Set in the year 2199, an alien race known as the "Gamilas" ("Gamilons" in the English Star Blazers dub) unleash radioactive meteorite bombs on Earth, rendering the planet's surface uninhabitable. Humanity has retreated into deep underground cities, but the radioactivity is slowly affecting them as well, with mankind's extinction estimated in one year. Earth's space fleet is hopelessly outclassed by the Gamilas and all seems lost until a message capsule from a mysterious crashed spaceship is retrieved on Mars. The capsule yields blueprints for a faster-than-light engine and an offering of help from Queen Starsha of the planet Iscandar in the Large Magellanic Cloud. She says that her planet has a device, the Cosmo-Cleaner D (Cosmo DNA), which can cleanse Earth of its radiation damage.
The inhabitants of Earth secretly build a massive spaceship inside the ruins of the Japanese battleship Yamato, the Space Battleship Yamato for which the story is titled. Using Starsha's blueprints, they equip the new ship with a space warp drive, called the "wave motion engine", and a new, incredibly powerful weapon at the bow called the "Pulse Cannon"
There have been 7 animes that take place within the series canon, and one that is an alternate reality where the yamato is destroyed by the Gamilas. There has recently been a live-action version done. Imagine the bastard child of Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek.
CANON SERIES
- Space Battleship Yamato (Aired in US as "Star Blazers")
- Space Battleship Yamato 2
- Yamato: The New Voyage
- Be Forever Yamato
- Space Battleship Yamato 3
- Final Yamato
- Space Battleship Yamato: Rebirth
They are also planning on a new series. Unfortunately, legal issues have stopped that.
Look at dat lovey battleship
Also, yes. This anime is the reason many of my spaceships look like boats.