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After Earth is devastated in an apocalyptic meteor shower, it is taken over by a military cartel calling itself the Trader Forces, which is secretly supplied by an alien woman called Photon. A second woman, Mellow, "casts her cosmic consciousness" at Earth, where it crashes in 2024 with the impact of another meteorite. Daiba, a local boy, investigates the crash site but is arrested by the Traders. Contacted telepathically by Mellow, he is told that he, an Earth girl called Rei, and a third party whom they will have to find themselves (who turns out to be a cat) are all examples of the next stage in evolution. Aided by Mellow, the three must overthrow the Traders.
"This contains the essence of all my previous works. It's a space opera that also focuses on Earth's environmental problems," said creator Leiji Matsumoto at the time of this anime's release; neatly sidestepping the issue of yet another rewrite of his standard character templates reusing ideas and imagery from his Galaxy Express 999 and Queen Emeraldas.
There are a few new ideas, such as the magma-dwelling "underlife" creatures briefly encountered, but essentially this is a run-of-the-mill teen adventure using familiar-looking characters in an attempt to drag in longer-standing fans of Matsumoto's other work. That was certainly the way it was sold in Japan, where press releases could not resist hinting that both Captain Harlock and the Yamato spaceship from Star Blazers would make cameo appearances.