Space Battleship Yamato

If Robotech was the first International megahit for anime, it was Space Battleship Yamato that set the table for its success. Best known world wide as Star Blazers, it's a story that took the fear of radioactive poisoning and combined it with a space-faring concept in a race against time. The villainous Gamilas have unleashed a barrage of radioactive meteorites onto Earth, sending the survivors underground, where they are being slowly poisoned. A set of plans, and the salvaged World War II battleship Yamato, allow Earth to fight back! The series looks at how we fight our great enemies, and works with the concepts of World War II as well. The Gamilas are a blue-skinned race of conquerors who view humanity as barbarians who need to be wiped out. The parallels to the Japanese view of World War II are well figured, and most importantly, done with powerful consideration for the way the world has changed. For the mid-1970s, when disaster films were huge, this is incredibly powerful work that spoke within the mainstream of science fiction! Why it's on the list: The beginning of a long-running franchise that helped introduce anime to the non-Japanese audience.