There were indeed several complaints, but not as many as you would think. When the game was ported to the NES the names of the Japanese ships were changed to characters from the romance of the three kingdoms and other made up names in both the american and japanese cartridges.

However, there were no instances of censorship outside of the NES version. This is likely due to the sillier and less realistic elements that were added to later games, like laser beams and aliens, and the fact that it was a huge commercial success worldwide.