We're Off... to Outer Space!

I've referenced it once or twice.

Yes, I'm talking about Space Battleship Yamato, the live-action remake of the original anime (aired in the U.S. as "Star Blazers").

Oh the memories.

Just seeing the trailers for the live-action movie make me flash back to my pre-teen years catching the serial religiously after school, while dodging admonishments to get my homework done.

I loved this show with the same sort of crazy fervor that Star Wars and similar genre programs held for me.

It's funny how memory works. In the first preview trailer I reference above, you can hear the original music in the background while the pilot (an updated version of "Star Blazers'" Nova, clearly designed to give her a more active role) prepares to do battle with the hostile aliens.

Faint, ambient music in the background threw open doors in my memory of so very long ago.

It's all I've been able to focus on, really. That music.

I ordered the soundtrack from a vendor in Japan that evening and wait anxiously for it to arrive. I've heard samples online and it hasn't calmed me down at all.

Hell, if I could afford it, I'd book a flight to Japan right now and see the movie in Japanese, without subtitles if I could. That's how jazzed these trailers have made me.

There's no way the movie can live up to that expectation, but I don't care right now.

My inner 8 to 12 year old is too busy imagining wave-motion guns blowing alien spacecraft out of the sky and improbable adventures are racing across a star-strewn sky.