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I saw this as a feature length VHS hired from the local video store in the mid-to-late 1980s, in English.

I'm not sure of the plot, but it was animated.

The general points I remember are quite vivid:

  • a WW2 battleship outfitted for space

  • a scene right at the end where two characters are laying down on a shoreline with waves lapping at their feet - one of them dies, and the focus is briefly solely on the other character, but immediately reveals that in place of the first character there is now a baby

  • a scene where a character is trying to be convinced to go on a mission, and is introduced to some weapons training which consists of a shooting range, but the targets are living humanoid creatures, including children, which are pushed into the shooting range

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    The first point means it should be one of the Space Battleship Yamato. I have however not seen all of them and so cannot confirm if the two scenes you mention are in one of them
    – cybernetic.nomad
    Commented Apr 5, 2019 at 4:35
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    Yes, an anime seen in the 1980s with a battleship reused as a spaceship screams Space Battleship Yamato. The series was 1974-75. A condensed movie version of the series was released in 1977. There were a number of sequel series and three sequel movies in 1978, 1979, and 1980. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Battleship_Yamato#Movie_edition And some of the movies could have been available in English in the 1980s.
    – M. A. Golding
    Commented Apr 5, 2019 at 15:25
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    If that anime was Space Battleship Yamato, you may have known it with its first western name, which was "Starblazers".
    – McTroopers
    Commented Apr 6, 2019 at 9:53
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    @Moo Well, the Yamato is the only example of a WWII-naval-vessel-converted-to-spacecraft in an anime, or any fiction, that I know of, so therefore you're talking about one of the movies or the TV shows. So we've at least narrowed it down to that.
    – SpaceWolf1701
    Commented Jul 20, 2019 at 12:38
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    Does this answer your question? 80s-90s anime (movie or series) in which an armored girl exchanges age with a dying man on a beach
    – lfurini
    Commented Feb 25, 2023 at 13:35

2 Answers 2

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Is there a chance the VHS contained episodes from different series, or that you are conflating memories of different pieces of animation?

While "WW2 battleship outfitted for space" could be the official 5-word definition for Space Battleship Yamato (as pointed out by Ash's answer and other peoples' comments), there is a scene perfectly matching "two characters on a shoreline, one becomes a baby" in the movie "Phoenix 2772", which every now and again turns out being the answer to someone's strange recollections.
If that's the case, we already have a question with a detailed and accepted answer this could be marked a duplicate of.
That answer also has a YouTube link with the whole subbed movie: having now watched it, the scene with the shooting training is at 0:14:50; the scene on the shore is indeed the final one and starts at about 1:48:15.

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I would expect this to be Space Battleship Yamato in particular the 1977 film adaptation. The warship definitely fits, and the beach scene rings a bell too. But I would have expected to remember the firing range scene you describe and I can't say that I do.

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    Sorry, but this answer doesn't really pin it down enough to warrant an upvote or acceptance. I'm looking for confirmation of the aforementioned two scenes in a specific film.
    – Moo
    Commented Jul 20, 2019 at 9:42
  • I can't find the exact scene but the people on the beach are likely Mamoru and Starsha on Iscandar, I vaguely remember a similar scene with them towards the end.
    – Jack
    Commented Jul 22, 2019 at 4:26

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