Star Blazers

History:

Star Blazers, otherwise known as Space Battleship Yamato, holds a special place in the heart of the Japanese people. When you realise that Space Battleship Yamato was just as popular in Japan as Star Wars was in the western world, you get an idea of it's scope.

The story is based around the resurrection of the WWII battleship of the same name into a fearsome Space Battleship. It is this part of the story that people of the West do no quite understand, and is the reason for why it was held in such high regard.

The original Yamato is still to this day the largest Battleship ever built - larger than anything the US could produce due to the limitation of the width of the Panama Canal. It carried 18" Canons and could fire shells up to 25 miles - compared to the 16" and 18 mile range canons carried on US Battleships at the time.

When the Japanese found themselves losing the war, relying somewhat desperately on the Kamikaze tactics of untrained Japanese pilots, the command was given to send the Yamato and what was left of the Japanese Imperial Navy on one last 'Kamikaze' mission to try and halt the massed US forces supporting the invasion of Okinawa. 

In fact, it was this heavy Kamikaze onslaught against US forces, resulting in massive casualties and loss of life, that convinced the US of the need to use Nuclear Weapons, and avoid trying to land at - and take - Japan.

While history records the valiant effort of the thousands of men on the Yamato that went down with the ship, the reality was somewhat less romantic. In fact, the Yamato was never used to full effect in the war and had quite a poor history. It was the flagship during the loss at Midway. It was fighting alongside it's sister shp Musashi when Musashi was sunk at Leyte Gulf, it missed out on the last great Battleship Canon battle by not being a part of the southern Pincer fleer at Leyte Gulf, and right when it had a chance to win victory as part of the Northern Pincer fleet of Leyte gulf, it was commanded to turn and flee when it was realised that the southern-pincer fleet had been defeated, and that the great 3rd US Fleet might not have been lured away - when in fact it had.

While the quality of the storylines of Space Battleship Yamato are suited to children and young adults in Japan, the US version of Star Blazers was toned down even further to warrant a PG rating. Watching the shows these days it is sometimes hard to overlook the multitude of plot holes and the difficult voice-over pacing of the english version. But somehow the whole story still gells sufficiently to make it appealing. Especially the 2nd series called the Comet Empire.

And, well, this story alone was motivation enough for me to get to learn more about real spaceflight when I was a child, and here I am today.