In the year 2199, the space battleship Yamato embarks on a voyage to the planet Iscandar, to retrieve a device that will rejuvenate a war-ravaged Earth.

In the year 2199, Earth is invaded by an extraterrestrial race known as the Gamilas, who hail from a dying planet and decide to make Earth their new home. The Gamilas proceed to rain radioactive bombs on Earth, rendering the planet's surface arid and uninhabitable (but hospitable for their race). Earth's space fleet is hopelessly outclassed by the Gamilas and all seems lost... until a mysterious space probe is retrieved on Mars. The probe contains blueprints, and a message from Queen Starsha of the planet Iscandar, who claims to have a device which can cleanse Earth of its radiation damage. The blueprints are of a supercraft that can enable any ship to head to Iscandar (situated in another galaxy) and back in a year, and with these plans the denizens of Earth secretly rebuild a Japanese battleship, the Yamato, into a great space battleship. A small but intrepid crew of 114 departs for Iscandar in the Yamato to acquire the device... but with the menace of the Gamilas, can they succeed in time?—Q. Leo Rahman