Uchuu Sakusen Daiichigou

This volume is a complete reprint of a book that the author drew when he was 18 years old and published three years later under the name "Akira Matsumoto". At that time, the author was showing his precocious talent to the fullest, as he was recognized by Osamu Tezuka, who brought him to Kyushu to be an assistant for The Firebird. The story is set in the near future, when Mars is on a collision course with the Earth due to abnormal radioactivity. They suspected a ploy by aliens who wanted to control the Earth. As the day of mankind's destruction looms, a spaceship is launched with the help of a mysterious woman from a doomed planet, to attempt to rescue humanity's fate.... A long-form science fiction story full of romance, it pioneered the dawn of the Japanese science fiction. (Source: Shogakukan, translated)