Uchu Senkan Yamato 2199

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

I'm rating it 9/10 but personally for me its 10/10 because of the nostalgia factor.

This is a remake of the mid 70's Space Battleship Yamato which was released in the US as "Star Blazers" and dubbed into English. It was so popular in Japan that there was a musical tour of the music from the show. It was equally popular among American children of the 70's and 80's.

This is an excellent remake. They kept what made the series great in the 70's and of course the animation and general picture quality is vastly superior.

Like the other reviewer said, this is better than the original. It's an appropriate update of the old "classic" anime that had been imported from Japan in the mid late 1970s.

The old show was a little hard to take at times because of all of the dialogue mis steps the English cast took or uttered, and the animation was typical "get it done fast" off shore anime that often had problems with perspectives and budget restraints regarding the number of drawings that could be used.

Thankfully CGI has freed the budget to allow animators to concentrate on the characters and letting the computers render the various machines, vehicles and devices, making for an incredibly good viewing experience.

It had, at one time in my life, been an ambition to take animation that I grew up with that had good stories but poor animation, and bring up the level of quality with improved techniques. "Space Battleship Yamato" (or "Starblazers") was on that list. And I'm glad someone else had the same idea and ran with it.

All the classic characters are there, including a few new ones adding to the story mix. And most of all the characters themselves are less exaggerated than the previous show.

It's still marginally hokey (a flying space battleship, which has some ultra-right political roots in Japan), but it's still an enjoyable watch all the same. If you've seen the original, grew up with it, have a fondness for it, then you should at least try to watch this show's first episode to see what you think.

Enjoy.

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.

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.