Against Impossible Odds: Hope and StarBlazers

Great Stories challenge us to break free from our own darkness

One never forgets the first time they saw the Yamato rise from the dead and soar into the skies.

Sitting agog in front of vacuum-tube TVs, millions around the world have lionised the first popular anime as “Space Battleship Yamato”, then the Americanised “StarBlazers”. But as awe-inspiring as is the idea of a gargantuan WWII era Japanese battlecruiser turned Spaceship, more appealing is the image of it rising from the dead, the great guns wrenching free of the baked seabed to brave battle and rip into the stratosphere - bombs be damned. The launch was so inherently foolish, so brash: the Yamato wasn’t yet ready, the crew yet untrained, with scarcely time to escape the earth’s gravitational embrace…

and yet, they did.

…

As I manned my book table at FenCon this weekend, I met an Anime Club Organiser, and we set off to chatting about the more popular Animes: Black Butler, Attack on Titan, One Piece and Cowboy Bebop. Disinterested, a good ol boy bystander gazed at my books with a casual eye, hoping to find inspiration. Understanding my shopper’s need for quiet contemplation of my books, I turned back to the Organiser: “But none will ever be as Great as Space Battleship Yamato…”

My shopper looked up from his reverie to leap forward and shake my hand: “Damn straight! Starblazers is the best!”

Immediately a gaggle of excited Anime aficionados gathered, eager to share their afterschool encounters with the Americanised version of the iconic Japanese Anime. As everyone threw their own admirations upon the bonfire of Anime vanities, themes took shape; for some, it was the power of the Wave Motion Gun; for others, it was the Romance of the Space Soap Opera -

but for all, the star of the show was the Yamato, rising from Defeat’s grave to save the Human Race.

Firepower and flash shocks and awes, but it does not inspire. Raw energy can uplift, light and heat affecting us with sheer intensity of force; but the darkness returns once the incinerating power fades. Greater than brute force, Hope is what inspires - and Hope cannot exist without loss. Hope is the power of overcoming when all is lost, the Hero’s hand at the helm of a doomed ship, the Commander wielding a dying sword. Death comes for us all, but Life lived as Legend lives on, eternal in glorious defiance against the gathering shadows;

this is Hope.

All around, I saw their faces, tellers of tales, recounting inspiration in the face of heartache. All were facing untold villains, impossible quests too intimate to speak to the world at large, even as I was - and yet, they were not afraid in that moment. They remembered lost Hope rising from despair’s grave to overcome Evil…

this is the power of Story, launching our Souls through the outer darkness towards the distant Light.