Space Battleship Yamato I - Star Blazers - Quest For Iscandar (Season 1) 480p - (1974 (1979 USA) Lang: English)

Space Battleship Yamato (Japanese: 宇宙戦艦ヤマト Hepburn: Uchū Senkan Yamato?, also called Cosmoship Yamato) is a Japanese science fiction anime series featuring an eponymous spacecraft. It is also known to English-speaking audiences as Space Cruiser Yamato; an English-dubbed version of the series was broadcast on North American and Australian television as Star Blazers. The first two seasons ("The Quest for Iscandar" and "The Comet Empire") of this version were broadcast in Greece in 1981–82 as Διαστημόπλοιο Αργώ ("Spaceship Argo"). An Italian-language version was also broadcast under the name Star Blazers in Italy, and a Portuguese-language version was successfully shown in Brazil under the title Patrulha Estelar ("Star Patrol"), Viaje a la Ultima Galaxia ("Voyage to the Final Galaxy") or Astronave Intrepido ("Starship Intrepid") in Spain and Latin America, a version called Stjärnbrigaden ("Star Brigade") was released in Sweden, and Nusoor Al Fada'a ("Space Eagles") in the Arabic version.

It is a seminal series in the history of anime, marking a turn towards more complex serious works and influencing works such as Mobile Suit Gundam, Neon Genesis Evangelion or SDF Macross. Hideaki Anno has ranked Yamato his favorite anime and credited it with sparking his interest in anime.

Yamato was the first anime series or movie to win the Seiun Award, a feat not repeated until the film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984).

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Star Blazers consists of three television seasons. Each is an English-language adaption of its Japanese counterpart Space Battleship Yamato. However, the Japanese saga entails more than just these three television seasons, and part of this missing portion of the saga occurs between Seasons Two and Three, during the movies Yamato: The New Voyage and Be Forever Yamato.

In the first season, Earth is attacked by Gamilon, a distant planet. The radiation from Gamilon's planet bombs forces everyone on Earth underground. With no way to remove the radiation, all life on Earth will be wiped out in one year. The Earth then receives unexpected help from Queen Starsha of the planet Iscandar, who offers a device called "Cosmo DNA" which will remove the radiation. However, since Iscandar is 148,000 light years away, Starsha also sends plans for the experimental Wave Motion Engine that, when constructed, will aid whoever can travel to Iscandar. On Earth, a crew is recruited, headed by Captain Avatar, and an old sunken battleship (the Yamato) is transformed into a spaceship (the Argo), outfitted with the Wave Motion Engine, and sent to Iscandar.

The second season takes place one year after the Argo returns to Earth with the Cosmo DNA and Earth's ecosystem is restored. It now faces a new, dangerous enemy, the Comet Empire, led by Prince Zordar. Unlike Gamilon, which was seeking to capture and colonize Earth, Zordar simply wants to conquer and annex Earth to his Empire. Desslok, the Gamilon leader, also joins forces with Zordar, mainly because he wants revenge on the Argo for having destroyed Gamilon. The series revolves around the Argo, now commanded by Deputy Captain Derek Wildstar, working with the Earth Defense Force to face Zordar.

In the third season, the Argo is caught in the middle of a war between the Galmans (the reformed Gamilon Empire) and the Bolar Federation. A stray missile fired during the war causes the sun's thermonuclear reactions to go out of control. Unless it can be stopped, the sun will destroy the Earth in one year and the entire solar system in three. Derek Wildstar, now officially in command of the Argo, is charged to help find a new home for Earth's population.

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The animation is a bit crude by today's standards, but only on the surface. Its style and heart are still unique and compelling, and clearly each frame is lovingly crafted. The music is phenomenal and moving, especially given that it was probably taken from the original 1974 film. The SF ideas presented (e.g. holography room, space/time warps, etc.) are borrowed by many films and series that have followed. The plots, though overly dramatic sometimes, are poignant and epic nonetheless. Overall, the series is rough on the edges, with many minor flaws such as character inconsistencies and scientific factual blunders, not to mention the gross inefficiency of using a seagoing battleship design for a space cruiser. However, the core of it is pure genius and I'm held in rapt admiration of it.

The references to World War II are obvious: fighting an almost hopeless war against an evil, corrupt empire. The enemy leader, Desslok, even looks like a Nazi with the uniform he wears. The story is emotionally driven: fraught with patriotism, sacrifice, and the desperation to save Earth. The writers employ healthy doses of characterization and detail, something sadly lacking in most other series. Lots of morality and spiritualism are brandished effectively such as (paraphrased) "don't destroy other worlds in desperation, even though Earth will die in less than a year", "with great power comes great responsibility", "take pains not to harm indigenous life on other worlds", "take the blame for your actions and move on", "in spite of all the Capt has lost, he goes on, indomitable", and "your brother survives in you."

Part of the series' attraction is the epic space battles. The see the animators craft the ships and their weaponry, and put them into action, is a sight to behold. "Space planes" soar in formation around the enemy and bristle with missiles and torpedoes. Weapons of mass destruction are brought into play to save the day. And the battleship Argo itself is such a work of art. Its splendor is shown off in a vast array of combat attitudes. They couldn't resist having the ship land in on an ocean, so that its seagoing superstructure and profile could be admired (powerfully reminiscent of the sea battles in our history). Overall, the heroic spirit personified by ship and her crew is exploited to the hilt, and it's hard to resist cheering for them in spite of the melodrama.

Even better than I remember it as a kid!