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For some reason I recently remembered an animation that I saw on TV at some point when I was a child. I only ever saw it once and don't remember when, but it was probably before the mid 90s. Here are all the details I remember:

  • There was a space station made out of two hemispheres with a gap between them. I think it otherwise had a smooth surface, and looked much like the cowbells painted by René Magritte.

    enter image description here

    By René Magritte - https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/2593, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=53815146

  • I perceived it as a cartoon drawn in a "serious" style. From what I remember of the style this might mean it was an anime (dubbed into English). However, as a child I didn't really know the difference between Japanese animation and other styles, so I'm not sure of that.

  • There was a girl who was in some strange environment consisting of a series of organic-looking tubes that she had to climb on. From the imagery it could be that she had been miniaturised and put into someone's body (maybe the brain) but I don't remember thinking it was that at the time.

  • There were some adults who could talk to the girl by voice. They were in a laboratory type environment, possibly on board the space station.

  • At one point the girl was hungry, and the adults directed her to find a "strawberry" in order to eat. This turned out not to be a strawberry but a weird organic form that was bigger than she was. She had to do something to extract food from it I think.

  • I think the end credits showed the space station with a rotating wireframe cube around it.

This would have been shown on British TV at some point between the mid 80s and early 90s, probably at a child-friendly time of day. I don't know if it was a film or an episode of a series, because I probably started watching part way through.

I suppose it's possible that I'm mixing up two shows here, because I don't remember anything that specifically links the girl in the weird environment to the space station, but my memory says they were both in the same programme. It's also possible that the space station was not a space station at all but some other kind of object, since I don't remember seeing any spaceships dock with it or anything.

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This sounds a lot like "Les Maîtres du temps", only the girl was a boy and he was not shrunk down (the tube thing was a big plant where he hid from attacking giant insects).

While your description misses the main plot of the film, the visual details seem to match, and the design of the space station is very distinct.

This video has a scene from the end of the movie which shows the station.

The Wikipedia entry mentions that

The BBC (who were co-producers) aired an English-language dubbed version in 1987 and 1991 called Time Masters

And this is the station:

enter image description here

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  • Oh, I'm sure this is it! The station with the cube around it is exactly what I remember. So not anime but drawn in a very similar style. I didn't think the character was shrunk down, I was just sort of guessing that based on what I remembered of the visuals - I'm kind of glad it was wrong. I had no memory of the plot at all.
    – Phenomenom
    Commented Jun 27, 2021 at 8:47
  • It's also pretty interesting that it was only broadcast on British TV twice, years apart, so it's no wonder I only ever saw it once.
    – Phenomenom
    Commented Jun 27, 2021 at 8:49

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