Well, the first thing that a Star Blazers fan wants to
know these days is, "Where can I find Star Blazers episodes
on video?"
In short, there are Star Blazers videos. And, this page
discusses what was -- and is -- available.
Before we proceed, let me state up-front that I do not
endorse any retailer mentioned herein, nor do I speak for
or endorse Voyager Entertainment.
[Star Blazers production history]
[Where to get Star Blazers videos]
[Tape quality]
Star Blazers was originally brought over from Japan, for American TV viewing in the late 70s, by a company called Westchester. These were the folks who organised and hired all those wonderful voice actors, and intellegently modified parts of the English scripts to produce the first two exemplary seasons of Star Blazers. Westchester brought over the third season of Star Blazers, quite a bit later, and had to do a rushed job, without the quality of effort they put into the first two seasons.
Westchester went into this venture by distributing Star Blazers through the companies, Claster (a division of Hasbro) and Sunwagon. Claster, of course, is still around. I'm not sure about Sunwagon, although there is a Sunbow around today. Claster and Sunwagon handled the TV distribution.
Then, in the late 80s, Westchester struck a deal with a company called Kidmark to release all three seasons of TV episodes on video tape. These Kidmark tapes came all in black boxes with yellow lettering. The boxes had a picture of Wildstar, Nova, and Sasha on the cover. Ironically, Sasha does not appear in the TV episodes, and this cover picture was a promotional still for the movie, Be Forever Yamato.
The Kidmark videos were not of exceptional quality, either in audio or video. The details of how they were made, what sources were used for the masters, is currently unknown. Some of the video was extremely dark or fuzzy. Sound was muffled or had points where the volume simply dropped unacceptably low and then jumped back up. Some of the audio was "tinny" or had popping noises.
One annoying feature of the Kidmark tape releases was that the producers attempted to make the episodes flow together, and in order to do this, chopped out the opening monologues of several episodes. For example, this is why episode 1-02 no longer has the beautiful opening narration.
The Japanese company which owns all the rights to both Yamato and Star Blazers is Yoshinobu Nishizaki's Voyager Entertainment (formerly known under a variety of names, including Westcape Corp. and Office Academy). Around 1993, Voyager asserted its right to Star Blazers video material, and Kidmark was out of business.
Voyager took up the task of producing and selling Star Blazers videos, both in Japan and internationally. They also later released videos of all the Japanese Yamato movies.
Voyager followed Kidmark's lead in stitching the episodes together in a somewhat seamless fashion, cutting out some of the opening narrations.
Voyager had released the Star Blazers tapes in two formats,
both in VHS:
Currently, I do not think the 2-episode tapes are sold any longer, though they might still be found in some shops and in video rental stores.
Voyager has released Star Blazers on DVD! The programming is as follows:
| Quest for Iscandar Series 1, Part I |
Episodes 1-01, 1-02, 1-03, 1-04, and 1-05 |
| Quest for Iscandar Series 1, Part II |
Episodes 1-06, 1-07, 1-08, and 1-09 Extras: Previews, Unbroadcast footage |
| Quest for Iscandar Series 1, Part III |
Episodes 1-10, 1-11, 1-12, and 1-13 Extras: Previews, Virtual tour of Argo |
| Quest for Iscandar Series 1, Part IV |
Episodes 1-14, 1-15, 1-16, and 1-17 Extras: Previews, Overview of Gamilon Empire |
| Quest for Iscandar Series 1, Part V |
Episodes 1-18, 1-19, 1-20, and 1-21 Extras: Previews, Art gallery |
| Quest for Iscandar Series 1, Part VI |
Episodes 1-22, 1-23, 1-24, 1-25, and 1-26 Extras: Previews, Interactive mission map |
| Comet Empire Series 2, Part I |
Episodes 2-01, 2-02, 2-03, 2-04, and 2-05 |
| Comet Empire Series 2, Part II |
Episodes 2-06, 2-07, 2-08, and 2-09 |
| Comet Empire Series 2, Part III |
Episodes 2-10, 2-11, 2-12, and 2-13 Extras: Previews, Overview of the Comet Empire, Interviews with voice actors Ken Meseroll (Derek Wildstar) and Eddie Allen (Desslok) |
| Comet Empire Series 2, Part IV |
Episodes 2-14, 2-15, 2-16, and 2-17 Extras: Previews, Interviews with Amy Howard Wilson (Nova) and Tom Tweedy (Mark Venture) |
| Comet Empire Series 2, Part V |
Episodes 2-18, 2-19, 2-20, and 2-21 |
| Comet Empire Series 2, Part VI |
Episodes 2-22, 2-23, 2-24, 2-25, and 2-26 |
All 6 DVDs of Series 1 are also available in one combined box set. Series 3 (TV Season 3) is expected to be released on DVD in 2003.
I've had quite a few people e-mailing me about issues of video quality. So, I feel I should address this here.
When Voyaber first started on the task of releasing Star Blazers on video (tape), they realised that the video and audio quality of the previously-released Kidmark tapes was not good, and went to the effort of re-mastering Season 1 of Star Blazers, which they entitled The Quest for Iscandar. They vastly improved the image and sound quality. (Good work, Voyager folks!)
Whether, Voyager had access to some of Westchester's original English voice tracks, and then mixed them into the more pristine video footage from the Japanese masters; or they simply took the video and audio "masters" that Westchester had, and cleaned them up, is not known.
All that is known is that the video of Quest for Iscandar is farily clean and sharp, and the audio is crisp (a few background sounds were left out, though I think that only ultra hard-core fans will notice this). This excellent video and audio quality is naturally carried over to the Season 1 DVD releases.
However, the same cannot be said of the quality of the Season 2 videos (The Comet Empire), either on tape or on DVD. It isn't any worse than the quality of some of the old Kidmark tapes I have seen, but tends vary from episode to episode. The same is said of Voyager's Season 3 videos (The Bolar Wars).
It is reasonable to assume that Voyager has not been able to do the same kind of clean-up job on the second two seasons as it had on the first. Why this is so is not known. It may be that the Westchester master tapes are either no longer available or are not in sufficiently good condition.
I should note here that the video and audio quality of Voyager's Japanese Yamato movie tapes is superb. These tapes were generated from original Japanese sources, either the masters or laser disc copies. Both voice and music are in stereo.
Let me state up-front that I do not endorse any retailer mentioned herein, nor do I speak for or endorse Voyager Entertainment.
Star Blazers videos can be ordered in their Boxed Set format from Voyager directly for about $160 per box. They can also be purchased from various retailers (such as Suncoast Motion Picture Company/Sam Goody Video, in most malls) in the 2-episode format, at anywhere from $15 to $20 per tape.
There are advantages to buying either format. It depends on your need, or desire to have all episodes. The tapes in each Boxed Set cannot be bought separately. If you plan on buying all the episodes, the Boxed Sets cost significantly less. On the other hand, if one tape from a Boxed Set breaks or is damaged, you can't replace it individually, as far as I know.
See the Dealers' List for information on retailers.
What follows is a guide that will tell you which episodes can be found on which of the 2-episode format tapes. I hope to have information for the Boxed Sets soon.
You can also read about the episodes themselves below.
Back to the main page.