You're listening to Imaginary Worlds, a show about how we create them and why we suspend

our disbelief.

I'm Eric Malinsky.

So earlier this year, I talked about how I first came across Godzilla on Channel 56 in

Boston.

Now if you're too young to have experienced the TV landscape before cable, there used

to be only four networks, including PBS.

But there was this extra dial of channels that you could surf through, UHF channels.

And most of them were literally static, but then every so often you'd come across a

channel that had something on it, and very often it was unusual stuff that you couldn't

find in regular networks.

And that is how I discovered the cartoon star blazers.

Or at least that was the American name of the show.

In Japan, it was called Space Battleship Yamato.

Now I barely remember what was going on in my life back then because I was in second grade,

but I remember that show vividly.

That season had a huge story arc like a TV show today.

It was set in a post-apocalyptic earth.

Humanity's last hope was an old battleship sent into space.

And actually the whole backstory was sung in the opening credits.

This cartoon dealt with very serious issues like war, sacrifice, honor, characters died.

The action sequences were great.

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