In a shocking turn, the Obscure SF Primer is back, ready to look at Galaxy Express 999, after nearly a year’s absence. If you want to know why, you can read here about what’s kept me from writing. Enough of that, though; let’s get on with the article!

Galaxy Express 999 is a 1977 anime that’s both little known in the west and extremely influential. It was created by Leiji Matsumoto and set in the so-called “Leijiverse,” which consists of other classic anime series such as Space Pirate Captain Harlock and Space Battleship Yamato. It has the fairly bizarre premise of being set on an intergalactic train which travels along the invisible space rails from planet to planet, stopping only for one day’s worth of local time (which can be as short as a few hours to several days) before moving on to the next destination–whether all passengers are aboard or not. You might think this doesn’t sound very sci-fi; after all, a space train is just whimsical fantasy, especially when it seems to literally operate like a steam engine. Still, the core ideas at the heart of this series are the same ones that play a role in countless others, regarding what it means to truly be human, and the cost of achieving immortality. With that said, let’s dive into Galaxy Express 999.

The end of the world often looms large over sci-fi and fantasy settings; AI uprisings, alien invasions, experiments gone wrong and earth-shattering superweapons are just some of the ways your life could be cut short in an instant. After a while, people could begin to feel powerless, like their lives lose meaning when it could all be over regardless of what they do… so when someone shows up claiming they have the secret to salvation, who wouldn’t be at least a little inclined to listen? Be careful, though, because this smooth talking man with a plan might just have a very different goal in mind. Did you think people joined a doomsday cult for the fun of it?

Here are 4 things to look for when you’re trying to find out if this bold new group is actually selling snake venom instead of just snake oil.

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Congratulations on being selected for the Giant Robot Piloting Program! I assume this means you’re a 15-year-old Japanese boy, but I guess you don’t have to be. One thing they might not teach you in the program, though, is that nothing takes as much work to keep running as a giant mech. The humanoid form doesn’t leave a lot of room for complex machinery, and scaling that up to 50 feet tall doesn’t help quite as much as you’d expect. And that’s without considering all the missiles, guns, laser swords, jetpacks and other add-ons these Mecha have to be able to swap out at a moment’s notice. All this is left up to the unsung heroes, the Giant Mecha mechanics (not to be confused with giant Mecha-Mechanics, which are a totally different and much more confusing issue), who have to get these things up and running after every city-destroying slugfest they take part in. So what I’ve got here are a few pro tips to help ease the burden on our intrepid robo-engineers and keep your giant robots in fighting shape.

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Cyberpunk these days is often heavy on the aesthetics–there’s a look to the whole genre that’s often considered crucial (and sometimes that’s one of the only things separating it from the present). What better way to showcase that style than by going to the local night club, one of the most obviously fashionable places around? While most of our heroes aren’t exactly the types to party in a cyberpunk club, their story will usually find a way to get them in the door, looking for a bad guy, or an informant, or hacker. Of course, these are way cooler than any place you or I have ever seen: lavishly decorated, crowded yet spacious, and playing some really loud (often really awesome) music.

Here are 4 of these hippest places to be, pulled straight from the dystopian cities in which they thrive.

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As far as I’m concerned, there are pretty much two main kinds of sci-fi: space adventures and cyberpunk. Cyberpunk never had a big presence on TV, and I’ve covered most of the attempts at it by this point. They’ve ranged from very successful, like Max Headroom, to far less so (TekWar) in terms of bringing it to life, but none of them have found much of an audience in the Western world. It’s rather bizarre, if you ask me; cyberpunk IS the fiction of the present, for all intents and purposes. But there is one place where cyberpunk thrived, a place intimately tied to the genre from its very origins–Japan. You can’t throw a rock in a cyberpunk dystopia without bouncing off a Neo Tokyo here or there. And a lot of classics of the genre come in the form of cyberpunk anime, so here are a few series that I feel are must-see.

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When it comes to the most popular sci-fi series, fans usually know everything there is to see. Every episode, deleted scene, bizarre spinoff series… they’ve seen it all. Sometimes, however, there are these weird little bits of the show that just never get out there to the wider fanbase. They’re not a lost episode, exactly. They can be created for lots of reasons, from cancellation scares to reconstructions of bits that were never properly filmed. For a long time fan, discovering one of these unknown clips can be a real treat, and why wouldn’t it be? It’s a chance to see some of your favorite characters back in action again when you thought it was all done! So here are 4 little known pieces of popular shows, in the hopes that you can enjoy spending a few more minutes with some beloved characters, too.

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Continuing from where we left off last week, I take a step over to Japan’s animation industry for anime sci-fi films that are every bit as amazing as the best live action has to offer. Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Gundam–these are classics, but here I want to share some more recent films that aren’t as ubiquitous. With that in mind, I’ve gathered 4 SF anime films that are totally worth a watch, even to those who aren’t usually into anime.

FYI, this is one of those lists where order doesn’t really matter.

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Defiance is often touted as a one-of-a-kind, groundbreaking multimedia franchise, the first time that a video game and a television series have been so closely tied together. But most fans of the show aren’t aware that a TV series tied in to a video game has been done before. And, of course, where better for such an experiment in cross-media storytelling to take place than Japan? Just over a decade ago, the .Hack// franchise emerged, all at once, across every form of popular Japanese media available. And while it probably wasn’t the first, it’s one of the best examples I know of where it began in multiple, connected forms instead of spreading out. Read more