Uchûsen Sajitteriasu

An excellent series about the power of friendship and love

It's hard to describe a movie after 15 years - remembering it just by child's eyes, but I think I won't exaggerate if I call it "not just some Disney cartoon". This piece carries some MESSAGE - incredible space adventure fantasies intertwine with the allusions to the real problems here on Earth, matters varying from ecology, corporation politics, civil wars, drugs, tolerance to a diversity that might not appeal to us in a first plan, love...and dreaming of the universe.

I don't know many similar so called "fairy-tales" so pleasurable for a child, to get acquainted with a colourful beauty and also the ugliness and the tears of the world, but in one breath also so mature. I loved and admired the characters, lived the storyline, learned...and I think, all this left huge footprint in my soul, the ideas of humanity, openness, tolerance - and set up a bases for my way in life and of life - that many of the children of nowadays are left without - watching just a cat chasing mouse.

After I had the fortune to get my hands on the first 3 episodes of "Spaceship Sagittarius" with English subtitles, I decided that it's just not enough and I get the rest of the series (77 episodes total) in Japanese... hopefully my sister's Japanese will be fluent enough to translate if we watch them together! But it's just so awesome that I decided to share a few random images from various episodes. For some reason this show is widely forgotten, and it deserves to be in the hall of fame of the greatest cartoon series ever made! It just has everything you can imagine and everything you can't! Different planets, so many cultures, creatures, landscapes, all created with tons of brilliant imagination! Add to this hardcore sci-fi stories told with the simplistic and cartoonish character design which adds some kind of bizarre atmosphere and makes it feel even more appealing and out-of-this-world! And the fact that you don't see any human beings, but it's all anthropomorphic characters and aliens just tingles your mind! Where and when is this happening? It is a whole new galaxy that makes your imagination go wild! Imagine the impart it had on me when I watched it at the age of 5! I remember I was so amazed and even shocked by many of the episodes. It has childish fantasy, and it has deep, serious and mature themes. It has colorful and cheerful scenes, and it has sorrow, drama and tears.

I was so into it I actually straited taking apart calculators I found at home, because I was "collecting parts to build a spaceship"! :) It's Nippon animation at its best and it's a shame to be released in Japan only! I hope this series gets a well deserved international release! And here is some info straight from nipponanimation.com: Based on an Italian comic book (Original title: ALTRI MONDI) written by Andrea Romori, this delightful series depicts a series of funny and thrilling adventures featuring the three main characters. Working for a multi-purpose space agency, Toppy and Rana make friends with Giraffe, a scientist, and go through various adventures in space. The three encounter danger at times, but their friendship always saves them just in the nick of time. Young viewers are certain to be attracted by the exciting story-line and the lovable characters. This series won the Atom Prize at the Japan Animation Festival and was selected as one of the best animation programs of the year.

I'd say that movie is too short to change you and series are too long to include enough interesting moments to do it. But this one is an exception. Excellent work of master, fantasy 10 times stronger than Miyazaki's strongest movies. There is no weak minute and whether you're child or adult you'll be surprised how strange, weird, fantastic stories can be created by human. When I should choose two things to be send to deep space in some space ship, I would choose Red Dwarf and this one. And you can bet your ass green guys somewhere far away would find our civilization cultivated (hope they won't come to see closer:-)). Episodes have strange atmosphere and even one is over, you find yourself thinking about it like it is still running. Even after several years when my memories are just shadows, I still remember emotions I had watching this anime and it is like cold drop of water on you naked back. I'll buy it once and I'll show it to my children because I don't want them to miss something like that:-).