I’ve been a big fan of Star Blazers since I first saw it on TV 25 years ago. I can still remember the theme song:
We're off to outer space
We're leaving Mother Earth
To save the human race
Our Star Blazers
Searching for a distant star
Heading off to Iscandar
Leaving all we love behind
Who knows what danger we'll find?
We must be strong and brave
Our home we've got to save
If we don't in just one year
Mother Earth will disappear
Fighting with the Gamilons
We won't stop until we've won
Then we'll return and when we arrive
The Earth will survive
With our Star Blazers
It was one of the earliest U.S available Japanese anime series. It tells of a war between Earth and another race called the Gamilons. Earth is nearly defeated, but fortunately, the planet of Iscandar can help them. But they need to journey to Iscandar (a trek of 148,000 light-years) and back in only one year (this is similar to Star Trek:Enterprise season 3). I only saw it on TV for the first season and I’ve never seen it in re-runs. Also, I missed about 1/3 of the episodes including the first few.
So, I’ve always wanted to see it again, partly to just experience it again, and partly to find out the answers to some questions I had. Why does the Argo look so much like a WWII era Japanese battleship? Ok, so that one turns out to be obvious. It’s because it IS a WWII era Japanese battleship. Why do the Gamilons appear to be so humanish? This is anime. The artists could’ve given them tentacled faces and no legs. Why is it called Star Blazers when the people call themselves the Star Force? I think this is a “lost in translation” issue, but it annoyed me when I was 13.
I was very excited to see this released to DVD, since it doesn’t appear to ever be on TV anymore, but not so thrilled about the price. I’ll probably only watch it once, and $150 is a bit pricey for a one-time viewing.
Fortunately for me, there’s Movielink. The bad news: Movielink only works with IE. The good news: Movielink lets you rent and download movies on your PC. And, they have all three seasons available. The Quest for Iscandar is the first season and is available in 6 parts at $5 per part. That’s a big savings from $150.
I watched episodes 1–7 last night, and it answered a few questions for me. There were a few humorous things I didn’t remember, such as a “holodeck” type area (Star Trek borrows again from Star Blazers), and your typical bad science issues with something like this. I don’t think it’s really “thousands of light years” from Earth to Mars. If it is, then Iscandar must be just outside our solar system. ;-)
But there’s real drama in this, as well, much more than you’d expect from a Saturday morning cartoon of the era. Our hero, Derek Wildstar, resents and has a hard time trusting the captain, Captain Avatar. He blames Avatar for the death of his older brother, Alex Wildstar. He believes in the mission, but not in the captain’s ability to see it through. The series has love and pain and death in it.
And, of course, the over-dramatic countdown at the end is somewhat humorous now too, although I loved it at the time.
Hurry Star Force, there are only 354 days left!
Ok, I just re-read this post, and I admit it. I’m a geek. Sue me. :-)
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