When it comes to the mecha genre, it’s most defined by anime as opposed to manga. There are also only a few mecha franchises that eat up all the attention. One mecha series has long been on the edge of mainstream popularity in Japan, never able to fully push through, but now it’s finally set to have a major release in the West after decades of obscurity.
The Five Star Stories is a mecha franchise that’s best known as a manga, also receiving its fair share of collectibles over the years. Combining space opera science fiction with mecha action, this property has always escaped the status of being one of the major mecha manga out there. Now, it has the best chance ever at making it big, especially in the West, with the original manga finally getting a modern release.
The Five Star Stories is One of the Few “Manga-Centric” Mecha Franchises
Five Star Stories Mecha mangaImage via Newtype
Unlike most mecha franchises, The Five Star Stories is “manga-first” as opposed to having started out as an anime. This is the reverse of the genre as a whole, with brands such as Mobile Suit Gundam and several others being mostly or solely defined by their anime. In those cases, the manga are side stories or alternate universe retellings. These can also come out several years after the original work and not be released concurrently at all.
Mamoru Nagano created The Five Star Stories back in 1986, and it’s been released sporadically ever since. Using a heavy focus on space-based storytelling and different galactic empires, this manga built upon themes seen in Nagano’s 1984 anime, Heavy Metal L-Gaim.
The Five Star Stories is mostly based around the immortal emperor Amaterasu, who seeks to unite the five stars of the Joker Cluster. The fifth star in question is Stant, which only appears every 1,500 years. Of course, this ambition results in several armed conflicts, with battles being fought with giant mecha. Known as “Mortar Headds,” these are piloted by “Headdliners” and “Fatimas,” with the latter being biomechanical android partners. While the characters are arguably human or humanoid in the franchise, the more intergalactic setting has more in common with mecha works such as Macross than the somewhat more terrestrial Gundam.
Likewise, there’s an extensive amount of world-building spread across the many volumes of the manga, with the story spanning generations and focusing on different protagonists, and even different kingdoms of people. Beyond the story itself, the brand is known for its signature visuals. The Five Star Stories has some of the most unique mecha designs ever, and the designs of its human characters are quite special as well.
In the case of the latter, there’s a sense of high fashion in the designs, with the characters being particularly slender and elegant looking. These mostly showcase a “bishounen” aesthetic, everyone looking more at home in a shojo manga such as Sailor Moon than a militaristic Real Robot series. The same sense of almost graceful style can also be seen in the mecha themselves, and The Five Star Stories inarguably has some of the most beautiful mecha designs ever. There’s an almost organic, biomechanical quality to them, with the mechs resembling knights in flowing armor.
Along with this armored yet waifish physique, the mecha are also somewhat insectoid. This particular aesthetic became increasingly common in mecha anime in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, with giant robots that were essentially giant suits of fantasy-esque armor seen in unrelated works such as The Vision of Escaflowne. Despite this, The Five Star Stories has never quite been what it could be in terms of popularity, and there are a few reasons for that.
Why This Mecha Franchise Never Became as Big as Gundam
When it comes to mecha, it’s hard to even imagine something unseating the massive Gundam brand. A big reason behind the popularity of Gundam and mecha as a whole would be the presence of Gundam plastic model kits. These can be enjoyed regardless of whether someone has seen the corresponding anime, and in the past decade, they’ve even become increasingly ubiquitous in the West. They’re easily the most popular forms of anime merchandise, and they appeal to those beyond the anime fandom in the same way as LEGOs and Transformers toys. There are also model kits for The Five Star Stories, but they’re comparatively few and far between, especially outside Japan.
It doesn’t help that the designs of these model kids likely aren’t recognized beyond Japan, and while their elegant designs make them especially unique compared to other robots, this could also arguably make them a lot less marketable for those seeking to build military mecha. Mamoru Nagano has been notoriously hands-on when it comes to controlling the licensing for The Five Star Stories, so it simply has far less reach than other mecha brands.
Even in the case of the iconic Neon Genesis Evangelion, which ended its original anime back in the 1990s, it’s been continually merchandised through a variety of items ever since. This has kept it alive for different generations, and built an audience of fans who weren’t even alive when it first aired. Most importantly for its lack of renown, however, The Five Star Stores has a long, sprawling and convoluted storyline that’s simply a lot harder to keep up with.
While the original Mobile Suit Gundam and its Universal Century timeline are still ongoing, the entries are usually a lot more standalone or otherwise accessible. Conversely, the titular story of The Five Star Stories is told in its manga, which only received a limited and now long-since out-of-print release outside Japan. The only major adaptation was the 1989 anime movie, which is mostly forgotten and equally obscure in the West. Thus, it’s no surprise it’s failed to reach even half of its limited Japanese success elsewhere.
The Five Star Stories are Finally Being Retold in the West
An art piece from The Five Star Stories showing a woman dancing in front of a Mortar Headd Mecha.Image via Kadokawa Shoten
As mentioned, the manga for The Five Star Stories was once localized into English in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but these versions largely went under the radar. It was a time when anime and manga still weren’t nearly as big as they now are globally, even with hits such as Dragon Ball Z and New Mobile Report Gundam Wing. These volumes are incredibly hard to come by, which is why even mecha enthusiasts can barely get their hands on them.
Thankfully, today is an age of anime dominance, with even the somewhat more niche mecha genre seeing a lot more success. Currently, the venerable Gundam franchise has reached new heights in terms of international popularity, and overall, just about any manga is able to be localized and find some level of success. Thus, this transition from lean and famine to fat and feast is the absolute best time to revisit a mecha brand that never quite got its due, especially in the West.
Publisher Titan Manga will be releasing new English localizations of The Five Star Stories, with the first of these set to be released on July 7, 2026. Conversely, the second volume will come out on October 6, so there might be a 3-4 month release gap from then on. Titan Manga tends to localize somewhat more adult, esoteric, obscure or otherwise less mainstream manga, though these are sometimes tied to bigger franchises.
For instance, it published the manga for one of the modern Kamen Rider shows, along with newer manga releases for Saint Seiya and ATOM: The Beginning. The Five Star Stories definitely fits into this mold, and there’s also a certain advantage for a Western audience that seems to be eating up any and every manga release. While it definitely dominates in terms of anime and model kits, Gundam isn’t quite as ubiquitous when it comes to manga.
Thus, there’s an area for The Five Star Stories to dominate. This will likely result in a far more successful localization than what was seen decades ago, and given that it’s happening nearly four decades after the first volume of Nagano’s long-running manga first came out, now seems to be the perfect time for The Five Star Stories to shine brightly once again.
