Review: Star Blazers: The Quest for Iscandar

Earth's only hope is a mysterious message carried by the dying Astra from Iscandar in the Magellanic Clouds. Iscandar have the "Cosmo DNA", a machine which can eliminate radiation and render the Earth once more green. The message also carries plans for the Wave Motion Engine, which can be used to get to Iscandar... and which can be adapted to create the Wave Motion Gun, an immensely powerful weapon.

The battleship Yamamoto -- renamed the Argo -- is salvaged and refitted with these new technologies, and Earth's best are selected to become the Star Force. Their mission is to reach Iscandar, despite the opposition of Gamilon, and retrieve the Cosmo DNA.

(In the Japanese original, the ship remains the Yamamoto and this is reflected in the Japanese name of the series. However, this is strictly an English dub.)

Star Blazers shows a decent amount of character development, particularly in Derek Wildstar, the main protagonist, and characters in general are treated realistically - not as paragons, but as human beings with flaws. Some of the situations used are extremely derived, usually because the Star Force stumbles into a really tiny trap on intergalactic scales. However, basically this is space opera and a bit of fudging is understandable.

I found some of the episodes a little too episodic; much of the middle of the series is a little rigid in format, with a challenge-of-the-week formula which grew mildly tiresome after a while. Fortunately this breaks down as the series draws to a close.

I'm probably making this sound worse than it is. Even after twenty years, it's still enjoyable fare, and uses some situations I haven't seen in later anime.

The source footage has some fairly significant flaws; audio cuts out occasionally. There are cel artefacts (e.g. flaws in the image which move along with the Argo). There are also occasions where areas of colour bleed in over a few frames (usually red areas on blue walls) which can be distracting. Some frames jitter, with an image jumping to one side briefly. Some animations are also a little too jerky, with too few frames to support the action, but this is not very noticeable. There are also some "lip flap" mismatches.

There is no Japanese track with this edition. Voices in the English dub generally fit parts fairly well, although I found Starcia's voice infuriatingly high pitched - to an extent which started giving me a headache. (Normally I don't much mind high voices, but Starcia's was extreme.) Fortunately Starcia's appearances tend to be fairly short. Other audio is decent if unremarkable.

Packaging is decent; individual DVD cases are of a reasonable design; however, they are housed in a sturdy and attractive box which also includes an interesting booklet with episode outlines and information on the history and design of the series.

The range is large, but there aren't actually many extras per DVD - thus the low(ish) mark.