Star Blazers - The Quest For Iscandar - Part 1

When I was a child, my older brother was into weird cartoons. I remember being introduced to the likes of Speed Racer, Battle of the Planets and Star Blazers. When it was on, we'd come in from playing ball in the street and watch eagerly. Even though I couldn't remember the name, I distinctly remembered the idea of this show and even the look of the characters - the Earth has been ravaged by evil space aliens, everyone lives underground, the environment has become toxic. Benevolent aliens send the plans for a super space ship which will bring humans to the aliens' planet so they can retrieve something which will save the Earth. If the round trip is not completed in a year the Earth will be dead forever. I remember watching it even. I also remember that I never saw how it ended. All I really know is at some point the evil aliens were blue and then they became green.

I've been trying for years to find someone who remembered the title to this show and I finally came across this listing about 4 months ago. Yay! So I ordered the first disc of series 1 off Amazon shops. It was exactly as I remembered it. It was cheesy, 1970's anime, remade from the Japanese series "The Battleship Yamato" which gets a reference early on. The story unfolds painfully slowly and the amusing bits are pieced together with longer, more boring bits, although I'm guessing it gets more exciting as it goes. The first disc only has a few episodes and it's only just getting going now (I need to buy disc 2). But it's a pretty good example of '70's anime and the characters are compelling enough even if the sound is rubbish and the animation itself is clearly done on the cheap.

The wishy washy verdict then is, if you like '70's sci-fi anime then you may like this, otherwise don't bother.