Star Blazers 2199 - Space Battleship Yamato

I enjoyed this military science fiction anime series from Japan, it is based on a remake of the 1970's space opera by the same name which itself is based on a manga series, it could be said to be the Star Wars of Japan and the series which inspired other renowned anime. It's also credited in introducing complex thoughts and mature plots in the Japanese anime industry.

The highlight of the series is the story, a tale of aliens attacking Earth and bringing the human kind to extinction, the last hope for the humans is a journey across the Galaxy's, to a friendly alien race who promises a chances for survival. Although the plot itself is simple, it's actually rich with deep conundrum and conflicting solutions. The Journey is full of space battles, drama, inner conflicts on what's right and what's wrong. Another highlight is the vast yet different characterizations, each with their own colorful personalities.

While I found the character animations good, the space battles and the ship itself were average for me, I am not a CGI fan and these were CGI heavy. The sound effects and music on the other hand were good.

I would recommend the series to a those who enjoy Space Operas

First off, thank you Bandai and the production team for bringing this back.

I watched the original when I was 10-12 years old, so on a personal level it was nostalgic. That being said, the story has been modernized in a very technical way to add "onion like" layers to the level of realism.

The combat scenes were the finest space battle scenes I have ever seen in live action or Anime, in their detail, Better than the New Battlestar Galactica IMHO. The CGI and 2D animation was blended masterfully.

The Story has been updated in a way to fill in the realism gaps without stepping on the Original. The Characters have real and individual motives and the antagonists are no exception.

You do not have to have watched the original, the movie, or even anime, to thoroughly enjoy this series.

If you like SCI-FI, this is it for you. But not only space battles and lasers.

This series gives such a great attention to details, and explains pretty much everything (that is how I like a SCI-FI, create new tech while creating the backstories explaining them). I often had to pause to look at things like the very detailed engine or shield monitors, and had to back up to listen back to important information given.

The main vessel of the series, the Yamato, is also very well explored and used, with plenty of different technologies used, from huge cannons to classical WW2-era artillery shells.

The characters are also very well developed in here. Most of them are multi-dimensional and serve their own roles somewhere. This is actually an excellent space opera, and was really drawn into all of the inner stories, even love stories.

The enemies are also very well depicted, and get their fair share of screen time, and are also multidimensional. You get to understand them, and even understand them well, their behavior, and why their are doing what they are doing.

The english voice acting was also up-there, beautiful and well talented voices, fitting the characters.

All in all, this is a 10 for me, up there with neon genesis evangelion series. Looking forward the 2022 part! Thank for that new personal classic.

Now this is how to update a classic TV series. If you look closely at the 2005 Battlestar Galactica, you come to the realization of what doing a "reboot" truly means. It means the creator of the new series had absolutely no respect for the original material. He liked so little of it that he threw out the baby with the bath water. Nothing was worth saving except for the barest essentials - character names and the tiniest shred of the premise. The characters themselves were completely unrecognizable. JJ Abrams' Star Trek movies are the same way. Space Battleship Yamato 2199 is the opposite. It's a remake, not a reboot. The difference is they wanted to fix or modernize a few things, but by and large had great affection for the series and kept as much of it intact as they could.

I really wanted to watch the original Star Blazers, as the show was called in the US, but alas, the time slot wasn't cooperative as it conflicted with the school day and consumer VCRs were expensive and rare in 1979, so I couldn't timeshift it. Many years later, I finally had recordings of the show, but couldn't really get more than a few episodes into it before losing interest. Still, I did eventually see the English dub of the Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato movie and enjoyed that. The live action SBY movie from 2010 again left me cold and I don't think I even finished that. If I did, it was so unmemorable that I've forgotten even watching it through to the end. To me, this remake is the best version yet, good enough for me to binge-watch the whole series in a matter of days.

I watched the original series, like others here. I can safely say that while this series holds true to the original, it stands alone on its own.

The animation is very good. Explosions, lasers, all the sci-fi stuff one expects and done well.

The score is another aspect I found compelling. The music was done well, with great pieces well placed to enhance the story.

Characters, this is where I believe the show really stands out. With 26 episodes characters are well developed, and not just the humans. Many of the enemy characters are given equal treatment, going so far as to show family relationships among the enemy.

Battle scenes, great stuff here. We are treated to some battles that get you excited and anxious at the same time. People die, even many characters who have been developed in the storyline.

Finally, and I know some will not like this statement, any movie containing a battleship is a great movie. The naval themes presented are right up my alley. With everything from ship designations based on naval terminology (destroyers, cruisers, aircraft carriers, etc) and line formations just like watching naval reviews. Much of the ship fighting combat scenes are based on naval warfare techniques from the days of the large capital ships combined with more modern carrier warfare.

To conclude, I have watched this series twice now, and still find it exciting to watch and the characters extremely compelling. I have only found the series with English subtitles and the speaking in the original Japanese. If one is not able to do subtitles, you might wait until a dubbed version is released.

Note, this has also been released at Starblazers 2199. The primary difference I found is calling the ship the Argo rather than the Yamato, as the original Starblazers series did. The original series also changed the names of the main characters, for example Yuki Mori was called Nova in Starblazers. I am unable to explain these changes in names other than fear that a US audience would reject characters with Japanese names and would not want to see the IJN Yamato take on a second life of space flight a mere 40 years after its actual sinking. Space Battleship Yamato 2199 plays no such games with its audience.