New Tale of the Bamboo Cutter: Queen Millennia

しんたけとりものがたり せんねんじょおう

Aired: 1981 - 1982

A television anime produced by Toei Doga and aired on Fuji Television across 42 episodes, adapting Leiji Matsumoto's epic science-fiction romance manga of the same title, originally serialized in the Sankei Shimbun and Shogakukan's Shonen Big Comic. In the near-future year 1999, a mysterious planet called La-Metal is approaching Earth on its thousand-year cycle, threatening cataclysm. Yayoi Yukino, the beautiful young woman working at the Chinese restaurant 'Ramen House Dairen' in Tokyo's Shinjuku, is in truth heir to a line of Queens of La-Metal who visit Earth once every millennium. Through the eyes of the boy Hajime Amamori, who is drawn into her destiny, the series lyrically explores the lonely mission carried by these millennial queens and their determination to save Earth's humanity. With its own original ending distinct from the theatrical film and sequel manga, the TV series stands as a key work in Matsumoto's SF universe.