Issue 9 - Yipe!

tape the episodes each day.Then, over the weekend, Terryand I would show up at Dave’sapartment, and watch 5 daysof episodes in one marathonsession. Lather, rinse, repeatthrough 10+ weeks/52episodes.I was now a woman with acollection of anime VHS tapesand nothing to play themon, a situation that was notrectified for another 5 years. Inretrospect, I find it interestingthat I chose an anime as thefirst thing I made an effort topreserve on videotape, ratherthan episodes of classic STARTREK, which I had beena rabid fan of since the late1960’s.I had a private room/officefor my job (used to givecompetency tests in mathand English to high schoolseniors), so, each afternoon, Iwould listen to the audio ofthat day’s STAR BLAZERSepisode on a TV band radioas if it were a radio play. It isa tribute to the quality of thevoice acting and the retentionof the original Japanesesymphonic score that theepisodes held up amazinglywell under these conditions.I belonged to my college’sSTAR TREK club (S.T.A.R.San Diego), and had beengoing to STAR TREKconventions and the SanDiego Comic-Con since1973. I actively competedin the masquerades at theseconventions, and madecostumes for S.T.A.R.meetings and S.T.A.R.’sannual Halloweenmasquerade party. It didn’ttake long for me to lookat STAR BLAZERS withmy costumer’s eye and seeuniforms with clean designlines and bright colors thatcould be reproduced easily ininexpensive double knit fabric.I made the first two in fall of1979 for Terry and myself.Other friends saw them andwanted them, so I made more.By spring of 1980, there were10, and some of my friendswere figuring out how to buildthe various weapons from theshow out of sheet styrene.Either in fall of 1979 or springof 1980, I also connected withMark Merlino, Fred Patten,and The Cartoon FantasyOrganization (CFO), basedout of Los Angeles. CFOmembers had an interestin all kinds of animation,but the club, founded in1977, was becoming moreand more heavily weightedtoward anime. They alwayshad flyers at conventions,and often had input tothe film programs of Los-Angeles based science fictionconventions. My friends and Iattended some of the monthlymeetings, at least once inSTAR BLAZERS uniforms.The CFO broadened ourhorizons and introduced usto anime series and movieswe had not seen before:LUPIN III, CRUSHER JOE,RAIDEEN.With the help of CFOmembers, I got directions toplaces in Los Angeles whereanime-based materials couldbe bought, including the“Little Tokyo” area downtown,and the Gardena area furtherafield. Armed with thisknowledge, my friends and Iwere able to purchase a wealthof manga, reference books,LP soundtracks, and othercollectibles related to STARBLAZERS. (First Japanesephrase I learned was “UchuSenkan Yamato,” to querybook store and record storeowners about our favoriteshow.)This was the era when anime