Esu Efu Saiyuki Sutajinga/Sci-Fi West Saga Starzinger/Spaceketeers/El Galactico

Heroes from a future far, far away.

Esu Efu Saiyūki Sutājingā is a space adventure anime series that aired in Japan from 1978 to 1979. During the early 80's, the series was broadcasted in several contries from Europe, Latin America and North America. Also, as you can guess now, the series was retitled depending on the country it was broadcasted.

Like many Animé, Starzinger is essentially a Sci-fi space opera retelling of the shenmo fantasy novel Journey to the West, a Chinese literary classic written by the Ming Dynasty novelist Wu Cheng'en. The Sci-fi twists were designed by world famous Animé artist Leiji Matsumoto based on the Terebi Magazine manga with art by Gosaku Ohta.  

Princess Aurora, the one.

The story revolves around the Galaxy energy concept, which is a rip-off from the Star Wars force concept with slight differences. As the universe is becoming more and more unbalanced (Star Wars again) Princess Aurora is chosen by the Empress to go on a mission to The Dekos System in order to restore the energy and create peace in the galaxy (Star Wars!) She is accompanied by three very different cyborgs (partly humans with extraordinary powers), they are Cogo (Jesse Dart) he is the most powerful amongst the three with superhuman strenght, speed and agility and of course he has got the Astrobat a very very powerful weapon that is almost a part of himself, he also can increase and decrease his size or make a holographic double of himself. Then there is Haka (Porkos) he is the clumsy somewhat stout person of the group, his weapon is called the Star Chain, only I rarely see him do anything useful with it. Third in line is Darco or Arimos (Giorgio), you could say he is the brain of the group he also has got a weapon of his own the Tridenceral, though not even nearly as powerful as the Astrobat.

Our heroes' mothership.

Starzinger aired in the early 1980s in Latin America as part of the four-series show "Festival de los Robots" which featured similar Animé series.

In North America, it aired as "Spaceketeers" as part of the package show Force Five. As the "Journey to the West story" is not well known in the region, the characters were renamed to reference the Three Musketeers. To also fit into the Force Five time slot, the show had to be edit-squeezed into 26 episodes. The US version puts them on a mission to the Dekos Star System which contained evil powers changing peaceful creatures to evil mutants. The Force Five version not only just produced 26 episodes, but this English Version of the series never reached their conclusion.

24 episodes of the original 73 also aired in Scandinavia (mainly in Sweden) under the original name Starzinger. The series was also quite popular in Italy, France & Spain. 

Powerful weapons of good.

To promote the Animé overseas, "Starzinger: the movie" aired in March 1979 Although, the movie was made in its entirety by reusing footage from the first episodes of the original series, serving as some kind of introduction to the show aimed at new audiences. The same happened with the last 9 episodes of the series being promoted as a sequel to the original movie. Eventually, These episodes became "SF Saiyuki Starzinger II". This sequel was nothing but remarketing the last few episodes, since it aired immediately after the first 64 episodes were shown in June of 1979. The 65th episode began instantly in July 1979 with all the galactic energy restored in the storyline.

The Princess is tempted by sex.

Overall, Starzinger deservers 8 stars out of 10 because it is one the most entertaining to come out of the late 70's first wave of Animé. Although the story may not seem original, the characters are quite well developed, and each of them comes with a value you can easily relate to. For instance, Princess Aurora was the living impersonation of those pure of heart, while her brave warriors incarnated Might, Will & intelligence. The designs quality is excellent, like any design where Leiji Matsomoto's unique style is present. I would recommend it for those who like the traditional hero storytelling and expect nothing but to be entertained. There's been a recent DVD re-release of the series in 3 separate volumes for those interested. If you want the original unaltered series the internet might be the place to look for it.

Here's the original Japanese opening:

Here's the italian opening:

Here's the American opening:

Here's the Latin American opening: