Star Blazers facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Star Blazers
Based on	Space Battleship Yamato (1974–1980)
Starring	Kenneth Meseroll Eddie Allen Amy Howard Wilson Mike Czechopoulos Jack Grimes Chris Latta Lydia Leeds Corinne Orr Gordon Ramsey Tom Tweedy
Country of origin	United States Japan
Original language(s)	English
No. of seasons	3
No. of episodes	77 (list of episodes)
Animator(s)	Group TAC
Production company(s)	Claster Television Sunwagon Productions
Distributor	Westchester Film Corporation ARP Films, Inc.
Release
Original network	First-run syndication
Original release	September 17, 1979 (1979-09-17) – December 4, 1984 (1984-12-04)

Star Blazers is an exciting American animated TV show. It's based on the Japanese anime series Space Battleship Yamato I (from 1974), II (from 1978), and III (from 1980). The show first aired in the United States in 1979.

Star Blazers was one of the first popular English-translated anime shows. It had a big, ongoing storyline that made you want to watch every episode in order. This helped open the door for many other plot-driven anime shows that came after it. The series also explored more serious topics than other cartoons for kids at the time.

The Story of Star Blazers

Star Blazers tells its story over three TV seasons. Each season is an English version of a part of the Japanese Space Battleship Yamato saga. The full Japanese story is even longer, with some parts happening between Season Two and Three in movies like Yamato: The New Voyage and Be Forever Yamato.

Season One: The Quest for Iscandar

In the first season, Earth is attacked by the Gamilon, an alien race from a far-off planet. They drop planet bombs that fill Earth with dangerous radiation. Everyone on Earth has to live underground. With no way to clean up the radiation, all life on Earth will be gone in just one year.

Then, something amazing happens! Queen Starsha from the planet Iscandar offers help. She has a special device called "Cosmo DNA" that can remove the radiation. But Iscandar is super far away, about 148,000 light-years from Earth. To help, Queen Starsha also sends plans for a special engine called the Wave Motion Engine. This engine lets spaceships travel incredibly fast, about 92 times the speed of light!

On Earth, a brave crew is chosen, led by Captain Avatar. An old sunken battleship, the Yamato, is turned into a spaceship called the Argo. It's fitted with the new Wave Motion Engine and sent on a dangerous journey to Iscandar to save Earth.

Season Two: The Comet Empire

One year after the Argo brings the Cosmo DNA back to Earth, our planet's environment is healthy again. But a new, very dangerous enemy appears: the Comet Empire, led by Prince Zordar. Unlike the Gamilon, who wanted to take over Earth, Zordar just wants to conquer and add Earth to his huge Empire.

Desslok, the former Gamilon leader, also joins forces with Zordar. He wants revenge on the Argo because it destroyed his home planet, Gamilon. This season follows the Argo, now commanded by Deputy Captain Derek Wildstar. They work with the Earth Defense Force to fight Prince Zordar and his powerful Comet Empire.

Season Three: The Bolar Wars

In the third season, the Argo gets caught in a big war between the Galmans (the reformed Gamilon Empire) and the Bolar Federation. During this war, a stray missile hits our sun, causing its nuclear reactions to go out of control. If it's not stopped, the sun will destroy Earth in one year and the entire solar system in three years!

Now officially in command of the Argo, Derek Wildstar is tasked with finding a new home for all of Earth's people. It's another race against time to save humanity!

Episodes

List of Star Blazers episodes

Characters

First and Second Seasons Characters

Here are some of the main characters you'll meet in Seasons One and Two, along with their roles:

Third Season Characters

Here are the main characters who appear in Season Three:

How Star Blazers Was Made and Released

Before Star Blazers came out in America, a Japanese anime movie called Space Battleship Yamato (also known as Space Cruiser Yamato) was dubbed into English in 1977. This movie was shown in a few countries, including the United States.

Later, a company called Westchester Corporation thought the first Space Battleship Yamato anime series from 1974 would be great for kids. They bought the rights to the first two seasons. The English voices and editing were done by Griffin-Bacal Advertising. The show first aired in the San Francisco Bay Area on September 17, 1979.

Star Blazers was made for school-aged kids. The American editors made some changes to fit the rules for TV shows in the US. However, fewer changes were made compared to other anime shows like Battle of the Planets. Even with edits, Star Blazers kept most of its original Japanese style, including its story, characters, and ideas.

Many fans felt Star Blazers was more "grown-up" than other cartoons at the time. It showed sad moments, funerals for fallen friends, and the idea that humanity could be wiped out. These parts were kept in the show. A very important Japanese idea, "the honorable enemy," was also a big part of how characters developed. For example, Desslok, the main villain from the first series, became a more complex character in later seasons and movies.

One of the biggest changes was to the story's focus. In the original Japanese series, the Yamato ship and its crew were seen as one. The narrator would often say, "Yamato, hurry to Iscandar!" But in English, the name Yamato didn't have the same meaning for viewers as it did in Japan (where it represents the land, people, and spirit of Japan). So, in Star Blazers, the crew was named the Star Force, and they became the main focus. The ship was still the historical Yamato at first, but it was renamed the Argo (after the ship from the Greek myth of Jason and the Argonauts). The crew started calling the ship "Star Force" too, making it seem more like just a vehicle for their journey.

The first two seasons, The Quest for Iscandar and The Comet Empire, aired in 1979 and 1980. By the time the third season of Yamato was made, the original English voice actors couldn't be reached. So, the third season, called The Bolar Wars, was shown to a small audience and wasn't widely seen until it came out on video and DVD. It's still less popular than the first two seasons.

New Versions of Star Blazers

After four years of planning, a new animated version of the 1974 story, Star Blazers: Space Battleship Yamato 2199, came out in Japan on April 7, 2012. This series was released in North America starting in 2014.

Because this new version was so popular in Japan, they made a new animated movie called Space Battleship Yamato 2199: Ark of the Stars. It takes place during the Argo's return trip to Earth. A full new series based on the Comet Empire story, Star Blazers: Space Battleship Yamato 2202, started in 2017.

Live-Action Movies

In the mid-1990s, Walt Disney Pictures thought about making a live-action Star Blazers movie. An early script was even shared online. It was a new telling of the Season One story, with a crew of different characters on a rebuilt battleship called the Arizona. But Disney stopped the project.

A Japanese live-action movie called Space Battleship Yamato was released in Japan on December 1, 2010.

In 2011, it was announced that an English-language live-action version was being planned. David Ellison's Skydance Productions was working on getting the rights. Christopher McQuarrie was set to write the script and direct the film.

Star Blazers Comics

So far, four different American comic versions of Star Blazers have been published. These include a five-volume series, two comic book series, and a webcomic.

West Cape Company Animation Comics

The first comic adaptation was a set of five books published in 1983. These books used pictures directly from the original Japanese animation. The English text was based on the Star Blazers TV show dialogue.

Comico Comics

The second adaptation was actually two short comic series published by Comico Comics in the late 1980s. These comics continued the story after the second season of the show. In the first series, the Comet Empire's huge rear fleet was discovered, and the Argo was the only ship left to defend Earth. The second Comico series was about the Star Force fighting a rogue Earth General and his alien allies.

Voyager Entertainment Print Comics

In the mid-1990s, Voyager Entertainment published 12 issues of a Star Blazers comic book. However, they stopped publishing due to low sales.

Voyager Entertainment Webcomic: Star Blazers Rebirth

Star Blazers Rebirth is a webcomic that used to be on the official Star Blazers website. The story and art are by Tim Eldred. In this story, Earth is again in danger from a mysterious "moving black hole" 25 years after the first series. Earth's newest ship, Andromeda II, is destroyed trying to investigate.

Derek Wildstar, now in his 40s, is haunted by nightmares. He and Sandor use their money to rebuild the Argo, which was left frozen in space. Many of the new crew members are the children or grandchildren of the original Argo crew. With Earth's forces spread thin across many colonies, the Argo heads into the galaxy to learn more about the black hole and attacks on Earth's colonies.

Why Star Blazers Is Important

Television critic Matt Zoller Seitz praised Star Blazers in 2013. He called it a "masterpiece" of 1970s dubbed Japanese cartoons. He said its way of telling a story over many episodes was "ahead of its time." In a book he co-wrote, he even said that Star Blazers or its Japanese original would have been on their list of the top 100 greatest shows ever, if they hadn't only focused on American TV.

Star Blazers on DVD

DVDs of the three TV seasons were released in 2002 by Voyager Entertainment. They were titled The Quest for Iscandar, The Comet Empire, and The Bolar Wars. Each season comes on six discs, and each disc includes extra bonus features. You can buy the discs individually or in three separate boxed sets.