Another minor post about Japan

I'm still in Japan for another couple of days, and can't be bothered doing a lengthier post yet, but just wanted to mention that one TV station here seems to show mainly retro shows from the 70s and later.  

That's how I found myself watching an episode of Galaxy Express 999, 

a Japanese anime series from the late 70s.

I have the feeling I had seen a snippet of this before, but I have to say, the imagery from it is very, very "trippy", for want of a better word.

I was interested to read that the guy who wrote it acknowledged the inspiration for a spacefaring train came from a well known kids book by Kenji Miyazawa (who died in 1933).  

I see from Wikipedia that the series plot is rather complicated, and I can tell from the one episode that it's "sci fi melodramatic" in that peculiar way often found in Japanese anime.  

But yeah, the imagery alone is impressive as a feat of imagination.