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Coming Attractions
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Star Blazers is an American animated television series adaptation of the Japanese anime series, Space Battleship Yamato I, II & III (宇宙戦艦ヤマト Uchū Senkan Yamato?). Star Blazers was first broadcast in the United States in 1979. Significantly, it was the first popular English-translated anime that had an over-arching plot and storyline that required the episodes to be shown in order. It dealt with somewhat more mature themes than other productions aimed at the same target audience at the time. As a result, it paved the way for future arc-based, plot-driven anime translations.[1]
In 1976, before the debut of the
Star Blazers is an American animated television series adaptation of the Japanese anime series, Space Battleship Yamato I, II & III (宇宙戦艦ヤマト Uchū Senkan Yamato?). Star Blazers was first broadcast in the United States in 1979. Significantly, it was the first popular English-translated anime that had an over-arching plot and storyline that required the episodes to be shown in order. It dealt with somewhat more mature themes than other productions aimed at the same target audience at the time. As a result, it paved the way for future arc-based, plot-driven anime translations.[1]
In 1976, before the debut of the American Star Blazers series, the Japanese 1977 Space Battleship Yamato movie (or Space Cruiser Yamato as it was known at the time) was dubbed into English and re-titled Space Cruiser. This film was sold to several countries, including France, Britain, and the U.S., and was theatrically released in these respective territories. The U.S. release was extremely limited, and eventually ended up airing on television in the Los Angeles area in 1978.
Following this, Westchester Corporation identified the Space Battleship Yamato series as a potential "kids' property" (Starlog, June 1980), and bought the rights to the first two seasons (which at that time were the only two seasons). Dubbing and editing were done by Griffin-Bacal Advertising and production and syndication by Claster Television. The Japanese elements such as series title and scene captions were replaced or edited out. New opening credit rolls were created featuring the "Star Blazers" logo. The series premiered in the San Francisco Bay Area on September 17, 1979 as part of the Captain Cosmic show on KTVU 2.[2] Star Blazers was broadcast weekdays at 4:30 PM to high ratings, and subsequent rebroadcasts contributed to building Anime Fandom in Northern California.
Being marketed to a school-age audience, this animated space opera was bowdlerized by the American editors in order to satisfy the broadcast standards and practices offices of American TV stations.[3] However, far fewer edits were made than with another 1970s anime, Battle of the Planets (an edited version of Science Ninja Team Gatchaman). Even in its edited American form Star Blazers retains practically all of its uniquely Japanese characteristics in terms of content, plot, character development, and philosophy.[4]
Principal changes in Star Blazers included westernization of character names, reduction of personal violence, toning down of offensive language and alcohol use (references to sake were changed to "spring water," and the ship's Doctor's perpetually drunken state was put forth as merely good humor), removal of sexual fan service, and reduction of references to World War II, although the sunken battleship ruins were still identified as the Battleship Yamato in dialogue. The most significant reference removed—and the longest single edit in the series—was a section from episode 2 depicting the Battleship Yamato's final battle during World War II, including imagery of the captain tied to the helm as he went down with his ship.[5] (This section can be viewed as a bonus on the Voyager Entertainment Series 1 Part II English-language DVD release.)
Many fans nonetheless regard Star Blazers as more "adult" than other cartoons shown in the U.S. at the time, as personal tragedy, funeral scenes for fallen comrades, and the extinction faced by humanity were left intact. The very Japanese theme of "the honorable enemy" was also a tremendously important aspect of character development in the major villain of the first series, Desslok, during the second and third seasons as well as in the later movies.
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. The ship is still the historical Yamato and is once referred to as such, but is renamed the Argo (after the ship Argo of Jason and the Argonauts) once rebuilt, and becomes merely the vessel in which they traveled.[3]
The first two seasons (whose DVD releases are titled "The Quest for Iscandar" and "The Comet Empire") were broadcast in 1979 and 1980. By the time the third season of Yamato was released, however, the original voice actors had moved on and, being non-union, were uncontactable by the American production company. The third season (released as "The Bolar Wars") played to a small test market at the time and was not as widely seen until its release on video and DVD, and remains less popular than the first two seasons. Many of the original English voice actors have since been tracked down and interviewed for the Star Blazers DVD releases.
To date, four American comic adaptations have been published: a five-volume series retelling the original story, two comic book series, and, most recently, a web comic.[4]
[edit]West Cape Co. Animation Comics
The first adaptation was a set of books presenting the original first season in five volumes using the original cel animation.[17] It was published in 1983 by West Cape Co., Ltd. under their imprint, W.C.C. Animation Comics. The books use digest footage that was already laid out and published for the Japanese market as "film comics". The translations relied heavily on the English dialog of Star Blazers, with minor modifications. The English language editions were printed in Japan and distributed by Books Nippan of Los Angeles, the American branch of Nippon Shuppan Hanbai. The title of each book includes "Original Title: Space Cruiser Yamato" as a sub-title.[4]
[edit]Comico
The second adaptation (actually two miniseries) was published by Comico Comics in the late 1980s and served as a postscript to the second season. The plot leveraged the fact that the Season 3 script had misidentified the enemy in the New Voyage flashbacks as a remanent of the Comet Empire. In this series, it was discovered that the White Comet Empire's rear fleet (comprising fully half of the empire's entire fleet) still existed and—with Earth's entire fleet (other than the Argo) having been wiped out—only the Argo stood between this massive fleet of the empire and Earth. In this story, the Comet Empire took over the Yamato and used it against Earth. The second Comico miniseries dealt with the Star Force's battle against a renegade Earth General and his alien allies. Due to weak artwork and story, this second miniseries was less well received than the first.[18] [19]
[edit]Voyager Entertainment Print
In the mid-90s, Voyager Entertainment published 12 issues of a Star Blazers comic book before publication was halted due to poor sales.[20]
[edit]Voyager Entertainment webcomic
Star Blazers Rebirth is a webcomic on the official Star Blazers site. Although similar in storyline, it is not to be confused with the newest Yamato film, Yamato: Rebirth. The art and story is by Tim Eldred, who was also responsible for the Voyager Entertainment series. The Earth is once again threatened by a menace from space headed for the Earth 25 years after the first series; this time in the shape of what appears to be a moving black hole. At first Earth's government does not believe the information, on the basis that black holes aren't supposed to be able to move. However, they eventually agree to send Earth's newest and most powerful ship, Andromeda II, to investigate. Upon reaching its destination, Andromeda II is quickly destroyed with all hands on board, though not before transmitting data to Earth. Shocked by the disaster and the lack of response from Earth's government (other than to begin evacuating Earth), Wildstar (now grey-haired, bearded, in his mid-40s, and constantly haunted by the past - as well as by pasts which never happened) and Sandor devote their wealth and energies to rebuilding the nearly shattered Argo, which was encased in ice and left floating in Earth orbit at the end of Final Yamato. Since most of the old surviving bridge crew of Argo are now captains in command of their own ships, many of the new crew members are the children or grandchildren of the original Argo crew. Earth's evacuation to numerous colonies has left Earth's forces stretched far too thinly, with several colonies beginning to break away from Earth's control under command of Capt. Nenezich. Short on supplies, Argo heads toward the center of the galaxy in an attempt to learn more about the mysterious black hole and a rash of attacks on Earth's colonies. ... (more) (less)
In 1976, before the debut of the American Star Blazers series, the Japanese 1977 Space Battleship Yamato movie (or Space Cruiser Yamato as it was known at the time) was dubbed into English and re-titled Space Cruiser. This film was sold to several countries, including France, Britain, and the U.S., and was theatrically released in these respective territories. The U.S. release was extremely limited, and eventually ended up airing on television in the Los Angeles area in 1978.
Following this, Westchester Corporation identified the Space Battleship Yamato series as a potential "kids' property" (Starlog, June 1980), and bought the rights to the first two seasons (which at that time were the only two seasons). Dubbing and editing were done by Griffin-Bacal Advertising and production and syndication by Claster Television. The Japanese elements such as series title and scene captions were replaced or edited out. New opening credit rolls were created featuring the "Star Blazers" logo. The series premiered in the San Francisco Bay Area on September 17, 1979 as part of the Captain Cosmic show on KTVU 2.[2] Star Blazers was broadcast weekdays at 4:30 PM to high ratings, and subsequent rebroadcasts contributed to building Anime Fandom in Northern California.
Being marketed to a school-age audience, this animated space opera was bowdlerized by the American editors in order to satisfy the broadcast standards and practices offices of American TV stations.[3] However, far fewer edits were made than with another 1970s anime, Battle of the Planets (an edited version of Science Ninja Team Gatchaman). Even in its edited American form Star Blazers retains practically all of its uniquely Japanese characteristics in terms of content, plot, character development, and philosophy.[4]
Principal changes in Star Blazers included westernization of character names, reduction of personal violence, toning down of offensive language and alcohol use (references to sake were changed to "spring water," and the ship's Doctor's perpetually drunken state was put forth as merely good humor), removal of sexual fan service, and reduction of references to World War II, although the sunken battleship ruins were still identified as the Battleship Yamato in dialogue. The most significant reference removed—and the longest single edit in the series—was a section from episode 2 depicting the Battleship Yamato's final battle during World War II, including imagery of the captain tied to the helm as he went down with his ship.[5] (This section can be viewed as a bonus on the Voyager Entertainment Series 1 Part II English-language DVD release.)
Many fans nonetheless regard Star Blazers as more "adult" than other cartoons shown in the U.S. at the time, as personal tragedy, funeral scenes for fallen comrades, and the extinction faced by humanity were left intact. The very Japanese theme of "the honorable enemy" was also a tremendously important aspect of character development in the major villain of the first series, Desslok, during the second and third seasons as well as in the later movies.
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. The ship is still the historical Yamato and is once referred to as such, but is renamed the Argo (after the ship Argo of Jason and the Argonauts) once rebuilt, and becomes merely the vessel in which they traveled.[3]
The first two seasons (whose DVD releases are titled "The Quest for Iscandar" and "The Comet Empire") were broadcast in 1979 and 1980. By the time the third season of Yamato was released, however, the original voice actors had moved on and, being non-union, were uncontactable by the American production company. The third season (released as "The Bolar Wars") played to a small test market at the time and was not as widely seen until its release on video and DVD, and remains less popular than the first two seasons. Many of the original English voice actors have since been tracked down and interviewed for the Star Blazers DVD releases.
To date, four American comic adaptations have been published: a five-volume series retelling the original story, two comic book series, and, most recently, a web comic.[4]
[edit]West Cape Co. Animation Comics
The first adaptation was a set of books presenting the original first season in five volumes using the original cel animation.[17] It was published in 1983 by West Cape Co., Ltd. under their imprint, W.C.C. Animation Comics. The books use digest footage that was already laid out and published for the Japanese market as "film comics". The translations relied heavily on the English dialog of Star Blazers, with minor modifications. The English language editions were printed in Japan and distributed by Books Nippan of Los Angeles, the American branch of Nippon Shuppan Hanbai. The title of each book includes "Original Title: Space Cruiser Yamato" as a sub-title.[4]
[edit]Comico
The second adaptation (actually two miniseries) was published by Comico Comics in the late 1980s and served as a postscript to the second season. The plot leveraged the fact that the Season 3 script had misidentified the enemy in the New Voyage flashbacks as a remanent of the Comet Empire. In this series, it was discovered that the White Comet Empire's rear fleet (comprising fully half of the empire's entire fleet) still existed and—with Earth's entire fleet (other than the Argo) having been wiped out—only the Argo stood between this massive fleet of the empire and Earth. In this story, the Comet Empire took over the Yamato and used it against Earth. The second Comico miniseries dealt with the Star Force's battle against a renegade Earth General and his alien allies. Due to weak artwork and story, this second miniseries was less well received than the first.[18] [19]
[edit]Voyager Entertainment Print
In the mid-90s, Voyager Entertainment published 12 issues of a Star Blazers comic book before publication was halted due to poor sales.[20]
[edit]Voyager Entertainment webcomic
Star Blazers Rebirth is a webcomic on the official Star Blazers site. Although similar in storyline, it is not to be confused with the newest Yamato film, Yamato: Rebirth. The art and story is by Tim Eldred, who was also responsible for the Voyager Entertainment series. The Earth is once again threatened by a menace from space headed for the Earth 25 years after the first series; this time in the shape of what appears to be a moving black hole. At first Earth's government does not believe the information, on the basis that black holes aren't supposed to be able to move. However, they eventually agree to send Earth's newest and most powerful ship, Andromeda II, to investigate. Upon reaching its destination, Andromeda II is quickly destroyed with all hands on board, though not before transmitting data to Earth. Shocked by the disaster and the lack of response from Earth's government (other than to begin evacuating Earth), Wildstar (now grey-haired, bearded, in his mid-40s, and constantly haunted by the past - as well as by pasts which never happened) and Sandor devote their wealth and energies to rebuilding the nearly shattered Argo, which was encased in ice and left floating in Earth orbit at the end of Final Yamato. Since most of the old surviving bridge crew of Argo are now captains in command of their own ships, many of the new crew members are the children or grandchildren of the original Argo crew. Earth's evacuation to numerous colonies has left Earth's forces stretched far too thinly, with several colonies beginning to break away from Earth's control under command of Capt. Nenezich. Short on supplies, Argo heads toward the center of the galaxy in an attempt to learn more about the mysterious black hole and a rash of attacks on Earth's colonies. ... (more) (less)
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Themes heist, drugs, kidnapping, coming of age
Genre drama, parody, sci-fi, comedy
Locations paris, submarine, new york
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