Oldie but Goodie- Space Battleship Yamato

Space Battleship Yamato, or as many people know it as in the US as Star Blazers, was made in October 1974 and ran till March 1975. It was written by Leiji Mastsumoto and Yoshinobu Nishizaki. The manga came out a month after the anime was released and the ended a month after the show ended. The series episode director Noboru Ishiguro said low ratings and high production expenses forced producer Yoshinobu Nishizaki to trim down the episode count from the original 39 episodes to only 26. The 13 episodes would have introduced Captain Harlock as a new series character. Last week I did Mobile Suit Gundam, this is what inspired it. Space Battleship Yamato has inspired most Mech anime. That is pretty Epic.



Set in the year 2199, an alien race know as the Gamilas, unleash redioactive meteorite bombs on Earth, rendering the planet's surface uninhapitable. Humanity has retreated into deep underground cities, but the radioactivity is slowly affecting them as well, with humanity's extinction estimated in one year. Earth's space fleet is hopelessly outclassed by the Gamilas and all seems lost until a message capsule from a mysterious crashed spaceship is retrieved my Mars. The capsule yeilds blueprints for a fast than light engine and an offering to help from Queen Starsha of the planet Iscandar in the Large Magellanic Cloud. She says hat her planer has a device, the Cosmos-Cleaner D, which can cleanse Earth of its radiation damage.
The inhabitants of Earth secretly build a massive spaceship inside the ruins of the gigantic Japanese battleship Yamato which lies exposed at the former bottom of the ocean location where she was sunk in World War II. This becomes "Space Battleship Yamato". Using Starsh's blueprints, they equip the new ship with a space warp drive, called the Wave Motion Engine and a new, incredibly powerful weapon at the bow called the Wave Motion Gun. The Wave Motion Engine is cable of converting the vacuum of space into tachyon energy, as well as functioning like a normal rocket engine, providing essentially infinite power to the ship, it enables the Yamato to ride the wave of tachyons and travel fast than light. The Wave Motion Gun, Is enormously powerful, it can vaporize a fleet of enemy ships or a small continent, in one shot. However, it takes a brief but critical period to charge before firing.
A crew of 114 departs for Iscandar in the Yamato to retrieve the radiation removing device and return to Earth within the one year deadline. Along the way, they discover the motives of the Gamilas, their planet, sister planet to Iscandar, is dying. Their leader Lord Desslar, is trying to irradiate Earth enough for his people to move there, at the expense of the barbarians he considers humanity to be.
The series fallows the Yamato's voyage out of the Milky Way Galaxy and back again. A continuing story it features the declining health of Yamato's Captain Okita, and the transformation of the brash young orphan Susumu Kodai into a mature officer. As well, as well as his budding romance with female crew member Yuki Mori.


The dub versions of this show changed many of the characters names including the ships name. I always find it funny how the older the anime or manga the more things were changed for the English versions. The Japanese version focused more on the ship it's self and he English focused more on the characters.
I still find it amazing that many shows were cut short or canceled and they still have such a big impact. Space Battleship Yamato has had multiple movies, eleven to be exact, a live action, and a remake. The show was cut short and it inspired mech anime for generations to come.
Watch this show is all I can say. The English dub isn't as good but is still decent. This is a show that will never die. So, give it the respect it deserves and watch it.
Next week I'll be doing Lupin III.

~^.^