Space Battleship Yamato

, also called Cosmoship Yamato and Star Blazers, is a Japanese science fiction anime series produced and written by Yoshinobu Nishizaki, directed by manga artist Leiji Matsumoto, produced by Academy Productions, and animated by Group TAC. The series aired on Yomiuri TV from October 6, 1974 to March 30, 1975, totaling up to 26 episodes. It revolves around the character Susumu Kodai (Derek Wildstar in the English version) and an international crew from Earth, tasked during an interstellar war to go into space aboard the space warship Yamato, derived from the World War II battleship of the same name, in response to a message of aid from the planet Iscandar in order to retrieve a device which is able to reverse the radiation infecting Earth after being bombed by the Gamilas (Gamilons).

Space Battleship Yamato is one of the most influential anime series in Japan. Its turn toward serious themes and complex storylines influenced future works in the medium, including Gundam, Evangelion, and Macross, in addition to video games such as Space Invaders.

is a 2012 remake of the first Space Battleship Yamato (1974) television series. The series was originally screened back-to-back in theaters across Japan, a few episodes at a time prior to release on home video, and aired on television from April 7, 2013 to September 29, 2013. A movie-length series recap special Space Battleship Yamato 2199: Voyage of Reminiscence was released on October 11, 2014. A movie based on the series, Space Battleship Yamato 2199: Odyssey of the Celestial Ark premiered on December 6, 2014. A 7-part sequel series of movies titled Space Battleship Yamato 2202: Warriors of Love premiered its part 1 on February 25, 2017 with part 7 premiering on March 1, 2019.

Plot
In the year 2199, an alien race known as Gamilas (Gamilons in the English Star Blazers dub) unleash radioactive meteorite bombs on Earth, rendering the planet's surface uninhabitable. Humanity has retreated into deep underground cities, but the radioactivity is slowly affecting them as well, with humanity's extinction estimated in one year. Earth has a space fleet, but they do not yet have interstellar capability, and they are hopelessly outclassed by Gamilas. All seems lost until a message capsule from a mysterious crashed spaceship is retrieved on Mars. The capsule yields blueprints for a faster-than-light engine and an offering of help from Queen Starsha of the planet Iscandar in the Large Magellanic Cloud. She says that her planet has a device, the Cosmo-Cleaner D (Cosmo DNA), which can cleanse Earth of its radiation damage.

The inhabitants of Earth secretly build a massive spaceship inside the ruins of the gigantic Japanese battleship Yamato which lies exposed at the former bottom of the ocean location where she was sunk in World War II. This becomes the "Space Battleship Yamato" for which the story is titled. In the English Star Blazers dub, the ship is noted as being the historical Yamato, but is then renamed the Argo (after the ship of Jason and the Argonauts).

Using Starsha's blueprints, they equip the new ship with a space warp drive, called the "wave motion engine", and in an apparently unexpected move, weaponize the technology to create a new, incredibly powerful weapon at the bow called the "Wave Motion Gun". The is capable of converting tachyon particles which travel faster than light and enables the Yamato to "ride" the wave of tachyons and travel faster than light. The, also called the Dimensional Wave Motion Explosive Compression Emitter, is the "trump card" of the Yamato that functions by connecting the Wave Motion Engine to the enormous firing gate at the ship's bow, enabling the tachyon energy power of the engine to be fired in a stream directly forwards. Enormously powerful, it can vaporize a fleet of enemy ships—or a small continent (as seen in the first season, fifth episode)—with one shot; however, it takes a brief but critical period to charge before firing.

A crew of 114 departs for Iscandar in the Yamato to retrieve the radiation-removing device and return to Earth within the one-year deadline. Along the way, they discover the motives of their blue-skinned adversaries: the planet Gamilas, sister planet to Iscandar, is dying; and its leader, Lord Dessler (Desslok in the Star Blazers dub), is trying to irradiate Earth enough for his people to move there, at the expense of the "barbarians" he considers humanity to be.