NOT ANOTHER COMIC BOOK IS COMING IN 2012!!!! Like the INTEGR8D SOUL page on FB for more!!! And this blog and more new material are coming out as a book in spring of 2012, INTEGR8D FICTIONS. As a boy, Yoshibnobu Nishiyaki, the producer of the original series that gave us STAR BLAZERS, used to daydream about a ship flying through the air. In a fascinating interview found at starblazers.com---which I could not more highly recommend!---Nishiyaki tells about the increasingly regimented phenomena of Japanese life, its constraints reaching more and more deeply into childhood. He envisioned this anime (a term coined in the wake of the boom kicked-off by SPACE CRUISER YAMATO) as a wild romance, “to help children realize they can become who they really are.” Outer space seemed the one setting capable of presenting the boundless scope of both human daring and imagination. Keisuke Fujikawa, writer of about half of all first season episodes, turned in the mostly fully-realized plot befor...

As Integr8d Fix has played home to classic American comics of the 1970s and 1980s, I can't let the moment pass without regarding the manga versions of what we here call STAR BLAZERS. During the run of the program from October 1974 through March 1975, there were three Japanese comic books dedicated to SPACE BATTLE SHIP YAMATO, including one being written and drawn by the cartoon's director Leiji Matsumoto. In fact, in an interview from 1976 on starblazers.com, he credits the primary, proud Wave Motion Gun to a cannon in an earlier erotic comedy, SEXAROID, which he created in 1968. Nishiyaki's impressions of SEXAROID in fact led to his initial offer for Matsumoto to join his team of designers---which he would not do until he had full executive control, in a vacancy made in spring of 1974 by the departure of Eiija Yamato. While his manga ended about the same time as the cartoon, the Star Force has returned to comics form several times! The configurations of the fleet init...

Remembering YAMATO's Musical Legacy - Mania.com Hiroshi Miyagawa: There were two or three trumpets, two trombones, one each of flute, oboe and clarinet for woods, two horns, about fourteen people altogether for strings, and one each of piano, bass drum, guitar, Latin percussion and classical percussion. For just a regular show band, I think it was an extravagant ensemble. It wasn't such a grand orchestra, though. In terms of the number of people, there were maybe about 30 players or so. More on the site above! I think the director made excellent use of the pieces he culled from the hard-wrought bounty created by a sleepless Mr. Miyagawa. The stirring recurrence of the theme "we will return" as the coffins are launched into the endless grave of space punctuates the loss at the heart of Earth's greatest battle, further from home than any man has ever known.

CAPTAIN AVATAR From the first time he sits in command of the ship re-christened Argo, Captain Avatar’s in hot water: if the engines aren’t ready to start, the attacking Gamilon carrier will finish them off before the mission begins! One of the earliest problems Avatar faces is the simmering resentment from Derek Wildstar, who blames the captain for his brother’s demise. Orion, the engine chief, tells Wildstar the captain lost his only son in the same attack, but Derek won’t come to terms with this until he encounters his brother’s crashed ship while on a mineral retrieval mission on Titan. The tactics, and the captain’s decision making, intrigue me. I’m going to tell you about six mind-bending problems. After the page break wait the answers! But if the answer key’s just too prosaic a way to discover them, I highly recommend you just watch the second part of the Search For Iscandar, starting with episode six of the awesome first season of STAR BLAZERS! In fact---that’s a much bette...

I've been rushing home with you to tune into the cartoon we called "Star Blazers" in the early 1980s, fascinated not only by its story, its solutions to the evolution of early animation, and its place in creating North American interest in anime (which is like a brand new world for me), but by its symbolic significance in the Japanese consciousness and the relationship of the United States (and the world!) with Japan. I found the following under our friend Wikipedia's definition of "Japanese Battleship Yamato" ---the program's original name, almost three years before "Star Wars" hit the silver screen. ******************* Yamato (大和?), named after the ancient Japanese Yamato Province, was the lead ship of the Yamato class of battleships that served with the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II. She and her sister ship, Musashi, were the heaviest and most powerfully armed battleships ever constructed, displacing 72,800 tonnes at full load a...

"We know a round-trip space journey of 296,000 light years has never been attempted before. But, we also know planet Earth has never been in such danger before. WE WILL SUCCEED IN OUR MISSION! The Star Force cannot fail!" This afternoon, we'll start with the story between Captain Abraham Avatar and two brothers who've served under his command, and from there, describe the stoic space captain's style and genius, uncomplicated way of coming up with an answer, a way to win, a way to survive.--C Lue, before bed. In 2199, Earth's surface has been ravaged by radiation caused by the planet bombs of a cruel star-faring race called the Gamilas. Captain Avatar commands the last functioning star cruiser of our planet, fighting further out in the solar system against the Gamilon armada. When he realizes they must flee and fight another day, his office Alex Wildstar disobeys orders and fights a hopeless rear-guard action so Avatar can take his crew of 471 safely back to ...

As an adult, I notice how knowledge the importance of what has gone (the nature of the solar system, in birthing this voyage)in STAR BLAZERS, which is exciting because it relates the experience of going beyond what is known. The exciting picture of the planets I got as a child watching this also mixed, for me, the solar system with all of the stars, and gave me some sense of Earth as somewhere in vast outer space. Strangely, I acquired the impression that the center of the universe was somewhere besides Earth, and that I was on Earth! I marveled at how I found myself deeply comfortable with the thought of existing in space---such a fundamental picture of my reality, today. In 2199, Earth's surface has been ravaged by radiation caused by the planet bombs of a cruel star-faring race called the Gamilas. Captain Avatar commands the last functioning star cruiser of our planet, fighting further out in the solar system against the Gamilon armada. When he realizes they must flee and fi...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamato_%28film%29 http://www.movieposterdb.com/poster/817cf300 I'm saving that film till we finish the cartoon season one, which is its basis. It looks insanely cool from the trailer: Stuff like this is the real reason a man writes. Thanks for enjoying this with me and giving it a further life only your mind can lend it. I realize the true appeal, the romance of STAR BLAZERS, if not space travel in general. In the creative life---in the spiritual life, If you will---you are always trying to go somewhere others have not reached. Every time you solve a challenge, you must be both creative and receptive. Then, you need the abundance to complete the challenge. All of this comes to you as part of understanding and purposefulness. In going beyond where humanity has gone before, the Star Force attempt to save Earth---to make it a place worth living. That’s the actual purpose of creativity, is it not? We always find ourselves somewhere new, somewhere a...

"I cannot bear to see what has become of Earth. Once green and growing with blue lakes and silver streams, great rivers and mighty seas... Now all gone. Only day and burning desert left. Radiation everywhere." -Captain Abaraham Avatar Myebook - D'n'A Comics #1 As promised: the online version of DNA #1!!!Fifty cents for a complete, nuanced, spine-tingling sixteen page story, written and drawn by us. STAR BLAZERS For the record: Marc Kane’s an adult female of the species, talking to Lue, an adult male. This should be read, picturing our mouths moving along with limited motion that doesn’t synch up, occasionally with our lips not shown so the long sentences can finish while you’re looking at the top of our hats or something. LUE: So what was your first impression of STAR BLAZERS? MARC: Mine? Ok, well…we won’t count when I was sleepy! When it first started, I was looking at it critically: I didn’t like the dress on Nova---but the uniform with the ...