ANI-MOVIES, *Lensman: Secret Of The Lens

Similar to Captain Future, the Lensman anime movie was also based on a series of stories featured in American pulp fiction magazines. The original saga was written by E. E. Smith who was considered to be the father of space operas, and his work went on to inspire several science-fiction sagas like Green Lantern Corps. Yoshiaki Kawajiri began his adaptations of American media like Batman, Highlander, and The Matrix when he directed this Madhouse production from 1984 which was one of the first anime to implement computer animation. The original source material was riding off the success of sci-fi action like Flash Gordon and Flash Gordon, and its fame spread to Japan in later decades along with buzz that the original Star Wars trilogy sparked off which added to the modernized take of this classic series.

Young farmboy Kim Kinnison works on a distant world with his father, but their simple life is interrupted when one of the Galactic Patrol's special officers known as Lensmen each of whom are grafted with a nearly magical lens on their hands which allows the user special abilites. The dying Lensman wills his lens to be planted onto Kim is now tasked to carry the lens' secret data to the Galactic Patrol to help them defeat the invading Boskone(which actually has its own sci-fi con named after it!)Empire. Kim dodges the Boskone destruction of his planet along with his beast-man friend Buskirk when they are both rescued by a Galactic Patrol ship. Female officer Clarissa is ordered to help the two of them escape another Boskone attack as they eventually crash land on a dystopian world under the empire's thumb. Kim has to spring Buskirk from an enemy prison which leads into one of the longest chase scenes in the history of anime. Clarissa is kidnapped by Boskone's grand poobah Helmuth where Kim has to finally use the secret power of his lens to finally defeat the dark lord and his evil empire.

Lensman: Secret Of The Lens has some groundbreaking animation, specifically the blending of the earliest form of CGI with traditional hand drawn productions with its dynamic dogfights, surrealistic action scenes right out of an 80's video game, and a space rave that literally brings down the house. There are at least two separate dubs done of this film, one by Robotech's Harmony Gold, the other by Streamline Pictures, with various VHS and LD releases some of which are slightly edited. There has been no DVD or Blu-Ray release in English, and it is currently not available for streaming, so if you happen to get a video cassette copy of this classic space adventure make sure you hold on to it as it is probably worth a small fortune on Ebay. If you're interested, there are also a trilogy of American created comic book mini-series published by Eternity Comics in the early 90s