Star Blazers series 2: the Comet Empire - An all time classic on DVD

It was funny - I'd not thought of this for 25 years now, until just now as I was writing this review. It was - oh, it must have been 1979-1980-ish - and I was in school, about 6th grade. During the breaks, we used to play this game where you would draw various spaceships all over the page, amassing a fleet for your side. Then you take a pencil, hold it point down against the page, and try and angle it so it shoots across the paper. If the mark touched an enemy ship, that counted as a 'hit' and it was removed from play.

I remember that there was always a demand for certain ships - TIE fighters, Death Stars - but one that always high on the "You cant have that! I get it this time" list was the Argo. Without fail, someone always wanted to use the ship from Star Blazers, and we'd often waste half the break trying to figure out who got it.

No point to that story - just that it's interesting to see how pervasive Star Blazers was in my childhood, how it could so much a part of the shared culture of our youth.

What's Star Blazers you ask? In 1974 (or there abouts), anime god Leiji Matsumoto collaborated with Yoshinobu Nishizaki to produce Space Cruiser Yamato, a series set in the year 2199. Earth was under attack by the mysterious planet Gamalon, led by the despotic Desslok. Gamalon planet bombs covered the earth with a deadly radioactive pollution - and as a result in just one year time, the planet would become unlivable.

There is hope - on the planet Iscandar, there is Cosmo DNA - a machine that can remove the radiation and save the human race from extinction. Queen Starsha offers it to the people of Earth. Using advanced faster than light technology also provided by Starsha, a team of star blazers called the Star Force meet the Gamalons on their own terms and undertake the perilous journey to Iscandar.

The series was a flop. It was canceled just at the midway point of the series, forcing the trip back from Iscandar with the precious Cosmo DNA to be compressed down to just two episodes. The series would have languished in the afterlife where long forgotten anime series go if not for a small independent film you may have heard of: Star Wars.

When Star Wars exploded on the scene, the hunger for anything even remotely science fiction related was insatiable. If it had a space ship, cute robots and freaky aliens - it scored and scored BIG. The series was edited down from 26 episodes to a two hour movie - and cleaned up at the box office. When the series re-ran on television, it was a ratings hit.

Nishizaki and Matsumoto quickly put into place plans for a follow up movie: Arrivederci Yamato, a movie that would bigger, bolder and end the Yamato saga full stop. The movie was a bigger hit than the first Yamato movie - but the fans were outraged. The end of Arrivederci was indeed pretty final - the Yamato was destroyed, nearly all the main characters were killed and the main villain eliminated. They had done everything to end story short of scorching the land and salting the earth.

The audience demanded more, but they were painted into a corner. How could Yamato sail again? The answer was simple - ignore what had come before and just re-tell the story! A second TV series was commissioned, taking the core of Arrivederci and expanding the story up from a 150 minute movie into a 560 minute television series. Thus Space Cruiser Yamato II was born.

Space Cruiser II opens a year after the defeat of the Gamalon empire at the hands of the Star Force. Earth has known peace during the year of rebuilding. The crew of the Yamato find themselves facing the wrath of Prince Zordar and the Comet Empire, a civilization from the Andromeda Galaxy who seeks to conquer Earth. The Star Force is aided in the coming battle by the mysterious Trelaina of Telezart. But the Comet Empire has allies of their own - in the form of Leader Desslok, eager for revenge against the Earthlings that destroyed his empire. . . .

"Yeah", you say - "it may be popular, but is it any good?" Fair point!

In many ways, the Comet Empire story arc is to Space Cruiser Yamato what The Empire Strikes Back was to Star Wars. It took the basic tale and expanded it in a logical direction, taking the story in a more adult (not in the porn sense of the word, mind you) direction. It's a darker, more complex tale than the Quest for Iscandar was. More importantly - it's a better tale. The drama, the character development, the music - this series is superior to the first season in every way. Leiji Matsumoto took what had come before and raised the bar beyond anybody's expectations.

For just one example, examine the evolution of the Star Force's most persistent enemy - Desslok. Over the courses of the 52 episodes that make up seasons one and two, Desslok progresses from a typical tyrannical anime dictator to a revenge obsessed madman to . . . . well, that would be telling, now wouldn’t it. It all comes to a boil in a helluva climax - Earth surrendered to the Comet Empire, the Argo crippled and surrounded by the Gamalon Fleet, and a badly wounded Deputy Captain Wildstar confronting Leader Desslok on the bridge of the Gamalon's flagship in a showdown that would make Sergio Leone proud. Talk about stacking the deck against the heroes!

Now, granted you get that level of development these days in a bowl of anime corn flakes - but back in the 70's? Unheard of!

The animation, while still pretty rough, is greatly improved over the first series, even though only a year's production time separates the two. It's still not as slick and advanced as modern day animation, but it is light years more advanced than its predecessor. It's perfectly serviceable if not gorgeous looking. The music, by Hiroshi Miyagawa, is downright astounding. Very powerful, very moving - a little bit camp in places, but that's how they did things in the seventies.

THE AMERICAN LOCALIZATION -
In 1978 Westchester Corporation bought the rights to the first two seasons for broadcast in Amercia. The soundtrack was dubbed and the animation was edited to meet broadcast standards and practices of the time. Now, before you go rolling your eyes - it's not as bad as you might think. Unlike hamfisted and heavy handed editing like what Science Ninja Team Gatchaman underwent when it was localized into Battle of the Planets, Star Blazers was left reasonably unscathed.

The biggest change was the Westernisation of character names - the Yamato turned into the Argo and the Star Force, Kodai into Wildstar, Desslar into Desslok and so on. Most of the World War II mentions were removed - an odd choice, considering the historical nature of the original battleship Yamato would be largly unknown to the American audience - and the personal man-on-man violence was toned down. Oh - and Doctor Sane, a man never seen without a bottle of Sake in his hand - well, he enjoys spring water from Earth now.

These elements aside, the show retains some very strong Japanese themes - content and plot, character development, and philosophy remain more or less intact. Time and again we get moments of personal tragedy, funeral scenes for fallen friends and the extermination of the human race on a global scale. Even more surprising is that Desslok's extremely important development as an "honorable enemy" - a very Japanese belief (and one Matsumoto would revisit time and again with Captain Harlock and Galaxy Express 999) - was left untouched.

Pretty meaty stuff for a 'kids show'.

THE VIDEO -
Unfortunately Voyager Entertainment has taken the low road of minimum effort for these DVD's. It looks like the video were taken from an old tape masters - they look ok, but I've seen so much better. Some cleanup would have done wonders.

The audio is serviceable - dub only, no Japanese track. While it may anger the purists, the dub is really well done - on par, in my opinion, with the cowboy bebop dub. I can't imagine Desslok without that silky smooth Bela Lugosi-ish tone.

THE EXTRAS -
Each individual DVD has a smattering of extras on it - blueprints and tactical maps, interviews with Eddie Allen (Desslok), Ken Mestroll (Wildstar), Amy Howard (Nova) and Tom Tweedy (Venture). The DVD box comes with a 22 page booklet with profiles and interviews with the Japanese production team, and some pre-production art. Also, every disc comes with an insert, a list of the episodes included. One nice touch is that the episode listing is the original Japanese title (localized for the show: such as "Argo - collision in warp!" and the like)

THE BOTTOM LINE -
Perhaps it’s the rose tinted glasses of my youth talking, but I can't praise Star Blazers enough. It's a fun ride, with great characters wonderful music and a timeless story of heroes and villains and noble sacrifice and bravery. Its considerably more extras than your usual anime series - it's just a pity the discs don’t look better.