As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not much for anime<\/i>, those Japanese-made animated films that typically feature characters with enormous eyes (or hardly any eyes at all), bizarrely stylized facial expressions, and utterly insane hair-dos. I’ve sampled several of the acknowledged classics of the form over the years, but despite my genuine interest in Japan and its culture, I’ve just never been able to warm up to this stuff. In general, anyhow. There are two notable exceptions, a pair of anime<\/i> for which I do have genuine affection, both of them television series that showed up in America right around the time I was absolutely crazy for anything that included spaceships and rayguns (i.e., the fifth grade).<\/p>\n
The first was a show I think most people in my general age demo will remember, Battle of the Planets<\/i>, which followed a team of five teenage superheroes known as G-Force.<\/p>\n
The other was Star Blazers<\/i>.<\/p>\n
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If you don’t know Star Blazers<\/i>, it was a daily dose of pure, unreconstituted space opera: dashing heroes, crusty old mentor figures, massive starships slugging it out in the depths of space, sleek fightercraft dodging among asteroids, cosmic intrigue and mystery, a noble quest against impossible odds, and, of course, lots and lots of explosions.<\/p>\n
The premise: Earth has been bombed into a radioactive wasteland by mysterious aliens with unknown motives. The survivors of the human race huddle in underground cities, waiting for the inevitable. But then an offer of help arrives from a planet on the other side of the galaxy, a technology that can completely regenerate Earth’s biosphere and save humanity from extinction. There’s only one catch: we have to go and get it in person. Using plans sent by our benefactor, mankind sets about building our first starship, the Argo<\/i>, which is quietly constructed inside the rusting hulk of the World War II battleship Yamato<\/i><\/a> — the original, Japanese version of Star Blazers<\/i> was called Space Battleship Yamato<\/i> — in order to keep the attacking aliens from realizing what we’re doing until Argo<\/i> is ready to launch. Yes, that’s right, the show’s signature spacecraft is actually an ancient boat refitted with faster-than-light engines and boosted into space. Hey, it made sense when I was ten, okay? Anyhow, the Argo<\/i> claws its way into space, runs the bad-guys’ blockade, and heads off for the distant world Iscandar, constantly dogged by the enemy and, of course, the ticking countdown to the end of all life on Earth. (This set-up is explained a bit more concisely and lot more jauntily in the show’s opening credits<\/a>, if you care to check it out.)<\/p>\n Looking back with adult eyes, I can see that Star Blazers<\/i> was very much a Japanese response to the aftermath of World War II. The radioactive destruction of the planet obviously reflects Japan’s national trauma at being atom-bombed, as does our heroes’ reaction to the unexpectedly horrific power of the Argo<\/i>‘s primary weapon the first time they use it<\/a>. Meanwhile, the depiction of the Yamato<\/i>, once the flagship of the Japanese Imperial Navy before it was sunk by the U.S. in 1945, as the one hope of the entire human race is nothing less than a blatant reassertion of Japanese pride and virility at a time — the late 1970s — just before Japan would become a major economic rival to the United States, and a source of nagging dread for many U.S. citizens.<\/p>\n But I wasn’t cognizant of any of that in fifth grade. Back then, Star Blazers<\/i> was just an awesome — and, on occasion, surprisingly mature and dark — show about a boat in space, kicking alien ass with giant rayguns. I loved it.<\/p>\n By now you may be wondering what’s got me waxing nostalgic about this particular series. Oh, nothing much… just a trailer for a new live-action version of Space Battleship Yamato<\/i>!<\/p>\n