2024 Rewatch: Star Blazers: Space Battleship Yamato 2199
A remake of a foundational anime that has stuck with me for years.
Fresh out of Highschool back in 2016/2017, I was left with a lot of free time. With it I played a lot of games and watched a fair bit of anime. One of the best anime I watched at that time was the 2012/2013 remake of 1974’s Space Battleship Yamato. As a remake, it’s pretty faithful to the original, only changing things when there was room to enhance the storytelling (or sell figurines).
I watched the Dub of Space Battleship Yamato 2199 (shortened to “Yamato 2199” or just “2199”after this point for brevity) which had just finished being produced at the time (good job Funimation, you made a Dub that I thoroughly enjoyed). That’s enough preamble though, I think it’s time to talk about the show proper.
Yamato 2199 opens in… the year 2199. Earth is reeling from the slow decay of their planet at the hands of an alien race named the “Gamilas”, they’ve been at war for 8 long years and although Earth’s “United Nations Cosmo Navy” has stopped a direct assault on the planet, the Gamilas have resorted to launching meteorite sized “Planet Bombs” at Earth, killing all life on the surface and forcing the remaining population of Earth underground. As the bombardment continues the planet gets more and more irradiated and drifting ever closer to planetary extinction. All hope is not lost however, as a different alien race, The Iscandarian’s have reached out to Earth with a potential salvation: Dimensional Wave Motion Technology. With this tech, Earth can create a space faring vessel that essentially has warp drive capabilities and go to Planet Iscandar to get a second device from the Princess of Iscandar: Starsha, which is named: The Cosmo Reverse System. This device can undo the devastation the Planet Bombs that Gamilas has scorched the Earth with over the course of their war.
The decay of the earth is at a point where it will die in one year, all life will cease. With this time limit providing a sense of urgency the show opens with the delivery of a Wave Motion Core from Iscandar to Earth from one of Starsha’s sisters (who sadly crashes on mars dying in the process). The hope she carried for Earth not forgotten, the Core is brought to the UN for use in Earth’s Last Hope: a secretly manufactured Cosmo Navy vessel hiding in plain sight. Built underneath the wreckage of the World War II Japanese vessel, the Battleship Yamato (so that’s why it’s called Space Battleship Yamato) is a heavily armed and defensive powerhouse equipped with both offensive and defensive uses of Wave Motion Technology, their main defense is a shield created out of latent Wave Motion Energy, and their main offense is the Wave Motion Gun. A powerful beam that comes from the stern of the ship, capable of vaporizing anything in it’s path at the cost of a lengthy cooldown and the loss of the Wave Motion Shield. With these tools the Yamato will need to make the trip to Iscandar and return in that one year in order to save Mother Earth. The hook worked and I rocketed forward with the show as if I was on the Yamato as well.
Space Battleship Yamato was filled with touching music that captures the intense action, and the inevitable sadness a Do or Die Journey has itself burdened with. 2199 takes the musical score from the original and remasters it perfectly. The music is enough to make me remember entire scenes by itself (and in the process maybe tear up a little), it is both incredibly thematic while also being filled with motifs, the Yamato itself has upwards of 20 music tracks attached to it, the crew have little motifs of their own depending on what the downtime between encounters bring, while the battles are scored franticly, and the villainous Gamilan Empire have themes and motifs that make them both dreadful and deadly to see approaching the Yamato.
What really drives me to love this show even more than the music (which I AM a complete sucker for), is the characters. From the main character of the show, and Leader of Tactical: Susumu Kodai, a fiery hotshot with complicated feelings towards most of the issues the Yamato falls into throughout the show. To the Captain of the Yamato: Captain Juuzo Okita, whose stone-cold will and dynamic battleplans had me excitedly watching each encounter. The First Mate of the Yamato: Shiro Sanada, a man who is on the surface cold and calculated, but underneath there is a heart bigger then most would think. then there is Head of Engineering: Hikozaemon Tokugawa. He is both wise and humble, having served under Okita for years understanding the Captain the most out of his entire crew. Next on the cast list is Daisuke Shima: Chief of Navigation. Shima followed in his fathers footsteps becoming military to honor his legacy after he died during first contact with the Gamilas. There is also Captain Okita’s Doctor and Head of Medical: Dr. Sakezo Sado, Dr. Sado is a blowhard with a penchant for the good stuff, he always comes through as a doctor though. Last but not least for my synopsis of the crew anyways, is Ship Affairs Division Officer: Yuki Mori. Yuki is the female lead and eventual love interest to the main character, she is snappy and excitable, much like Kodai, and the tension between them works very well.
The crew of the Yamato is very large, and all of the characters with names serve a purpose. None of them feel like wastes of time or space, from the Cosmo Tigers (the ships starfighters full of cocky and abrasive sharpshooters) to the sometimes shady looking Security Force on the ship, and the robot named Analyzer they all have a role to play in getting the Yamato to Iscandar. These people however are only half of the shows cast, as 2199 spends a lot of time with its antagonists.
The race of aliens, The Gamilas are very brutal in their diplomacy, a “join us or die” kind of attitude has gotten them much in their intergalactic conquest, but it’s also created a shaky foundation for their empire. Leading the Gamilan empire is Lord Abelt Dessler: The Great Emperor of Planet Gamilas. Dessler is cold, cunning, and very fun to hate as a villain. He spends most of the show playing a near-endless game of cat and mouse with the Yamato, often throwing his forces or new weapons at them which the Yamato evades with clever tactics (or completely astronomic luck)
Dessler has the full political and military might of the Gamilan empire at his disposal and with that, he makes every day of the Yamato’s year-long travel fraught with danger, and talking about what tricks he employs would diminish them, so I’ll leave it at that. Just know he’s a personal highlight of the show.
2199 is a show not only about a journey of hope, but also an appeal to humanity and peace. The undercurrent of 2199 (and it’s direct sequel Space battleship Yamato 2202) is one of political intrigue and the inability to work together to accomplish our goals as unified groups. The endless struggle to make life better, and the consequences for others when we focus on bettering only ourselves. It’s a pointed message straight out of the 1970’s and it feels right at home in the next century. The shows message of a great harmony is one that feels honest, and not like it was created reactionarily (as I said, the original plot is from the early 1970’s, a time of international war and blossoming peace movements and sentiment).
The show holds a dear place in my heart and it’s one story that wanted to experience again. Which is why I rewatched it this year, and felt the need to put my thoughts on “paper”. For anybody who thinks it sounds like a good time, I recommend watching it, the Dub is good, but it only exists for the first two seasons (so far… I hope they make more of it…), the Japanese version is very well acted, and the characters are just as emotional if not more so than Funimation’s work.