Rating: 
Summary: The nostalgia alone makes it worth it
Review: The Star Blazers series was the first Japanese cartoon I really liked. It captured my young imagination. And it made me curse things like dentist appointments that forced me to miss episodes. I have never seen the entire series, so seeing this come out on DVD is very thrilling. The quality of the DVD however is nothing special. There are no extras on disc one, and the only optimization made is to not force the viewer to see closing credits after every episode. I also was not entirely thrilled with the price especially when you start to realize that a good 15% of every episode is spent recapping. But I digress, the series is so cool, especially for its time, that it is well worth adding to the collection. I can't wait to have all the episodes of the first series. No dentist appointment will prevent me from knowing what happens next.
Rating:
Summary: Starblazers for the uninitiated...
Review: The Starblazers series (originally Space Cruiser Yamato) was translated and aired on low end TV channels in the latest seventies and early eighties in America. UHF channels would continually rotate this unique Japanese space opera for kids to enjoy, and we did. Amid a flourish of horribly derivitaveand sadly animated Hanna-Barbera garbage was an odd perpendicular to American kids animation. Starblazers did everything that the rest of children's TV didn't and the ones who were able to enjoy this show always remember it fondly twenty years later. In the year 2199 the earth is being decimated externally by a series of constant bombardments by odd radioactive 'planet bombs' sent by a faceless enemy from beyond Jupiter. The remaining population of earth has moved underground into cities away from the surface radiation which has left earth a red desert devoid of life, water or proper atmosphere. In one year the population will die of radiation due to the contamination slowly seeping lower into the cities. As the last of earth's battle fleet rages against the enemy ships near Pluto, a mysterious guided capsule slashes into the solarsystem and crashes on Mars where the two prominent heros, Derek Wildstar and Mark Venture, are posted in the military. On research they find a dead lady in the crash clutching a vial containing information from beyond the solar system. On earth, the information is deciphered to be an invitation to cross the galaxy using the plans of an alien warp drive in order to pick up and return with a radiation nulling device called the Cosmo DNA. Utilizing all remaining resouces, the government and military build a space ship using the remains of the WWII destroyer Yamato buried in the Marianas trench. Led by the ancient, battle weary captain Avatar, a group of young enthusiatic military personel go out into uncharted space to find the planet Iscandar, and return with the Cosmo DNA. However, the enemy (Gamalons) have fleets everywhere in the galaxy waiting to destroy the Starforce and posess a lifeless earth in order to restore it and colinate it with Gamalons as their new capitol to an ever expanding empire. Granted this series was made in Japan around 1974, yet it still was well made enough, and well written enough to carry modern audiences quite well. Leiji Matsumotos comics and animation works always tend to have a very fantastic side to its sci-fi, howeever this series always seemed slightly more grounded in the science of science fiction rather then farfetched style accomodation. The wide cast of characters are extremely well draughted and the absolute determination extant in both sides of the conflict makes the story absolutely plausible as everyone lays down their lives for their hopes and beliefs against insurmountable odds. Although the first five episodes presented in this DVD are some of the less memorable because they build the series, they are brilliant because all the energy of the remaining episodes reflect from the expositional storytelling of the earlier episodes. 'Starblazers' is one of the few anime classics which should always be in print, and I am surte it will always have a hardcore fanbase because of all the emotion and cunning crafted into it. I gave the DVD 4 stars instead of 5 because of the slack menu and packaging of the material. None of the shows have the original opening or closing credits, and the revised ones bookend the etire run of episodes on every DVD. WHY? The nostalgia of this series dictates that it be presented in original form! Shame on the releasing company for such schlock presentation, but I love the series so much I couldn't eliminate more then one star. If you have never heard of Starblazers and love anime, please get this DVD- you will never regret it, despite the age of the animation and story it is still a heavy hitter. And like it's allusions, it is the Illiad and Odessy of anime.
Rating: 
Summary: dvd volume 2 review
Review: well time to write a good review of the dvd itself. all the other reviewers wrote about thier childhoods. the volume 2 dvd is far better than the volume 2 dvd. volume 2 has it all.well almost. picture restoration is up a bit comparable to volume 1. this time there is actually a menu. included are ship crew bio's and a deleted scene that was in the movie but not the series. you can ethier chose to play the epiodes in movie form or in singles. all in all a good improvement. if you want to see something cool check the art of the charaters. its when you look at their bio's. look different. Well it should. It's from Yamato 2000:The Quest For Iscandall. Aremake of series one with up to date animation. email me for more.
Rating: 
Summary: Letdown
Review: When i first heard of the possibility of a star blazers dvd i was quite excited.Unfortunately once i received it,i was throughly disappointed.Even though the original program was quite old,voyager could have done a much better job here.They cut corners to save money.Even some of the poorest vcd's have better video and sound quality than this dvd edition.You would do yourself much better to buy the current video tapes that are out there.As long as you have a halfway decent vcr,you'll do much better than this dvd edition.Keep your eye out for the japanese edition dvd's.I'm sure they are coming,if they aren't out already.They won't cut corners at the expense of quality.Save your money and spend it on some other anime dvd's like sol bianca.(Don't waste your money on the funimation dragonball z dvds,or the evangelion dvd's either.Their quality is almost bad as this)
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