I’ve been on a bit of a classic anime kick recently, and ran across this little gem of a film that I never saw back in the day. So please enjoy my review.

By the numbers:

1987 – Release date
3 – The number of films this rips the plot off from. I count “2001: a Space Odyssey,” “The Thing” and “Alien.” There may be more.
2 – The number of people who are on the spaceship under false pretenses
0 – Boolean value for whether this shit makes any sense or not.

Plot Summary:

A group of explorers leave on a 20 year journey to an unexplored planet. Unexpected things happen while they are in hibernation. Also – there’s a cat. And that’s about as much as I can give you without spoiling it.

Review:

The animation is quite good for something from the 80’s. I would compare it to the original Transformers: The Movie animation. Not quite up to Akira standards, but nothing was back then. Sound track is decent, and the Japanese voice acting is quite good (there’s a dub, but I didn’t check that out.) Plot is derivative, but it keeps you interested. Overall, I say check it out. It’s available on Crunchyroll now. Oh – and here’s a teaser bit for you: