Uchu Senkan Yamato 2199

If you were a fan of the original series (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0140644/), the 2199 series will be a nostalgia filled experience. There have been a number of updates as other reviewers have posted. The end result is that 宇宙戦艦ヤマト2199 is overall a richer experience and up to par with today's expectations. If you are someone who has never seen the original, this is an exceptional piece of work and fully stands on its own without need for prequel.

If you're a fan of the original soundtrack, you're in for a special experience as the most familiar melodies are there and unchanged. You will also find a plethora of new material that blends well with original 1970's compositions.

The animation is clean and crisp, but full of detail. Typically not what you'd expect to see in a weekly televised series. Due to the unique method of release (episodes grouped and released to theaters first and shortly after broadcast episodically), the production values are very high.

Again for those familiar with the original series, everything is updated but familiar. Nothing went through a redesign so drastic that it would not be recognized. Character designs are updated to more contemporary appearances. The mechanical side of the designs benefit most from the improved animation technology available today. Some elements and characters are new, mostly done to complete the story or add depth. The story is now deeper without becoming mired in its own twists and turns hopefully allowing the viewer to become more emotionally invested with at least a few of them.

The end result is a remake that does not need to rely on nostalgia but embraces and honors its past all while bringing the animation, sound, and story into a more contemporary era.

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.

If you're a fan of the original Starblazers, you owe it to yourself to watch this series in its subtitled glory. It may not entirely have the same voice-acting nostalgia you grew up with, but characters you know and love are still there.

The character designs are not exactly the same either, but it borrows aspects of the original art style so that the characters are recognizable. Everything looks and feels fresh, crisp, and new. But the beauty of this re-make is they've kept all the things that make Starblazers/Space Battle Cruiser Yamato the same...the sound effects from the original series are still intact, as well as re-recorded versions of the classic music. C.G. is added to good effect for the actual ship, without sticking out like a sore thumb (*cough*evangelion*cough*).

I just started watching and I'm instantly hooked. ^_^ Anyhow, this review, work in progress, since I just started watching. And I have to get to sleep soon. So, to be continued...

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

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.