Japanese Original Video Animation (1989; vtHyper Psychic Geo Garaga). Based on theManga by Satomi Mikuriya. Directed and written by Hidemi Kubo. Voice cast includes Toshio Furukawa, Keiko Han, Osamu Kobayashi, Michie Tomizawa and Norio Wakamoto. 100 minutes. Colour.

By 2755 humanity has spread across the galaxy by harnessingBlack Holes to create Warp Gates (seeStargates). As it passes through one of these the cargo ship XeBeC is sabotaged; the crew abandon ship and their shuttle crashlands in the jungles of the planet Garaga. The castaways are the eight crew members, aRobot and two passengers, the latter awoken from their cold-sleep capsules (seeSuspended Animation). A giant uniformedAlien ape appears, murdering a crew member before being killed. Upon examination the corpse proves to have been given a primitiveUplift involving steroids and brain implants. Later they are attacked by aMonster which kills the saboteur; as they fight, the heroic Jay (Furukawa) gets aTelepathic message telling him how to defeat it. The sender is Farah (Han), a member of thePsi-Powered Ra people.

One of the passengers is Heran (Tomizawa), the daughter of General Yang (Kobayashi) of the Federation Government's military: he was originally planning to settle the planet (seeColonization of Other Worlds) until learning of the indigenous Ra. However, his assistant, theAndroid Alf Dorf (Wakamoto), brainwashes him into taking over the planet by using the apes to wipe out the Ra (so they take the blame). Dorf, who intends to wipe out all organic life so robots can rule the galaxy, goes to the orbitingSpace Station to destroy Garaga: Jay, his robot and Farah follow, defeating him but not before he has set off the station'sWeapons – fortunately Farah telepathically focuses the power of her people and is able to destroy it.

TheAnime's plot is kept busy by the number of factions involved: aside from the captain and Heran, nobody on board the XeBeC is who they say they are, and there are four different military groups present. The Ra are split too: Farah is betrayed by her father, their ruler. The dialogue, in the English dub at least, is poor: there are suggestions that the original might have attempted something a little more thoughtful. Over a third of the main cast are women (seeWomen in SF), and though Heran is very much a damsel in distress, the others have stronger characters, even if two of them – Farah and her sister – are competing for Jay's affections. [SP]

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