• The space shuttle is so special. 

• I love how Judau cared so much for wanting to get Puru Two/Ple Two away from Glemy and on the Nahel Argama because deep down inside she was still Puru/Ple and they were like surrogate siblings. But then come the final episode, where Puru Two/Ple Two dies in the captain's chair after giving Beecha and Monda the coordinates to fire the Nahel Argama's cannons to rescue Judau, and then nobody gives a shit (even Judau doesn't bat an eyelash dispute risking his life to free her from the Quin Mantha) or even tries to attempt to acknowledge her death, it's literally just Puru two saying "Oh, Judau is alive I'm so happy" (slowly closes her eyes and then slowly slumps her head on the chair, she must have died because she's never mentioned or seen at the end of the episode) and then the Gundam Team saying "YEAH JUDAU BEAT UP HAMAN!!! CHEERS". Probably Tomino's laziest death in a Gundam series ever.

• I don't recall a speech in which that term is used, or at any other time in the series. (I've watched all three seasons multiple times. Three of the movies, too, but of course those wouldn't mention Star Blazers anyway.) Star Force is introduced as a term (in English) when Avatar addresses the first crew before loading the ship, in the same scene where he rechristens the Yamato as the Argo. I'm pretty sure it isn't used in the first ep for the Earth space fleet, although of course after that ep the Yamato <i>is</i> the collective sum total of all remaining space military forces. ;) In subsequent Seasons (and movies), the fleet is collectively known as the EDF or Earth Defense Fleet. Desslok in particular warns the Emperor in Season Two that who they really better watch out for and not underestimate is the Star Force <i>in distinction from the regular Earth fleet</i>. In Season Three they don't focus much on the other (few) fleet ships trying to help find a place for Earth's people to migrate after the Galmans accidentally zorch the sun, so I don't recall if "Star Force" was used for them collectively or not. On the other hand, neither do I recall the term being used much (or even at all) in that season anyway. (Which might be faulty memory on my part, but if not then I expect it comes from having a completely different--and generally much inferior--English dubbing crew.) After the first several times watching it, I began to suspect that "Star Force" was actually a translation of Yamato itself, with the crew and the ship being referenced identically in Japanese. When I started watching the movies, I discovered they did exactly this. Wikipedia, for what it's worth, confirms: "The most significant change made by Griffin-Bacal was purely narrative: In the original series the Yamato and its crew were regarded as a single entity, the narrator each week urging "Yamato, hurry to Iscandar!" In English, the significance of the name Yamato as a word the viewers can identify with, signifying the land, people, and spirit of Japan is lost, so in Star Blazers the crew were named the Star Force and became the focus of the show." In summary: "Star Force" is actually a replacement translation of "Yamato" when the series uses that term for the crew-and-ship collectively, although in the English dubs the inclusion of the ship per se is distantly implied at best. Thus the English dub might talk about the Argo and the Star Force (or more likely only the Star Force) where the Japanese original would talk about the Yamato crew-and-ship.  But when the Japanese original was only referencing the ship itself, the English dub either followed suit or (after the second episode) called it the Argo.

• No, but I typically stay away from fan fics. Can't say I'm surprised, though. {g} When Voyager released the series to DVD a few years back (which I had heard would contain subtitled versions of the original Japanese eps as well as Star Blazers, although they didn't), they included a booklet discussing the history of the development of the story, and talked quite a bit about how Harlock would be introduced and how he would fit into the story.

• I know that Harlock's ship and the Yamato pass each other at some point in a ghostly fashion, but I don't recall what series that's in. (None of the Yamato seasons or eps, though.)

• Imagine my confusion when the Malaysian subtitle team (random people apparently worked on different subsequent episodes) thought Glasgow was Berlin...

• Puru is, indeed, annoying beyond all reason. I wouldn't say Haman was nerfed, exactly, but Yazan sure was downgraded to clownishly ineffective antics. (While, by the way, incidentally killing off one of the named Argama crew to have survived the slaughter at the end of Zeta!! Not a major character, but still shocking. Especially as it happens while the Argama crew are being pelted with oranges. O.....o So, yeah, mood whiplash is awfully extreme there.) I defy you to type the words "The Lost Space Peacnik Aztecs from Moon Moon are a good point and the two episode colony drop onto Dublin was not". Not copy-paste. Type. <I>I DEFY YOUUUU!!!</I> I recently finished the G Gundam arc in Japan (not sure if it was in Tokyo, definitely not Hong Kong), where things did get more epic. Now in the training arc in Guiana. Not quite so epic there, but that's okay. (Edited to add: now finished with that arc, and it got rather more epic in itself, as if the director wasn't sure he'd be asked back to finish the second half of the series! {lol!}) I expect things to go to 11, though, based on the visual spoilers they keep putting into the title credits. {g} Yes, I've heard Victory is brutal, but I'm moderately curious to see it anyway, maybe while pretending it has nothing really to do with the UC continuity. Most likely I'll look into it after Unicorn ends. (I've been waiting for that to finish before investing in it.)

• 1.) It was rebuilt from the inside out using futuristic Earth tech, plus Iscandarian technology. 2.) The original ship is shown only halfway up from the dry sea floor. What's shown underneath is a ship so new the characters don't understand what it is. So while the producers wouldn't have known the extent of the damage (and probably wouldn't have cared, considering this is science-fantasy not hard sci-fi), what's shown isn't entirely unfeasible based on contemporary (if loose) guesses as to how much damage she sustained.

• Wait, wait, wait! Did you just mention the space aztecs of the  lost colony of Moon Moon as a legitimate good point in ZZ? Different strokes for different folks I guess, personally those episodes on Moon Moon made me facepalm more than anything in Victory because at that point the show was getting back to the Zeta vibe with Glemy's sudden but built up insurrection against Haman. I don't know what was worse in ZZ, Judau and the Junk kids on Moon Moon or Haman getting sexed up by that idiot Stampa or Bright getting utterly bitched out by Roux and getting called an old man...I mean for christ sake, FA YUIRY had to basically take over as the professional military character on that show, she was almost turning into a little Emma Sheen until she gets shunted of to nurse Kamille back to....well I don't know what the fuck was going on with Kamille's going insane Rosamia style during the Dublin Arc when he's running around screaming "OH NO THE SKY IS FALLING"....man, I actually kinda teared up a little in that scene. Though ZZ rant aside, I am still waiting for Bandai to release it on DVD....one day.....in my lifetime. 

• It's from the Yamato live-action movie.

• I think "Star Force" was the official military name for the collective space military forces.  Out of the episodes of Star Blazers I can recall was this one scene where Derek was doing a motivational speech and he did use "Star Blazers" to refer to the crew.

• I'm pretty sure something like that actually happened.  Though Harlock ended up nothing more than a passing cameo, and the actual spotlight character was Esmeraldas.

• yep

• This and the Scarlet Scarf are the first things I ever learned to play. They made such an impression, I now work for an animation studio go figure

• you know there's fan fic where this happened right?

• Char's Counterattack following the Zeta movies is difficult, but justifiable. Though technically ZZ is still in canon, some theorise the alternate ending was their way of brushing it under the carpet to make way for Unicorn. They didn't want to trip up potential new viewers on what is widely considered the worst UC series. As far as I know, most of the hate towards ZZ comes from fans who feel it tainted Zeta's legacy. The wacky comedy feels insulting after the death and sacrifices of the AEUG in Zeta, the entire Neo-Zeon war is won by five teenagers in mobile suits, vile and ruthless villains like Yazan and Haman are totally nerfed for no reason other than to make Judau look cool, and fucking PURU PURU PURU. It still has its good points though (Silent Voice, Space Aztecs, and... I got nothin'). Victory is even worse in its own way. Not in a ZZ "Tomino-san overdid the happy pills" way, but in a "Dear God the man was suicidal when he made this, he just didn't give a shit anymore" way. Named characters die every episode, the majority of the suit designs suck, logic is utterly absent, Katejina is a horrible villain in both her actions and character, and it ends with some bullshit "Waves of Peace" crap that makes Minovsky Particles look scientific. Victory is a whole 'nother kind of awful, so its best watched with friends, so you can laugh through the pain. Alternate Universe Gundam show are fine. I recommend Turn A and Gundam X. G Gundam was my introduction to the franchise, and is still my favourite entry. Then again, Giant Robo is my favourite ever anime, so I'm biased. Hope you enjoy it! The early episodes are fine, but once the action reaches Hong Kong, things go all the way up to eleven. Shit gets epic real quick.

• XD Yes, exactly. I can't believe I forgot that one!

• This fact always bothered me too. The battleship Yamato couldn't survive weapons of the FORTIES. Now it can survive alien weapons? And let's not forget, the Yamato's magazine detonated when she went down and she blew in half. Granted, the original show was made before they found the wreck, but everyone knew her magazine blew, they had to know what would've happened.

• Third verse! (End credit song for first and second season. Weirdly, they used the second season opening song for the opening and ending credits of the third season, which had exactly nothing to do with the Comet Empire.) We're off... in outer space... we're lea---ving Mother Earth... to save... the human race! Our... Star.. Blazers! Danger lurking everywhere, but we know we've got to dare! Evil men with evil schemes, they can't... destroy... all our dreams...! We must... be strong and brave...! Our home... we've got to save...! We must make the fighting cease, so Mother Earth will be at peace! Through all the fire and the smoke, we will never give up hope. If we can win, the Earth will survive; we'll keep peace alive... with our... Star... Blazers!!

• We're off... in outer space... protect--ing Mother Earth... to save... the human race... Our Star Blazers! A cry for help, a desperate plight, Make the StarForce reunite. As we rush to meet our fate The Com--et Empire awaits...! We must... be strong and brave... Our home... we've got to save... If Zor--dar's plot should work, he'll destroy... the universe...! [This is hyperbole by the songwriters...] We'll fight the Comet Em-mm-pire; Battle through the raging fire; Filled with the hope that the Earth will survive. We'll keep peace alive with our... Star... Blazers...!

• The collective name for the crew was the Star Force, but yes in the English lyrics they say "Star Blazers" instead. Which from how it's used, sounds more like they mean "with our phasers" or cannons or whatever. Also, even the English edit acknowledges for the first few eps that this was the Yamato. They rechristen it as the Argo before launch, in honor of Jason and his Argonauts going after the Golden Fleece (i.e. in order to heal the Earth).

• Related trivia: Leiji originally intended to introduce Harlock as a character first in the Yamato series. He would have had a major role, too.

• Having recently finished ZZ Gundam a couple of months ago, I didn't think it was all that bad--except that I had to watch a crappy Malaysian subtitle job where 10 eps are crammed onto one disc (making the whole thing look like a dupe from a VHS). I can definitely understand people not liking it, but that's largely (not entirely) due to the unusual plot setup. All three sides from the ZetaG series are exhausted and spend the whole series meandering around trying to drum up enough support to accomplish anything worthwhile. (For example the first quarter of the series takes place while the Argama is in drydock for repairs.) It's difficult for the story to build up much momentum when everyone is struggling to do more than lash out sporadically against each other. (And the Federation can't even manage that much!) This is why even haters usually agree the series picks up substantially toward the end: Haman and her forces are finally strong enough to try a few significant things. Including the first detailed colony drop in the UC series. (Also the only one I know about, unless Victory or Unicorn or F?? has one. I'm not counting other Gundam continuities.) It's true that the terribly truncated Zeta movie trilogy (which I recommend skipping unless the viewer simply has to have a happy ending right now) retcons ZZ out of existence; but it also eliminates Char's Counterattack I think. Not sure I want to lose that. I'm curious about Victory, but I will no doubt work through a number of other Gundam continuities first. Which should take a while. (I'm less than halfway through G Fighter Gundam at the moment. A super-robot Gundam series made by the Giant Robo creators? Yay?!)

• The Gamilons are treated rather more like Nazis under Hitler than like Americans, that's for sure. Although Desslok/Desslar seems to be going more for a Roman Emperor vibe (especially in the third season, when his partial relapses are quite disturbing). So maybe a more competent Mussolini? {g} It helps that the Gamilons are blue-skinned, of course. But they didn't start off that way--for the first couple of eps they were mostly Caucasian. During Deslar's first military parade, several eps into the series, the producers literally phased his skin color from human-white to blue as he's walking toward the camera.

• Sparkling clean spring water!

•  To be fair, watching bits and peices of Starblazers as a kid born in the 80's... a lot of what I remember is bellbottoms and 70's hair. And a freaking cool starship. And bellbottoms.

• I'm pretty sure the Yamato's Americanized name was Argo, and Star Blazers is collective name for the Argo's crew.

• It's "Yamato!" "Yamato", goddammit! The ship isnt called "Star Blazer"! XD

• yeah, I don't have a lot of anime-watching experience, but I find I really enjoy the animation from the 70's (and a the 80's a bit) the most.

• 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 dangers 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!GIGGITY!!!

• /clears throat 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 dangers 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 [sick 70's beats] Fighting with the Gammalons We won't stop until we've won Then we'll return, and when we arrive The earth will survive... WITH OUR. STAR. BLAZERS.

• Or the other way round.

• Star Blazers was pretty heavily bowdlerized, in general. They would pretend that all the enemy ships were manned by robots, to avoid having the main characters be murderers. And I remember one especially ridiculous scene where they referred to a bento box as a chocolate cake. Then started eating sushi. Out of the chocolate cake. ...Face->palm.

• I think the Iowa class battleships were easily the equal to the Yamato and Musashi, and were far far superior to the Bismark and Turpitz. The Bis and Pitz being designed and built to marginally fit into the draconian restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles/Armistice et. al. Lets face it, by 1942 battelships had become targets. Fast Carriers having displaced them. Their big guns were used to bombard enemy land positions  prior to amphibious assault.  Oh crap is my military history nerd showing again.

• Blond hair blue eyed? sounds rather aryan to me.

• I was under the impression that it was easier to retrofit the Yamato, than to build a new space ship.

• Wow the container at 0:21 in looks quite like the bio-serum container in Killer Girl K.

• [ weeaboo ] I must correct myself: Leiji Matsumoto's only real contribution to Space Battleship Yamato was the ship designs. He owns the design for the Yamato itself, but he wasn't behind the anime. His baby was the freaking brilliant Captain Harlock. Which, IMHO, should be getting the modern remake and live action movie as well.[ / weaboo ]

• -sings- Ginga wo hanare isukandaru e Harubaru nozomu Uchuu senkan Ya~mato~ -salutes, manly tears- XD

• Something tells me that Keith's habit of spaming in the Guncannon would be a lot more at home in Cosmic Era.  And yeah, during Marida's newtype flashback you can see her hand reach out to Glemy Toto it's right here: http://randomc.net/image/Gundam%20Unicorn/Gundam%20Unicorn%20-%2003%20-%20Large%2028.jpg Although I have to say that .I like that Unicorn referenced ZZ, at least it further referneces the Z/ZZ era of Gundam rather than Char's Counterattack where you could basically skip Zeta and ZZ and watch it as a continuation of MSG, because all Zeta and ZZ amounted to in CC was Char mentioning Haman and the Titans in his speech, Amuro saying that Char once helped them to save the Earth, and Astonoges entire existence (which sadly ended in the movie), which was perhaps my ownly incredibly small grip with CC along with less Mirai and Chimen trying to get off Earth and some cameos of Kamille, Fa, Fraw Bow and 2/3 of the White Base orphans, and Kai are doing after their fighting was over. I doubt that Tomino would go all Seed Destiny on us with the cameos of the past heroes getting in the way of the Char and Amuro fight.  Oh Nina, I just can't stand how when the GP-01 in the space configuration got fucked up and she was freaking out and screaming "OH NO MY GUNDAM!!!", completely disregarding that Kou is probably half dead in the thing, and then when she goes to meet him she is all despondent over his condition, the women is just schizophrenic with her love...no wonder she shot Kou, too bad the series faded to black after Kou and Nina's reunion, I'd like to think that Kou would just give Nina a good old Bright Slap for her troubles.

• Glemy was in Part 3?! I don't remember that... I personally thought Unicorn was drawing much of its inspiration from Char's Counterattack, but it really is an awesome anniversary show for the entire franchise. So much love for UC I'm crapping mullets and neon! Victory is best watched as a series of Youtube highlights. Shrike Squad: "Usso! Bite my tits! Usso! I'll protect you with my life!" (Mobile Suit explodes for no reason, and Shrike Squad member #14 dies horribly) Keith got the hot amazon, but his pilloting skills consisted of spamming the Guncannon, and he literally had no development aside from getting aforementioned hot amazon. He didn't get a chance to be annoying because he was barely in the show. Kou had the dramatic drive to defeat Gato, and went from rookie test pilot to MAN OF DESTINY in half a year. I liked that for all his growth he still couldn't beat Gato in an even fight, made for a real sense of irony, as well as enhancing the feeling that Gato is the protagonist of that show, and Cima is his rival! Nina wasn't so bad except for the fact that she's in love with her Gundams, dreams of pilots becoming irrelevant when she's dating one, and out of nowhere decides to help out with a fucking Colony Drop, "because she owed Gato", or some shit like that. I personally think she was just jealous of the pure love between Kou and Kelly Layzner... seriously, that scene makes the Volleyball bit in Top Gun look positively heterosexual. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BP3TX47VK3k&feature=related

• There is the nationalism aspect to it for sure. But I'm willing to put my money on designer Leiji Matsumoto realizing it looked fucking cool.

• 1. Because today's otaku will not watch old anime or read old manga. Viz, for example, has tremendous difficulty selling books that were over a decade old. If it doesn't look like Naruto or One Piece, the geeks don't want it no matter how brilliant it was. It's the same here in Japan.  If you weren't a kid in the 70s then Matsumoto's stuff might as well be an Aeschylus play. And since the live action Yamato movie was moderately successful (Though I've heard it was pretty crappy. I should rent it one day.), it makes sense they'd want a Sunday morning cartoon of it. 2. While the Yamato is a pretty iconic SF image, much like the TARDIS, the sequels and various remakes sucked more ass than a German scheisse porn. The main selling point of the original anime, nationalism aside, was the very compelling story of a last ditch effort of a dying species to save itself. The way I see it, as long as they don't turn it into a toy commercial it's good to bring a classic to a new generation. Though personally, I find the cell shaded ships a bit yucky...

• Eh, at least Keith pursued his amazonish girl eventually and was at least slightly less annoying than the core cast (though Lt. Burning is awesome...too bad about his death was unintentionally hilarious, "My God, in this briefcase are the plans for Operation Stardust I have to warn my sq-BOOM! Dead), Kou just sucks as a pilot and had that harpy witch Nina Purpleton to go after, and we both know how that turned out. Oh god the Loltomino logic in Victory, there is just sooo much like Odelo's death or Katijina's plan of using a squad of bazooka equpped bikini girl's to mesmorize Uso with their raw sex appeal but instead they get knocked aside and then one of them gets beam sabered, ah Uso's reaction is just priceless. Well technically, Unicorn brought up ZZ Gundam in it's second installment when Banagher's friend Takuya Irei geeks out to Riddhe saying "This Nahel Argama was the mothership of the Gundam Team in the First Neo Zeon War". Plus we see Glemy Toto in his Neo Zeon regalia in part 3, along with several ZZ era suits like Rockon Dakaron's Dreissen and the Zaku III. So if anything it seems like Unicorn is saying that ZZ Gundam or something like the events depicted in ZZ Gundam did happen.

• Victory is just so depressing and terrible, not even its crazy Lol-Tomino logic was enough to keep me watching. Even if ZZ's quality wasn't an issue, I'd still recommend a prospective fan to stay away from it. Both the Zeta movies and Gundam Unicorn seem to be doing their best to retcon it from the franchise completely. Stardust has awesome action and awesome Mobile Suits. That's almost enough to make up for the really crappy main characters and the AWFUL love triangle. Keith? You mean Kou's wimpy friend? Or do you mean the awesome Lt. South Burning, the badass One Year War veteran who died halfway in? AGE had a really good first 4 episodes, and two crappy recent ones. Its a mixed bag so far, but give it time. It may just end up a truly great series.

• Eh, Zeta isn't that depressing compared to Victory, which is just a bloodbath throughout, and most of the depressing things that occur at the end of Zeta like Kamille's ending and that bastard Yazan Gable escaping are patched up in the end of ZZ (even though I personally didn't like what they did to those two or any other character that was brought back from Zeta).  ZZ Gundam is a mixed bag which I can kinda give a pass to because of the whole rewriting the second half of the story because Char"s Counterattack was greenlighted, although man that  first half would have worked better if it didn't come right after the dark conclusion of Zeta. Zeta Gundam didn't deserve those trilogy movies because the series was fine as it was, the show that really needed those films was ZZ and it's planned ending of Char's Zeon soldiers fighting against Haman's. Stardust Memory was okay, except for well.... the annoying charaacters (oh Kou/Nina/Moncha) and that Keith should have been the GP01 pilot to fight Gato, oh well fanboy dreams and opinions. Although I've only seen the first episode of AGE, I thought it was pretty cool despite the in my opinion bland Gundam designs. Hopefully the AGE-2 and AGE-3 aka the 00 versions of the Zeta and ZZ  will catch my attention more. 

• Because we live in a world where a rebooted Spider-Man can happen in less than 10 years since the original.

• Why?!?! Aren't there plenty of original ideas out there? Can't they make a sequel or new series (like Next Generation was to the original Star Trek)? Why remake a classic series with the same characters and same plot line? We already know (spoiler alert) that the humans make it to Iscandar and back and Captain Avatar dies on the return trip. Why do we need to see the same story again?

• Fair enough.

• It'll get me slaughtered by the hardcore fans for saying so, but Gundam SEED's not a bad place to start.  The sequel series (Destiny) was crap, and even with SEED there's about 30 obvious changes you could have made to improve it, but it did a very good job of character-building 90% of the time.  For this Robotech fan who never liked many of the other Gundam series, it was a refreshing change of pace. But avoid SEED Destiny like the plague. Bad times, man.

• I'm somewhat confused. I know that there was a <i>sequel</i> to the original three seasons (and their related movies) being made last year (not to be confused with the live action version), which was going to feature some flashbacks to portions of all three seasons done in the modern CGI/traditional mix. (I remember even seeing some shots of the Bolars.) They concentrated so much on showing what those scenes looked like, that I thought the series itself was being remade. So is that what this is for? Or are they really going to remake the series? Because I couldn't bring myself to overly care about the new series (which I haven't seen released here in North America anyway).

• Hell. Yeah.

• I actually think the series is reasonably good, I just prefer Gundam when it's not the "one white suit vs. the world" type of series.  That's fine for the fanboys who obsess over kill counts, but it isn't as great from a plot structure.  Giving the lead character a lot of variants on the suit (which I understand is the plan this time around) doesn't help much. And I reject the premise that six episodes isn't enough for a series to get going.  That's damn near three hours of content.

• Yeah, Gundam is a real clusterfuck fandom. It all depends on what you want to get out of it. The only real major continuity is the Universal Century, which is the main timeline up until 1994. Any show after that usually takes place in a different universe or is a standalone story. I got into Gundam thanks to a fantastic blog post about it years ago: Find your Gateway Gundam. http://werememberlovespecials.wordpress.com/2008/12/12/finding-your-gateway-gundam/ If you like Super Robot nonsense or Shonen Jump shows like Dragonball Z, check out G Gundam. If you don't mind dated animation, check out the Original Movie Trilogy, that should set you up nicely. If you want a straightforward WWII with Robots story, see 08th MS Team. If you like political thrillers, watch Stardust Memory, that show is basically The Hunt for Red October plus Top Gun. If you feel suicidal but can't bring yourself to end it all check out Zeta Gundam :) On NO account should you check out ZZ Gundam, Victory Gundam, Gundam SEED, Gundam SEED Destiny or Gundam 00. They all suck. Gundam Wing sucks too, but it has its fans. I can say this totally without bias, because I haven't seen any of these shows. Hah!

• Generally correct, but for a little more detail: the Earth governments, living underground during the Gamilon bombardment of Earth, had actually built a fleet of real spaceships for trying to take the battle to the enemy. They failed horribly, being massacred in the opening episode, with only one crippled flagship managing to get back into range of Mars. (The series treats the planets like islands in a static chain.) It was so damaged it had to be scrapped. Earth was at that point completely screwed. Had Queen Starsha from Iscandar (with plot spoiler relationships to Gamilon, btw) not sent them plans for a hyperspace drive, they would have had no hope at all. As it was, they had to find a way to quickly build a new starship in secret with Gamilons patrolling Earth orbit. The Yamato wreck was the largest of the remaining more-or-less intact ships that could be easily converted to a battleship for defense along the way, so they rebuilt it from underneath (the sea beds having been evaporated from Gamilon attacks). The moment the Gamilons detect the engines being test-started, they launch attacks on it from a carrier, and the ship breaks free enough to defend itself with its cannons and AA (in a scene intentionally reminiscent to the show's version of the Yamato being sunk in WWII, a scene that was trimmed out of the North American broadcast version.) Then it's a race to complete final preparations before the Gamilons hit it with a nuke. To be fair, the show itself doesn't involve Japanese nationalism per se--the crew is international, and all nations join together in granting much of their remaining power to kick start the engines for the first time. Still, they don't bother to explain the context of its original sinking either.

• *musicgasm*

• So is the the sheer number of American fans who love the show (myself included) ironic? I watched it every day and didn't catch a single whiff of anti-Americanism. I DO love Japan much more because of it, though.

• I'd like to try Gundam sometime but i never know where to start and in what order to watch them. I think there was like 3,850 different Gundam series at last count.

• I love the Japanese people.  Most are the most polite and hard working people you will meet.  Unfortunately, especially in the media arts, some are activists.  Many Japanese people still hate Americas military presents and a reminder of their WWII loss.  You can see it in some of the anime.  ROD anime movie basically has the Americans tripping over each other and the cowardly president who just wants to nuke things.  Space Battleship Yamato's blond hair, blue eyed protagonist and a few more anime if you are paying attention.   I've never minded though.  All the Japanese people I've met have never treated me badly.  The Japanese have a national pride.       

• /crosses fingers and hopes they do this with the original Macross next.

• The score is classic for the era of the original.  Which is a good thing.

• Sigh.... It's only six episodes into a story that covers a 100 years. Give it a little time to grow please before you judge it so harshly. In the meantime, Gundam Unicorn episode 4 is coming this Christmas. Yeah, remember that?! And we've got a remake of the original series in the wings. Quit your bitching. It's a good time to be a Gundam fan.

• I've never been a fan of these cel-chaded vehicles alongside hand-drawn anime characters. In my humble opinion, much of the pleasure from older animation was being amazed by the technical skill needed to hand-draw the cels. Computerized models just look cheap to me.

• Yeah, the original isn't the most unbiased portrayal of Japan's place in the world, but, well, we're kind of used to it by this point.

• As long as its consistently at that level, it's fine.  The problem with a lot of anime (and animated series in general - look at the original, and to a lesser extent the modern version of, Thundercats) is that they'll front load trailer and credits with the best possible animation, and then the remainder is of a far lesser quality.

• I must admit, in the series that was broadcast here, you never got the feeling how ruthless Desslok was.  Even still, towards the end of the series and you see what he was trying to do to Earth, you can understand why he was trying to do it, even if you didn't agree.  This was different than Megatron's "take over everything because I'm freakin' Megatron" mantra, for example. Also, the way Desslok treats his generals (I remember he killed 2 by himself, one from telling a bad joke) makes you wonder about taking the job based on retirement options.

• Looks reasonably good enough.  We need some better space anime back in our lives now that Gundam's apparently reverted back to the "one really good suit beating up a lot of cannon fodder" with the most recent series.

• The animation here reminds me of the cut-scenes from the old Playstation games.  Not that I'm complaining, mind you - getting to the cut-scenes was nice from what you were looking at for the majority of the game.

• stupid ass vampire movies. but then maybe we DON'T want Hollywood to do it. They'll libel to f**k it up & put Kristen 'duh' Stewart in it.. Douchebags...

• Oh HELL YES! Now if they follow the original series perfectly I'll be in heaven. Star Blazers was my first experience in anime. Now rather than Youtube, when will this & the live action movie come to US shores.

• I wonder if this was green lit cause of the Yamato movie, which was awesome since American film companies just dont make awesome space combat movies anymore *more money to be made with sparkling vampires i suppose* CaptainGenius  is pretty much correct, also since war materials were sparse it was easier to convert the hull of the destroyed Battleship Yamato then build a whole new ship.@facebook-1208613906:disqus -yeah pretty much. It was destroyed during a suicide mission in the Battle for the Philipinnes. The Yamato was a class of Super Battleship commonly referred to as a Super Dreadnaught, her sister ship the Mushashi the Nazi Battleships Bismark & Turpitz aswell as the planned U.S. Montana class are all part of this class so could anyone else think of another badass ship more deserving? I cant

• If they bring that to America and get W. Morgan Sheppard to do the voice for that captain,I'll be well satisfied. :)

• Star Blazers, AKA Space Battleship Yamato, is basically World War II, in Space, except the Japanese get to win this time. That's a rather crude way of putting it, but it's the broad truth. Director and series overlord Leiji Matsumoto is a huge Japanese Nationalist, controversial for his romanticised views of both the War and the Imperial Army. Hence the Yamato, the definitive symbol of the war to the Japanese, sunk by the Americans, becomes the symbol of humanity's resistance against the blonde haired, blue eyed alien invaders and their immoral "Nuclear Weapons". Though in its defence, the show took a rather mature attitude to war. The invaders are protagonists in their own right, with their own creed and sense of honour. Few people are truly evil; the villain for most of the original series, Deathlok, actually helps out the humans near the end. The iconic image of the series is the refitted Yamato blasting off from the dried up ocean seabed and flying off into the stars, to take on the evil Gamilon Empire. I'm not sure about the in series explination for retrofitting a WWII Battleship for space combat, but there you go. Plenty of kamikaze sacrifices by the members of the main cast, to hammer home the historical parallels.

• Because in the story, if I'm not mistaken, most land based activity was monitored by the alien invaders that had taken the earth over. However where the Yamato was sunk, it was the one place that the aliens could not observe the humans shenanigans, and stop it by blowing that area up. So from beneath the Yamato they converted it into a space ship from the bottom up.    Plus, it looks really fucking cool.

• If I remember correctly, the Yamato was the height of Japan's power and the Yamato was the symbol of it.  (Granted, it shortly sank after launched)  Space Battleship Yamato was to rally Japanese patriotism by raising the Yamato again and defeat whatever evil it opposed. (Extremely paraphrasing what I remember hearing/reading in a Starlog from the early to mid 80s)

• I'm not exactly anime-savvy, but could someone who is answer a burning question I've had since all this new Star Blazers stuff has been poping up recently: why exactly was a WWII battleship chosen to be converted into a space-capable battleship?  I'm not trying to be a dick, but if there's a remotely reasonable justification I'd love to hear it.  Otherwise, I'm just writing it off as typical animated, Japanese or otherwise, insanity.

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