the point of the show, or that the aliens' true motives will be revealed in due time. But in four episodes questions abound about Fomolhaut and Layla's objectives, what is at stake for them in this war and how that war affects the people of Earth. Overall, however, "Black Heaven" is a surprisingly good find.