excerpt from article by Lynn A. Wilson

But, as we have seen, the coupling of innovative ideas with poor timing has led to the downfall of more than just publishers. Take, for example, the classic Japanese television program Fushigiboshi ga Unsanmushou, only slightly better known by its loosely-translated English title, Mysteriously Vanishing Star. Although in recent years this obscure program has attained a cult following among select sci-fi and anime clubs (thanks to a single PAL-format videocassette smuggled into Canada and dubbed into grainy NTSC for underground distribution in the early 1980s), it is virtually unknown even in its home country. Its only fame -- or is that infamy? -- derives from the show's laughably bad animation and inconsistent character design, which director Takashii Nakamura blamed on the show's perpetual lack of sponsors.

MVS, as the show is affectionately abbreviated by its microscopic but dedicated fan base, premiered on Fuji TV in September, 1976. The plot revolved around a superpowered mechanism with the unique ability to create and destroy entire galaxies. (I can't resist telling you, ladies and gents, that the mechanism was stored in the hero's belt buckle.) In hindsight, MVS could have been called "ahead of its time" -- despite its derivative central conflict and perhaps because of its somewhat unconventional character design, the show might have succeeded with its audacious galaxy-spawning plot had it aired a year later, during the post-Star Wars glut. Sadly, MVS died an ignominious death without resolving its last cliffhanging episode, and the space-opera glory of the 1980s went to Mobile Suit Gundam instead.

When the show went off the air in January, 1977, it took with it the last few yen of the Douretsu-Konpa production company that had birthed it. The show lost its backing after episode number eight, and rumors of cost-cutting had begun to circulate by mid-season. One story claimed that the contracted animators had been fired after the keyframes were completed, and the director himself had to fill in as an inbetweener on the last few episodes. Another suggested that the sponsors had brought a lawsuit against the show's producers. Whatever the cause, Douretsu-Konpa filed for bankruptcy in August, 1977, eleven months to the day after the airing of the MVS pilot, and less than four weeks after Star Wars opened in America.