Starblazers/Space Battleship Yamato inconsistencies?

November 29, 2013 12:17 PM

So I remember watching Star Blazers a bit as a kid. I remember enjoying it, but never really got into the long term storytelling that was going on. Was probably too young to understand it anyways. But I do specifically remember the Argo/Yamato being completely hopelessly destroyed what seemed like damn near every episode. And yet when the next episode began, everything was hunky dory. I don't remember this ever really being explained. Was it? Wikipedia hasn't been much help. This has been bugging me for a while, thanks!
posted by mediocre to Society & Culture (5 answers total)

Wow, it's weird to see a mefi thread about this show. My college roommate and best friend was obsessed with this show, and so was his dad. I've watched the whole thing like 2 or 3 times.

It's sort of a combination of the simpsons and star trek. Both of which have a tendency to do the whole thing where the entire universe resets at the end of the episode. I don't remember it being as exaggerated as you said, but it has been a few years since i last watched it.

It definitely wasn't something that was actually a plot element or some complex inception/groundhog day like thing that's actually occurring in the universe where time loops or anything. It's just an exaggerated kids show with tons of explosions and "mortal peril".

It's worth noting the whole show is freely available on youtube, officially too! Why not go watch it again? there was also a remake, and... this live action version.
posted by emptythought at 12:55 PM on November 29, 2013 [4 favorites]

Are you sure you're not just thinking of the crazy drama that surrounded firing the wave motion gun? They never wanted to fire it (oh, no), and were completely shattered in its post-coital aftermath, but seemed always ready with the goggles whenever they got within 5 minutes of the closing credits.
posted by mumkin at 2:46 PM on November 29, 2013

And the incredibly silly Star Dipwads which used chunks that they dubbed over is online and finagle as well. My corn pone!

I believe your recall of the total destruction of the Yamato and/or earth every series is correct, and in the American market they simply did not air the closing episodes where that happened. So as a pre-teen I would simply never see a conclusion.
posted by phearlez at 2:55 PM on November 29, 2013

Star Blazers was an American revision of Space Battleship Yamato, and endured some revision for the western audience. It does appear that the original had some alternate timelines, at least one of ended with a suicide mission by the Yamato.
posted by Sunburnt at 7:28 PM on November 29, 2013

Star Blazers is one of my favorite TV shows of all time.

Unfortunately my Star Blazers DVDs are packed away but IIRC during one of the early (second, maybe?) episodes when Captain Avatar is giving Wildstar and Venture their first tour of the Argo he shows them some type of repair shops (I think marked as Item 6 Maintenance Factory in this picture from this page) and explains the Argo's repair capabilities. I remember Sandor demonstrating some type of repair machine to Wildstar and Venture, maybe that was the Maintenance Factory.

The Argo would also stop and perform repairs in some episodes, do a CTRL-F for repair on this site for example to find some instances of the Argo stopping for repairs (on Mars and Pluto, for example).

The Star Blazers Fleet Battle System game has rules for repairs in Section 25 on Page 53, but they are kind of abstract. Apparently, although the Argo was severely damaged on many occasions, it never suffered a hit such as the ship's magazine being that would result in the Argo being completely destroyed.

Hope this helps.
posted by Rob Rockets at 8:40 PM on December 6, 2013