Sci Fi TV Finds: Locating hard-to-find sci fi and fantasy TV shows that are available for streaming or on home video.
Star Blazers
Originally Aired: Syndication, 1979-84, 3 Seasons Totaling 77 Episodes
Starring: Kenneth Meseroll, Eddie Allen, Amy Howard Wilson, Mike Czechopoulos, Jack Grimes
Created By: Leiji Matsumoto
What Is It? Star Blazers is the English-language adaptation of Leiji Matsumoto’s classic 1974 Anime Space Battleship Yamato. In the first season, Earth is attacked by the Gamilon Empire and the planet bombs used by the aliens force the survivors to move underground due to the radiation. But that is just a temporary solution as the radiation will eventually eradicate all life on Earth. Queen Starsha of the planet Iscandar contacts the remaining humans and informs them that she possesses “Cosmo DNA” which can clear the radiation. A sunken battleship from past wars is repurposed into a space cruiser and named the Argo and it sets off on a perilous journey to Iscandar with the Gamilons trying to stop them from reaching their destination. Subsequent seasons dealt with the Argo taking on other alien threats to Earth.
Star Blazers was one of the early attempts to bring a Japanese Anime series to an American audience, but unlike shows such as Battle of the Planets (which adapted Science Ninja Team Gatchaman) and Voltron (which adapted Beast King GoLion and Armored Fleet Dairugger XV), it provided a more faithful adaptation of its source material. The characters’ names were Westernized, the significance of the original battleship was played down (the Yamato was a sunken WWII Japanese ship), and some of the violence was edited out. But the series still delivered the tale of a cosmic war and addressed the consequences of the conflict (including characters dying) and the feelings of those involved. It could get somewhat repetitive with most episodes presenting the weekly attempt by the ineffectual Gamilons to stop the Argo (which got blown up more times than Voyager, only to be in perfect condition the next episode). And the science could definitely be sketchy at times. But overall it delivered a good cosmic saga that can be enjoyed by adults and kids alike.
Currently, neither Star Blazers nor Space Battleship Yamato are available for streaming on any of the major services. But you can find Star Blazers on YouTube as well as the original Japanese Anime. Mighty Wings has posted the majority of the episodes of the American adaptation for seasons 1 thru 3 plus the Comet Empire arc which was not part of the original syndication package. For whatever reason, not every episode is there, but if you search YouTube for a specific ep, you should be able to find it somewhere. I made it all the way through the first season, and plan on continuing on with the others at some point. But you never know how long shows like this will be available on YouTube. Mobile Suit Gundam (the original 1979 series) was purged right about the time that the Blu-ray edition was released. So if whoever holds the rights to Star Blazers/Space Battleship Yamato flexes their muscles, the show could be gone at any time. Star Blazers is definitely worth checking out as an interesting piece of sci fi Anime from the past, and you may very well find yourself hooked on this epic space series.
Watch Space Battleship Yamato on YouTube
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They also remade the first two seasons: Star Blazers 2199 in 2010 and Star Blazers 2202 in 2017. There was also a live-action movie made called Space Battleship Yamato in 2010.