The anime is a re-telling of the Chinese classical novel Journey to the West....IN SPACE!. The universe is a vast place, home to many different aliens, cyborgs and space creatures. To prevent conflict, peace is managed by various factions and groups - and those that dare disturb peace are treated as the lowest of the low, locked up in the most secure of prisons. Turmoil erupts when Planet Great Pluto, at the center of the universe, starts weakening, and the energy it emits starts having a negative effect on the universe - beasts that were once benevolent are now violent, natural disasters crop up here and there, and war and distortion starts to emit in every corner of the world.
Moon Princess Aurora is required to find what's the cause of this, before galactic peace is eternally broken. However, she can't do it alone - she needs the aid of three of the universe' most violent cyborgs - Jean Kugo, Don Hakka, and Sir Jogo - to help her. None of them have hands clean of blood, and they're all also not exactly happy about working with the Princess. But with the fate of the universe at stake, together they battle violent aliens and banish space creatures alike, in their journey to set right what was once wrong.
It ran from April 2, 1978 to August 24, 1979, with Yugo Serikawa serving as the director. It ended at 73 episodes in total.
Not the first time that Journey to the West was retold IN SPACE!. That iteration was more successful.
Has examples of:
- 20 Minutes into the Future: The anime was released in 1978 and depicts a distant future where cyborgs and aliens co-exist on earth.
- Airborne Aircraft Carrier: For the heroes, it's the Queen Cosmos Ship, which was given to Princess Aurora by Dr. Kitty.
- Aliens Speaking English: Princess Aurora is from the Moon and has no issues assimilating into Earth and speaking with Earthlings.
- American Kirby Is Hardcore: When Starzinger was released in the US, it was renamed Spaceketeers and was part of Jim Terry's Force Five series.
- Angry Mob: When the citizens of Atlantis deem Aurora a "witch", a mob surrounds her as they insist her punishment is to be drowned and sent as a sacrifice to their pagan mythical figure.
- Atlantis: There is an underwater planet quite literally called Atlantis here. However, they believe Aurora to be a witch, and try to sink her in the oceanic abyss as a sacrifice.
- Attack of the Killer Whatever: The space creatures that the gang encounter, that can look like regular animals with unusual colours or hideous mutated beasts with multiple arms and elgs and glowing eyes.
- Awful Truth: Dr. Kitty always told Aurora that Esperanza was a beautiful planet full of lush greenery, but when she finally visits the planet its in ruins and the plants have dried up. It turns out the absence of galaxy energy has essentially killed all life on the planet.
- Barbie Doll Anatomy: Aurora essentially has toothpicks for limbs and most female characters are so skinny, they look like humanized versions of Bell-Bottom-Limbed Bots. This trope also applies to other female characters in Leiji Matsumoto's works.
- Beach Episode: An early slice of life episode features Aurora, Kugo, Jorgo and Hakka visiting the beach that Aurora enjoyed visiting in her childhood, and Aurora shows off her bikini while the boys strip down to their shorts. Seeing Aurora in all her skimpy glory causes Bageba to get jealous and send a robeast after them.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: Lacets sics her moth robeast Dokunga against the heroes' Cool Ship, Queen Cosmos. It manages to nearly crush it thanks to being almost twice its size and having a massive wingspan.
- Bowdlerise: The American version cuts out some of the more graphic content of the series, reduces 73 episodes to 26, and rewrites the plot as Princess Aurora and her three knights putting an end to the Dekos Star System, an evil empire that's turning all the universe's peaceful creatures into violent ones.
- Canon Foreigner: The American dub introduces the Dekos Star System, who are apparently behind all the evil that's been plaguing the universe.
- Chekhov's Gun: When Aurora is missing, Kugo manages to trace her because of the necklace left at the magma planet.
- Compilation Movie: In March 1979, Toei Animation produced an hour and a half-long movie that summarized the first arc, but cut out many other major plot elements.
- Creator Thumbprint: You know this is a Leiji Matsumoto work because it features big-ass ships, alien-human conflict, themes of anti-conformity and a pretty, hot blonde woman with hair that nearly touches the floor.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: Jean Kugo telling Dr. Kitty that he doesn't want a female bodyguard, which is in character for him being a Hot-Blooded, unlikable asshole.
- Fanservice: One cover
◊ depicts Princess Aurora wearing nothing but a small, white bikini, and showing that she's very buxom. - Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Planet Baster is one to the Middle East/Arabic nations. It is very sandy and desert-like, while the inhabitants wear white clothing that cover their entire bodies, with females wearing veils that cover everything but the eyes. The two inhabitants the team encounter even have Arabic-style names, Jirardnote and Amira.
- Gender Bender: Baralan disguises himself as a gorgeous redhead woman wearing a skimpy outfit to pull one over Hakka, and it works.
- Green-Skinned Space Babe: Aliens come in all sorts of colours, from Queen Lacets' deathly pale skin, to the Queen of Great Pluto's lime green skin. There's also Petros, who is purple.
- Hate Plague: Planet Amuru is cursed by Golga to have a mind disease where it's various inhabitants fight to the death for no reason at all. Kugo is horrified to find out that the fight he witnessed between two Amuru men was actually between a father and son, especially since they were close to dying had he not broken it up.
- Humans Are White: Averted. The main characters appear to be of East Asian descent, though it's kind of hard to tell with their names, that are Japanese versions of the Chinese characters from Journey to the West.
- Identical Stranger: Kugo once encounters a little boy named Marta who resembles his younger self. When Marta is killed in the crossfire, Kugo swears he'll make his killers pay.
- Inexplicable Cultural Ties: Some of the alien planets (like Planet Lacets) feature churches, with pews and stained glass, and even Princess Aurora prays for peace, in what seems to be a Lunarian-equivalent of Christianity.
- Lunarians: The Moon has a thriving culture and is somewhat of a mini-planet in it's own right, with Aurora as the Princess.
- Meaningful Name:
- Planet Lovely is indeed lovely, with peace-loving citizens, a stable democracy and a culture that welcomes outsiders.
- Dr. Mad is a Mad Scientist, and the same professor that turned Kugo into a cyborg.
- Mythology Gag: Hakka is called Porkus in the American dub because he was based on the pig demon (Zhu Bajie) from the book.
- Paradise Planet: One of the planets is called "Planet Lovely", and it lives up to its name. Unfortunately, Queen Lacets turns that upside down when she dispatches Ginginman there, who heavily brutalizes it.
- The Power of Friendship: Aurora, being a cheerful Blithe Spirit even when times are tough, believes this.Aurora: "Don't forget! Friendship is more powerful than weapons!"
- Race Lift: The characters from Journey to the West were Chinese, but in the anime, most of the human characters are ethnically ambigious Asians. Sangzang is rewritten as a pale-skinned blonde woman, and the Bull/Cow Demons from the original story are reimagined as aliens.
- Sexy Villains, Chaste Heroes: Chrysler wears a skin tight suit that gives an illusion of being naked, bares her front, and is very gorgeous, with her dark red hair and pale skin. The three heroes, on the other hand, are varying levels of plain and/or gonk. Aurora can qualify as "sexy" but her fanservice scenes are minimal compared to the villainess.
- Shout-Out: Aurora and Queen Lacets are reminsicient of Princess Aurora and Maleficient from Sleeping Beauty. Their resemblance is uncanny◊.
- Tragic Keepsake: For the three Poise brothers, it's their father's gun - he was killed by Kinkinman, and they intend to avenge him with it.
- Wagon Train to the Stars: It's a sci fi retelling of the classic Asian story Journey to the West. Thee English dub, however, changes the Saiyuki references to Three Musketeers references.
- War Is Hell: The series repeatedly depicts innocents being often caught in the crossfire of war, while those responsible for perpetuating heinous acts watch from the sidelines. Those who believe War Is Glorious are often depicted as foolish or without hope.
- War Refugees:
- The conflicts in the series result in many refugees scattered across the universe. Some characters like Bellamis and Petros also grew up in war and aim to make a world safe for fellow refugees.
- In one episode, Kugo mistakenly attacks a carrier ship full of child refugees, and Aurora is forced to banish him as punishment. He leaves through tears, but swears he'll always be by her side anyway. He's later found to be innocent when the true culprit is Golga, who possessed a General to blast the ship.
- Was Once a Man: In the series, cyborgs are of human origin, and a human can become a cyborg at the cost of sacrificing a large part of their own body.
- Whole-Plot Reference: Again, it's Journey to the West....IN SPACE!, with a side dish of The Three Musketeers and some sprinkles of Captain Harlock.
- Weird Weather: Because of the decrease in the galaxy's energy, the Earthern sun starts fizzing out, and the planet is hit by all sorts of abnormal weather events. This includes giant, robeast dinosaurs showing up out of nowhere and levelling Earthern cities.
