Ranked #2345

Uchuu Senkan Yamato: Kanketsu-hen

ANIME NOSTALGIA SERIES
Full list of the review series can be found on this page, 3rd post from bottom:
http://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl?uid=251338&show=userpage&do=blog&blogid=29009&page=0

TEASER: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9fUryAT8Sw

This review covers all seasons and movies of the franchise. Reading it is like reading about all of them.
Battleship Yamato (known as Star Blazers in the American dub) is an early work of Leiji Matsumoto and the first example of what a good animated series is all about. Before I begin, let me make clear that this series happens to be the most mature titles of its era. Anime back then were really childish and crude but this one tried its best to be mature and serious with some scientific explanations given to reason all the weird technology in the series. Even the means the animators used were top notch at that time.

ART SECTION: 6/10 (start at 4, end in 8 )

To its core, the setting is a space adventure around spaceships and alien planets, plus lots of repetitive mass destruction scenes of Earth. As nice as it may have been in the 70’s, the animation is not even close to today’s standards. Inconsistent proportions, plain colors, crude movements and a dozen follow-up scene mistakes per episode will make most young viewers to laugh at it. Still, reading the story behind the curtains I can simply salute them for coming up with such nice tricks to create new ways of expression and experimenting with special effects. On the good side, most Earth ships and equipment are based on real battle ship blueprints, so in terms of realism it is quite good… For a 70’s series, that is. Don’t expect 23rd century spaceships to still look like 20th century sea ships.

The animation level slowly improves with each installation. In the second season, they pretty much look as they did were before but this time with more details to ships and less body deformities.

Ai no Senshi, although a retelling of the second season, is made entirely anew, with far better graphics, more appealing colors and generally way better music and atmosphere. But they are still very old and crude by today’s standards.

Aratanaru Tabidachi, although a sequel movie to the second season, has visuals of the same level as it.

The third season has even better graphics than the second, even more details to ships and almost no body deformities. The series now looks like a typical 80’s title.

Yamato yo Eien ni, and its sequel, Kanketsu hen, are also movies and have a generally acceptable quality of animation and sound effects. Detailed graphics and explosions, more appealing colors and details and way better music and atmosphere. They are still very old and crude by today’s standards but yet light years ahead of the prequels.

SOUND SECTION: 6/10

The voices had a spark in them half the time. Still, the music themes are laughable because of their over the top melodramatic feeling that simply does not appeal so straight-forward anymore. They are otherwise nice sounding ballads. The sound effects repeat too often without nesesary following what is going on in the animation. Cute little stuff but nothing to lose your mind over.

The form of the dialogues is extremely irritating. The good guys keep shoveling us with awfully idalistic monologues about hope, justice, humanity and a load of other crap no sane viewer can stand for long. The bad guys keep talking about how reasured of their great forces they are when in practise, they never win a battle. Give us a break you guys! I guess it felt more cool than corny back then, just like Star Wars felt more serious and awesome a few decades ago. Times do change…

The main song is remade a bit better in the next seasons, but now the lyrics don't match with the goal of the story. They are no longer going to Iscandar! Beyond that, everything is left the same.

STORY SECTION: 5/10

In the first season, aliens attack the Earth with radioactive comets in 2199 and the Earth fleet creates a super powerful ship with a mission to stop them and find a radiation cleaner device within one year, offered by a mysterious woman in a far away planet. Well, it is a very clichéd story and you most likely have already seen a billion series with the same premise. Very simple and usually predictable, the plot is nothing to look forward to. Each episode is a scene about what the good guys do in the ship, a scene about what the bad guys scheme at the time being and then we get a battle between them. Which is not that different than the time Mazinger Z came to be.

But to be honest this can also be viewed as the first space opera anime, where a lot of room was left for character interactions and world building. There are even some interesting revelations towards the last episodes that make the otherwise generic story a bit interesting and unpredictable. For the first time the villains show a few emotions and they don’t plan to just take over the universe but simply to immigrate to Earth because their planet is dying. Makes it good next to, let’s say, the dinosaurs in Getter Robo who despite being in a similar situation they were never allowed to be anything other than cardboards without the slightest colorization or drama.

The story is also nothing more than a fairy tale version of the Second World War. The alien invaders are the Americans, the radioactive comets are the atomic bombs, the Humans are the (kind?) Japanese people and the Yamato is their famous battleship (and symbolically their pride) that rose to take revenge and save their lands from foreign oppression. And what a surprise! The humans/Japanese people always seem to be right and win in all the battles! As for that alien woman with the radioactive cleaner device, she is an excuse to have a happy ending in our story. If only reality was that kind …

But as I said, back then it felt far more realistic and serious that the stuff that preceded it and most of what we are given today. Heck, some can argue that most stories of modern anime are still not as serious as Yamato’s.

In terms of realism, the series is above average. The Yamato is made after a real battleship and every planet it goes to is followed by a simple narration of how the climate is all about there (based on what they knew about the universe, back in the 70’s). Also, every special weapon both sides use has a simple explanation of how it works.

In terms of believability, the series sucks. There is no way a single spaceship can survive a hundred thousand bombardments and still win in every battle against millions of advanced spaceships without having a reassured way of repairing damages and reloading weapons after each battle. The good guys never seem to die or lose, no matter the odds.

The conclusion is a lukewarm happy ending. It has its share of drama but it is quite melo. And it’s probably the reason it made such a sensation back then; people expected poetic justice rather than unpredictability.

In the second season, aliens attack the Earth with a huge comet and the super powerful ship takes a mission to find a mysterious woman in a far away planet that possesses the power to stop them. If you read the story in the first season, you will realize that IT IS THE SAME STORY ALL OVER AGAIN! Yeah, originality went for a walk but nobody minded back then. Still, the story is better than in the first season. For starters, humans and aliens have now internal conflicts around authority and honor, making the plot a bit more perplexing and unpredictable. Also, the battles are far more grand-scaled and less straight-forward.

Ai no Senshi is a retelling of the second season of the Battleship Yamato. It is made up of the best scenes of the series, boosted with a lot more drama and death. The story is altered in a way to be a lot more straight-forward but also a lot more dramatic. All characters talk with a lot more passion. And almost all of them die, while they still lived by the end of the series. In general, neither the characters nor the story last long enough to make us feel anything special. The story is simple and the characters way too melodramatic.

In Aratanaru Tabidachi, the evil Desler starts feeling remorse for all he has done and even asks of the Yamato for help, after he finds out that his twin planets are being mined to death by another evil alien empire. Kodai, now captain of the Yamato, doesn’t think twice to go to planet Iscandar, as Mamoru, his brother, chose to stay there with Starsha on season one. Well, without spoiling it any further, the story is very good if you are aware of the events so far. It is not a filler adventure and it is following up the story in a very reasonable and believable way. Its aftereffects don’t show on the third season but have a crucial impact in the fourth movie, Yamato yo Eien ni. On the bad side, the movie lasts too little to allow you to bind with the dramatic characters and this Black Nebula evil empire just popped out of nowhere. Where was it hiding all this time? What was it doing during the third season? … Anyway, don’t expect a masterpiece. It is a fine movie for the time it was aired.

In the third season, one year after the ending of the second season and the second movie, two alien empires fight an interstellar war and one of their planet-destroying missiles misses and hits the sun in our solar system. This will cause the sun to turn super nova in a year. The super powerful ship takes a mission to find a second Earth so that humanity can survive by migrating there, learn of what is going on with the war and find a mysterious woman in a far away planet that possesses godly powers. Once again, if you read the story in the previous seasons, you will realize that IT IS THE SAME STORY FOR THE THIRD TIME! Didn’t the scriptwriters get paid to write them? But yet again, the story is even better than in the previous seasons. For starters, the aliens have their reasons for being good or bad and not all of them are the same, making the plot more perplexing and unpredictable. Also, the battles are even more grand-scaled and less linear.

The Yamato yo Eien ni movie, picks up after the ending of the third season. The evil Black Nebula empire invades Earth and conquers it rather easy, thanks to the Hyperion bomb than kills brain cells on a planetary scale. Kodai gathers the Yamato crew for yet another rescue mission. This is by far the best Yamato movie. It has so many scenario developments and emotional moments than all of the previous movies and seasons put together. A few of them are the following: (do not read if you don’t want spoilers) Yuki is taken hostage and seduced by the enemy, Mamoru sacrifices, his daughter Sasha becomes an adult in only a year and digs her uncle Kodai, the Yamato is seemingly sent to the future and witnesses its death, and more and more…

The Kanketsu hen movie picks up after the ending of the fourth movie. Our galaxy collides with another galaxy and causes intergalactic havoc. Planet Aquarius, which gave life on Earth countless years ago, is causing floods and a dying civilization intends to warp the planet to Earth and inhabit it after all people have drowned. On the good side, the scenario is based on the Panspermia theory and on ancient Babylonian myths about the arrival of aliens and the creation of life in ancient times. For once, all those weird cosmic phenomena and humanoid aliens throughout the universe have a reasonable explanation. On the bad side, the scenario is a chaotic pile of incoherent ideas and forced events. Nothing makes sense, given the length of the movie. What’s with the galactic collision? Why do the aliens need to warp an entire planet when they could easily conquer Earth with conventional ways? The only survivor of a dying planet was conveniently the prince of the aliens? Desler only appears in the nick of time? A goddess that causes us harm out of love? OKITA IS STILL ALIVE ???!!! People come and go, appear and disappear, live and die so fast that you don’t feel a thing about them.

In all, the story began in a very simple and corny way, gradually improved through the three seasons, reached a great height in Yamato yo Eien ni, and crash-landed in Kanketsu hen. It’s overall an average work with all these ups and downs.

CHARACTER SECTION: 5/10 (start at 3, end in 7)

Well, compared to today… they plain suck! They are all character archetypes, without personality coloring by today’s standards. The description below can pretty much count in all the seasons and movies of the series.

Human males are the epitome of yasashi (kind hearted) Japanese people. You know, always kind, gentle, strong-willed… and with a permanent dorky expression on their face.

Human women are… just there. Frail, kind, beautiful, always in love with the main characters. Generally, they are very few in numbers, have very undermined posts and have very minor roles. They hardly count as fan service or emotional support. Heck, at some point they even disappear from the ship’s crew entirely.

Alien males are just… blue-skinned humans. Seriously, they even share the same DNA as humans. Couldn’t the animators make them more exotic or something? And as far as personality goes, they behave just like megalomaniac, imperialistic, military people. They have German names and salute like Nazis. You can imagine on which people they were based upon.

Alien women are the Deus ex Machina solution in the story. There is always a beautiful alien babe in some far away planet that is bent on aiding Earth with an ultra powerful way.

Now, as far as interesting characters go, the good guys are completely boring. Weak presence, no personality, no development, not much background story and no catharsis since they were already perfect people without any worries other than saving Earth.

The alien leader Desler is interesting for being a paranoid megalomaniac. He even matures a lot in the following seasons. Hooray for the villains!

And there is also Analyzer, a comic relief robot that seems to do all the work that the dorky heroes are too stupid to do themselves. Plus, it makes a lot of sexual teasing. How I wish there were more characters like Analyzer; it is a robot and yet acts more like a human than the stale and picture-perfect “robotic” humans he aids.

Again, I am sure the cast felt far more creditable back then exactly because it felt so ideal. Times back then were far more black and white than they are today. But surely, for a genre that allows the director to colorize and develop its cast, they did a poor job.

In the second season, the good guys have a few arguments this time and Desler is back, changed to a more sane villain. Oh yes, and now aliens come in green skin as well. A bit more realistic characters.

In the third season, both the good and the bad guys express a multitude of feelings and agendas for the first time and Desler is back again, this time as an ally. Even more realistic characters.

This growth remains in the following two movies and so the cast ends up being likable in the stereotypical sense.

VALUE SECTION: 5/10

Historical Value 3/3: A cult title for all the above reasons I mention.
Rewatchability 1/3: Maybe just for the battles. There is no much of a story or characters to bother with.
Memorability 1/4: A very generic series you need to remember for historical reasons and not for the cast or the story.

ENJOYMENT SECTION: 5/10 (start at 4, end in 8 )

A very generic story, with a very generic plot and a very generic cast makes most of the series a very boring watch.

On the good side, the series is full of good sci-fi ideas that prevent the story from becoming a typical “brainless invaders vs idealistic humans.” For instance, the aliens use radioactive meteors from a base on Pluto, instead of sending their army there. It makes it far more original and realistic this way. They possess reflective satellites than make their laser beams to bounce around planets. They even possess tractor beams and teleportation waves that sent enemy ships on corroding seas of acid. The Yamato has light-speed technology, wave particle engines and cannons, magnetic shield ring and laser reflection coating, all provided with a simple explanation. This parade of basic strategies and special powers makes every battle far more interesting than, lets say, most mecha series where all they do is throw energy beams at each other. And yes, I do know it caused millions of people to shed tears but I still find it very weak if I compare it by today’s standards. It may still beat most modern anime in tragedy but it simply presents things very superficially and melodramatic to the point you prefer the formula as it was in less serious mecha shows because the lack of realism was excusing stuff better.

The second season has better animation, more perplexing story, and a bit more colorful characters making it a bit more enjoyable. And not to forget to mention the new weaponry. The aliens have more terrifying weapons than the previous ones, making them far more sinister. They possess a planet-destroyer comet, moon-destroyer missiles, teleportation beams, laser reflection barriers and can even resurrect the dead! You don’t find such variety in most series.

I personally consider the retelling of Ai no Senshi to be sappy. It was made just to give a quick and dramatic ending to an otherwise ongoing series. There are many interesting events in the series that you will miss if you don’t watch it. So, I recommend to watch this movie if you found the second season to be terribly old and uninteresting. It is a fine conclusion for all of you who don’t intend to watch the third season.

Aratanaru Tabidachi is full of space battles. Half the time is dramatic dialogues and half the other is an endless dogfight between three civilizations. It has very fast pace and even teases you in the end to look for the sequel, in order to see what happens afterwards. Generally, quite enjoyable and with a high chance of rewatching it if you are a retro freak.

The third season has even better animation, even more perplexing story, and a far more colorful characters. And guess what; we get even more terrifying new weaponry. The aliens are even more sinister than the ones in the second season. They possess planet-destroyer missiles, subspace submarines and black hole bombs! You don’t find such variety in most series.

Even if you hated the series, Yamato yo Eien ni is a masterpiece and the best point in the whole Yamato series. Not to be missed.

Kanketsu hen is by far the most childish of the Yamato movies. It has many good scenario ideas and yet they are all wasted by terrible presentation and Deus ex Machina situations. Enough with the corny “I love you” routine between Kodai and Yuki. It got boring after the 1.000th time! And enough about the destruction of the Earth every 6 months! And of the Yamato mysteriously surviving a hundred hits when all other ships blow up with a single strike. And that ending! How terribly melo it was! Just build another (you know what), damn it! At least there were several well-made space battles that war-otakus will love. But still, even those are terribly cruel without a reason. We are talking about civilians and wounded soldiers being killed indiscriminately, even when the aliens had won. What for??? It becomes petty rather than exciting after awhile.

VERDICT
The forefather of anime space operas. He is really old and senile but it is he that all the rest look upon for ideas. If only the tv series was as fast paced and action based as the movies, it would still be a title most otakus would keep around. But seriously, for those of you who were waiting for a good conclusion to a cult title in Kanketsu hen, this is far from satisfying.

SUGGESTION LIST

Uchuu Kuubo Blue Noah. Another series with a ship bent on saving Earth from aliens.
The Captain Harlock saga, the Ginga Tetsudou 999 saga, Shin Taketori Monogatari: 1000-nen Joou, Arcadia of my youth & The Galaxy Railways. Famous series, made by the same cartoonist, Leiji Matsumoto. You will notice that his characters are identical in all his works.
The first Star Trek & Dr. Who seasons. Cult sci-fi series. They pretty much have the same retro appeal.
Macross. A semi-serious mecha series and semi-space opera with a similar story.
Banner of the Stars. An intergalactic romance / war that transcends species.
The Legend of the Galactic Heroes. The epitome of space operas. read more