Product: Star Blazers: The Quest for Iscandar - Series One, Part 1 (Episodes 1-5) (1974)
Rating: 4.0
5 Stars for Star Blazers, 1 Star for Voyager's Production
Star Blazers: The Quest for Iscandar Part I, contains the first five episodes (of 26) of the first season of the cult-favorite Americanized Japanese Anime series from the early 1980's.For the uninitiated, here's a rundown of the plot. In 2199 Earth was under attack by an "evil" alien race called the Gamilons. The Gamilons bombed earth with "planet bombs" which destroyed the planet and emitted high levels of radiation, thus driving mankind into underground cities. In one Earth year the planet would become uninhabitable. Queen Starsha of Iscandar offers mankind hope in the form of the Cosmic DNA which would cure all mankind from the radiation sickness. She sends Earth a message along with powerful technology that will allow mankind to travel to Iscandar to get the Cosmic DNA. The Star Force is formed to travel to Iscandar to fetch the Cosmic DNA. Their faithful battleship is the Argo, a renovated WWII era navy battleship remade into a Starship. There is just one minor problem though, Iscandar is 148,000 Light Years away. No one has ever traveled that far before. More importantly, the Star Force only has one year to travel there and back for a total of 296,000 Light Years.Here is a summary of the first five episodes included on this DVD:Episode 1: Introduction to the Earth-Gamilon war, The Battle of Pluto and the bravery of Alex Wildstar. Also, the mysterious spaceship from deep space and its offer of hope to mankind and a dogfight over the Yamato.Episode 2: Raise the Yamato!!! Converting the Yamato to Space Battleship Argo. Argo's first attack.Episode 3: Assemble the Star Force!!! The Gamilon's try to take out the Argo before it takes off. The Argo launches. Plus, take a tour of the Argo.Episode 4: In order to travel to Iscandar (296,000 light years) within one year the Argo must travel beyond the speed of light. The crew prepares for a Space Warp while avoiding a Gamilon attack. Plus, snow on Mars.Episode 5: The Argo gets pulled into Jupiter and comes across a Floating Continent which holds a Gamilon base. Plus, the Argo tests out its greatest weapon - The Wave Motion Gun.Overall, I can't be any happier that Voyager has released the series on DVD. Star Blazers was one of my all-time favorite childhood cartoon series (along with Transformers, Robotech, GI Joe, He-man and Thundercats). However, you must admit that the production work of this DVD was VERY bush league. The navigation is laughable and the chapter breaks are almost non-sensical (about 5 minutes before the end of each episode).Here's my rundown:Great: Star Blazers on DVDGood: The episodesBad: No DVD exclusive features???Ugly: Pitiful navigation.Summed up, if you were ever a Star Blazers fan, give this a watch. It's great for a trip down memory lane. If you've NEVER seen Star Blazers, give it a try, it's a cult classic from the 80's (along with other Americanized anime greats like Robotech, Voltron, Transor Z, etc). The animation may look a little dated, but the storyline still holds its own very well against anything out there today. This series has stood the test of time. Due to limited distribution this show may have slipped by the radar of a lot of people but it caught on like a fire with those who did catch it. Try it, you WON'T be disappointed.Overall assessment: 5 stars for Star Blazers, 1 star for Voyager's production.Recommended