How an Animated Space Battleship Not Only Saved the Earth, but Saved Me as Well

We all have our fandoms, our interests and our hobbies. A very early one of mine is about a space battleship and her crew fighting to save the Earth. Not only did they save the Earth (many times), they also saved my life. Here’s how.

Starting with the fourth grade in a Catholic private school – I went to a Catholic school until my junior - I was picked on and tormented by many of my fellow male students. The torment continued through tenth grade and it all started because one day in class, I sat with my right leg over my left knee. I had seen a talk show where the guest, male and female, were sitting with their legs crossed in various ways. It all looked very comfortable, so I tried it, in class, on a Monday. I can still see one of the boys looking over at me and tapping another boy n the shoulder and getting him to look at me too. They snickered and after class approached me and said, “so you’re a crossed legged little fag! HAHAHA Sitting cross legged you must be gay.” This upset me and they caught on to that. From that point on I was tormented daily. The few friends I did have deserted me. I had few friends at that time in my life to begin with. Not because I was ugly, or fat, or odd looking. Apart from being a little taller than most, I was no different from the other kids. The main difference was that I preferred reading, writing, music and art to sports and outdoor activities. Because of that one time sitting crossed legged and because of my different interests from what the other boys enjoyed, I was cruelly labeled a homosexual and a freak. I know that makes no sense, absolutely no sense what so ever, but middle school children can be very cruel to those perceived as ‘different’. The other boys constantly called me ‘gay’, ‘homo’, ‘faggot’ and ‘freak.’ I was tormented by groups of them daily. When I would leave school, I would rush home to escape into the worlds of fantasy, science fiction, art and music. Those things were my refuge. The nuns at school did nothing to help. Intervention from my parents only egged the other kids on with shouts of, “little faggot needs mommy and daddy.” There were the occasional fisticuffs. I never started a fight, and in a few I was pretty banged up, but I always left the other kid worse off than me. I figured that if I could hold out to the end of eighth grade I would be okay. In the winter of 1979 I was halfway through eighth grade and it was time for me to select a high school to attend come the fall. I paid very close attention to where many of my fellow students were going, so that I could choose someplace different and escape from them. There weren’t many choices, but most of the boys were going to Archbishop CurIy High School in Baltimore. It’s not too far from Archbishop Larry and Moe. The odd thing to me is that Curly is an all boys school. Why would boys want to go to a school where there were no girls? In my mind, that was REALLY gay. I picked a very small school in Essex, MD called Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, which I would call, and refer to even now, as Our Lady of Eternal Pain and Suffering. What I was hoping for was to find a new start and have a chance to make friends without anyone knowing my history. After all, all of my fellow students, with the exception of a few girls, had picked other schools. Little did I know that over the course of the summer of 79, after I had made my choice and officially enrolled, that many of my tormentors changed their plans and we would all be going to the same Catholic high school come fall.

My life, which was briefly better over the summer, got worse because of this. My old tormentors ruined any chance I had of making new friends or of finding acceptance and support in a very small school of 250 students. As the school year progressed more of my old tormentors arrived. They had either been kicked out of the public schools they had chosen or their parents could no longer afford Archbishop Curly. Mt. Carmel took the rejects. As a result, I slipped into a deep depression. I felt worthless, rejected and alone. I had one close friend, who I am a still friend with to this day. He and I became close. I would stay at his house and visit with him on the weekends. Then came the day when he very loudly came out of the closet. This revelation gave my tormentors more fuel for the fire. I was guilt by association and my torment became much worse. I was never mad at my friend for his announcement and as a true friend I stayed by his side. However, I decided that I could no longer take the constant torment and I began my plans to commit suicide. It was at this dark time that I came home and turned on channel 20 out of DC to hear, “In the year twenty-one ninety nine, Earth was under attack from the mysterious planet, Gamilon!” It was the beginning of an episodic animated series called Star Blazers, known in Japan as Uchu Senkan Yamato (Space Battleship Yamato). I was immediately captivated by the story of how 'a team of star blazers, known as the Star Force' and an old Earth battleship – the Yamato – raised from the dust of a dried up seabed, were called upon to save the Earth from 'these mysterious marauders from space!' The story and characters were very deep for a cartoon. I had never seen a cartoon like it. One episode led to the next and they had to be watched in order for sense to be made of it. I had to see the Star Force complete their mission to reach the planet Iscandar, retrieve the Cosmo DNA device and save Earth from the toxic radiation of the Gamilon planet bombs. By the way, no one animates mushroom clouds better than the Japanese. It was because of this show that I decided to delay my suicide until the mission was complete. I was so into Star Blazers that once, after I was given detention for having been in a fight with another boy who was tormenting me, I skipped detention. I would not stay after school because doing so would cause me to miss that afternoon’s episode. As I was leaving school, the nun in charge of detention tied to stop me and told me to get into the room with the others. I told her that I could not and would not stay for the act of defending myself. I was clear that I must get home to see what would happen at the second battle of Pluto (for those in the know, the battle after the Reflex Gun was destroyed). I told her that I would serve double detention when the season was over. Such was my dedication to Star Blazers. She stared at me wide eyed as I turned and walked away. I thought that the joke was on her because with my plans to commit suicide at the end of the show, I would not have to stay for detention anyway. But when first season ended - Seasons for a cartoon? Unheard of! - came the second season with the Comet Empire, and again, I decided to delay my suicide.

Star Blazers, as I knew it in the United States, kept me going. The story kept me alive and dreaming and hoping. Near the end of the second season I discovered that there was even more to the show known as Uchu Senkan Yamato. I discovered that there were three movies (by 1983 there would be a total of five), picture albums, comics (manga in Japanese) posters, sound track albums, model kits and some toys. I had to see, hear and own as much of it as I could. So began my love affair with Japanese animation, AKA, Anime. I began to go to science fiction conventions to find these items and find them I did. Sometimes I paid a lot of money for these things. In 1980 I spent as much as $50 and $75 for a single soundtrack album that I would listen to over and over and over. I still have all of those vinyl albums. I went to one comic book convention in 1982 and dropped $200 on a toy of the Yamato that hangs from the ceiling of my basement as I write this. I look at that toy quite often. All of these items were all worth it to me and I have all of them to this day. In going to the conventions looking for Yamato items, I found something more, something that I had not found in school and something that I was not expecting, but inside, hoping to find. I found others who loved the same things I did and in finding them I found good friends. In those friends I found acceptance, support and love. They and Yamato helped me get through my depression and beyond thoughts of suicide. It is because of an animated space battleship and her crew, that I found friends and survived my early high school years. It is because of the stories, music, books, models and the friends that I made, that I did not commit suicide as a teenager and I am alive today and enjoying life with my family, friends a very wonderful woman and two cats. I am still very good friends with my gay friend from high school. As a youth I learned some good lessons from Uchu Senkan Yamato. I learned the importance of hope, love and loyalty. I learned how to fight on through adversity. I have a nice collection of Yamato items including most of the soundtrack albums, many posters, a few toys and models, including the new model kit from Bandai, that I dropped a hefty chunk of change for. To this day, I hum the music, sing the opening and closing songs and watch the DVDs. It fascinates me how an animated show made in Japan in 1973 saved my life six-years, 6765 miles and 'a hundred and forty eight thousand light years and back' later. This show, more than Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica and more than Star Wars even, not only helped to define me, it saved me.