Space Battleship Yamato 2199 03-06
One of the most beautiful failed time wraps I’ve ever seen
Good god, I’ve watched this episode three to six since, like, forever, but I was away at my aunt’s place for Christmas and spent my time there playing Togainu no Chi instead… What can I say? Gay porn > mecha porn. Sorry Ono Daisuke, but I’d rather hear Sugita Tomokazu making sex noises instead of writing about your ship… *remembers Sugitan’s bed voice* It was a great Christmas!
Moving On // Skipping episode three to episode four first, but it’s because episode three is connected to five and six, while episode four focuses on something that’s not related to saving humanity: Kodai and the other crews’ swelling emotions. The others will be talked about later, so let’s start with Kodai first. He was sent with Mori to save any survivor of a lost ship in Saturn (Was it Saturn? Or Jupiter? I can’t remember. Someone fix this for me), but alas, nobody survived in that ship. To make things more tragic, the ship belonged to Kodai Susumu’s dead brother, Kodai Mamoru *starts sobbing* Even the proud Mori knows that this is one of Kodai’s painful moments in life. His brother’s ship is there, but his brother isn’t. Not even Mamoru’s dead body remains. Being Susumu is suffering.
Thankfully, Susumu didn’t break down or do anything involved with sobfest and rolling on the ground. He didn’t drop a single tear. Instead, Susumu and Mori created a grave for the Yukikaze crew. It’s sad, it must be painful, but Susumu was – is – still holding on. That doesn’t mean that he forgot about his brother, of course. In fact, Susumu took his brother’s gun and keeps it by his side now. The gun is a reminder of Mamoru’s death, and Susumu realized that his brother won’t be the only dead person if Yamato failed its mission. Just like Captain Okita said, the Yamato crew must set aside all emotional feelings and put the mission as their number one priority. Humanity depends on them.
Great or Terrifying Power? // This is what these episodes are literally all about. Mave Motion Cannon came into being and Captain Okita used it to blow a Gamilan base in Jupiter (The Gamilan transported a piece of island on Jupiter, thus Jupiter was left unharmed). All I did was witness it on my laptop screen, yet the Cannon managed to make me shiver in awe. It was that powerful. Thank goodness it doesn’t exist in real life (Or… Does it? *insert conspiracy theories here*). Like they all said though, great power comes with great responsibility, and Captain Okita knows that. Seeing the horrifying power of the Wave Motion Cannon, Okita knew that this power should be used carefully. Heck, don’t use it at all when it’s not necessarily to. Captain Okita, you are a wise man.
We are the Yamato Crew // It’s not easy to work with a bunch of strangers, and it’s the same with the Yamato crew. Kodai and Shima had a small argument because of their different point of views, and Mori’s proud personality didn’t sit well with Kodai, not to mention that he’s pretty awkward when it comes to women – didn’t. Kodai and Mori get along now, but this sparks jealousy of the Megane-kun whose name I can and will never remember. Unfortunately, this jealousy affects Megane-kun’s professional decision during the meeting for Yamato’s counterattack. Kodai thinks Sanada has no human emotion when he was just conveying them in different ways from normal human. Also, Mori’s feeling for Kodai is starting to show, and this can be seen when she got jealous just because of him talking to another female crew member.
Despite all the heavy drama going on, the Yamato Crew was able to do their counterattack smoothly. Well, not really smoothly. Some bickering here and there, and the crew has little knowledge about the enemy’s base and hidden weapon. And thiissss is where the crew became so damn awesome. Their personal feelings and goals might be different, but they were able to work together overcoming the tactics by the Gamilians. Kodai and the female pilot found the base by accident, but the destruction of it was no mere accident; those who have watched episode six should know that. It took great cooperation among the crew to destroy the base and succeed the mission. The professional attitude of the Yamato Crew is top notch. Even though the crew are still not that close to each other, they’re definitely more than strangers now. They’re the Yamato Crew, and they have a mission to save humanity. If I were a civilian in that world, I couldn’t ask for a better crew. Okita did a great job in picking his subordinates.
Screenshots:
ASDFGHJKL THOSE EPISODES WERE SO GREAT I CAN’T EVEN– Goooddd, it was sooo greeeaattttt… All my feels. The animation was so EFFING FABULOUS. Seriously, all those colors; my eyes were blinded by its awesomeness. I’m one of those people who love details, and the details from episode three to six were just so great they made my eyes hurt. The mystery of the time wrap were depicted beautifully with the color combination and the mysterious effects when the time wrap happened (frozen time, transparent clothes). The anime also did a great job at showing the great power of the weapons used in these episodes, starting from the Motion Wave Cannon to the Planet Bomb system, the Gamilians used. The other thing I love from these episodes is the music: powerful and entertaining because of the 90s feeling it gives (duh) along with the professional vibe. They sound so perfect. It really fits the atmosphere of the episodes, and helped at building up the excitement of the audience. I have the soundtrack in loop in my iTouch right now.
Last but not the least is the “drama” in episode four to six. Some relationship drama between Mori and Kodai (although it’s still one-sided), and it seems that everybody is paired off with somebody. Heck, even the nurses are paired with the so-good-looking minor characters. There are also the conflicts because of different ideals the characters hold. Seriously, I’m starting to see that Yamato is pretty dramatic. Surprisingly, I ended up liking all the conflicts among the characters. Dramatic, yes, but it was handled pretty well. It doesn’t feel rushed, and the characters feel natural at handling their own problems. So far, I think the new Yamato is doing a good job at the pacing and the slow character development. I hope it stays this way.
Preview: Yamato is officially out of the Solar System, and the crew takes a final look at Earth.
POWUH: iLurker with 2 comments
Chapter 2 is all about action, with some character development. You’re right, episode 4 is at Saturn, more correctly its moon, Enceladus. In the original the action took place at Titan but since then Titan has been deemed not to be the frozen wasteland required by the story. Enceladus is a perfect replacement, those ice gheysers are real, BTW. 😀
Chapter 3 is a full change of pace, with more focus on character development than action. Don’t worry, it’s all good, just not a full throtle mecha action romp as this one. Things seem to speed up again in Chapter 4 when Domel and Fraken join the game. 😀
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
Yep, you’re just like me back in the late 70’s. Except for the gay porn thing. We didn’t have that. At least, I couldn’t do anything about in when I was 8 years old. :-0
Seriously, this show made me giddy as a kid. And I really enjoy it as an adult. The staff manages modern animation with great nostalgic feel. Good times.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
Watching this show for me is still *aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa* *staring at beautiful visuals*… soooo pretty…
Actually, the story’s not bad, either, but there hasn’t been too much of it, at least not on the part of interpersonal relationships. It seemed like the squadron leader dude is finally easing up a little bit, maybe he’s finally got some respect for Kodai, or maybe he’s just figuring ‘everyone’s going over my head anyway, I’ll just go along with it.’
Anime physics did make a bit of an entrance, tho, in that blowing up the laser cannon after part of the pulse has been fired won’t stop what’s already been sent. That light also had quite a bit of travel time…
POWUH: Novice (36-50) with 40 comments
And time continues to move: The 10 minute preview of Episode 11 came out today. It will be in theaters in a few weeks and on BD by the end of February.
http://youtu.be/PvbeQSvWCdI
Looks to be Chapter 4 well be action again. But the Comet Empire ships and theme are a welcome surprise.
POWUH: Novice (36-50) with 40 comments
One thing bothers me is the lack of discussion of this anime. It seems basiclly ignored.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
Well, it’s a tough one to discuss, especially when we’ve got a lot of other shows to discuss weekly, and a time frame that’s used to weekly. With this, it’s all BD and movies, on a longer time frame to have things happen. I mean, in 8 months, we’ve had 10 episodes come out. It’s hard to hold interest when it’s that far apart.
Is this series supposed to be broadcast on TV after all the theater and BD’s are out? If so, it might get a lot more discussion then. But even then, it’s pretty much the same story as the old one, and you can only gush so much about the great visuals each time. 🙂
POWUH: Novice (36-50) with 40 comments
If the plan is as it was when they started, they will show the series on Television after they finish (or maybe just before they finish, but they will get the last film out before those episodes are to air). At the present rate, the last set of episodes will be out in Fall of 2013. Since it is a 26 episode series, we can assume they will start showing in in 2014 unless they start in Summmer of 2013 show the last four episodes on TV about a month or two after the BD release of Chapter 7.
Then of course there is the question of sequels. We know the general director would like to do a prequel OVA about what happened leading up to the Battle of Pluto in 2199. And with the inclusion of the Comet Empire (briefly) in Chapter 4, we can assume they have ideas, if not plans for a Comet Empire series sometime later on. That they do them or not is unknown.
POWUH: Beginner (20-35) with 22 comments
It so is. It is literally the best thing i;ve seen this year, and it’s like i’m the only one who has seen it. Havent been this engaged in the story for quite a while. And that opening, i’ve watched it probably 40 times by now.
POWUH: Novice (36-50) with 40 comments
It is rather good, though classic by this day and age.
The version from Episode 10 is much more iconic for the old Star Blazers fans as it is the up tempo fanfare version.
I would note that the story after Episode 6 starts to change more and more from how it was in the origin. While I doubt they will change the overall story, the subplots and some entire episodes are completely different verses how it was in 1974-75. The way they are moving, they should be able to make at least 5 or 6 completely new episode in this series.
Chapter 3 (which is out already) is more character driven rather than action or plot driven. Chapter 2 was action mostly and stuck more or less to the original plots, if sped up a bit to remove redundancy in the orignal plot. After that the game changes a bit. While some episodes are similar to older one, others are totally new.