**Contains spoilers**
Yamato 2199 was great, but not perfect: though the pacing could be better, some plotlines led to nowhere, and Desler was way worse than his counterparts in all versions and remakes of the original anime (except his counterpart in the 2010 live-action), the character development and animation, alongside the spectacular soundtrack remade by Akira Miyagawa, the son of Hiroshi Miyagawa, the original composer of the OSTs, plot and dialog, made 2199 a great space opera and remake of the original.
As a result, 2202 was expected to be even greater, bigger, and better than 2199, given how great its precursor was and how amazing the
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original material is. However, it would be no easy task, 2202 had to remake two different - yet complementary materials, Farewell to Yamato and the TV series Yamato 2.
While Yamato 2 had to stretch the 2-hour long story of Farewell to Yamato into a 26 episode series (and make a new ending), it succeeded in many aspects and failed in others: the overall plot of the series was better and alongside the new OST and mecha, allowed Yamato 2 to feature many new facets unexplored that the original TV series and Farewell, such as villains subplots, good battle strategies, and the Yamato being unable to do anything in some situations. However, Yamato 2 failed to impact audiences with the same drama that Farewell had and some subplots were boring, e.g. Shima and Teresa's love story.
With that in mind, 2202 could easily take the strong points of the originals and 2199 to craft a good sequel and remake. However, 2202 fails at it; "Soldiers of Love", except for the battle at planet 11, the presence of the space fireflies, and some other minor points, almost fully ignores the majority of the strong points of Yamato 2. No villain subplots, no iconic mecha from the series (eg. Earth's aircraft carriers), none of the battle strategies, and none of the memorable character moments.
The new director Nobuyosh Haraba and scriptwriter Harutoshi Fukui chose something different: they would take the original plot of Farewell to Yamato and add their new elements to the mix. However, the idea backfired: Yamato 2202 turned out to be a mess.
Firstly, the insertion of the new philosophical element into the series isn't done in a smart matter. Indeed, some might argue that it represents Nishizaki's vision of love (vision of which bothered Leiji Matsumoto so much to the point where he reportedly refused to work on the final scenes of Farewell Yamato due to his own feelings on the subject), but what one truly observes is that it, practically speaking, only serves as a way to explain plot devices and to allow Zordar to make some nonsensical and monotonous dialogs. The blaring and unstoppable talking about "love" more alienates viewers than highlights the themes of the series.
When one talks about characters, the core aspect of the originals and 2199, the results are sad: almost none of them develop that much, characters that were much stronger and charismatic, such as Kodai and Kato, are incoherent to their previous counterparts of the remakes, Yuki and Akira now don't have half of their personalities, and Desler, which surprisingly gets a retcon of his version from 2199 and whose return is not explained at all, is boring.
New characters also don't get any better, Zordar is a philosopher with a terrible motivation, Sabera, and all Gatlantis officers are only plot devices, Teresa, Saito, Hijikata, Yamanami, as well as the whole Andromeda fleet (which were supposed to be a big thing in this season) are underused, and the Ginga shouldn't even exist in the first place. The only character that gets some decent development here is Kiman, who is unfortunately affected by the occasionally clucky dialog of the series.
As for the action, the use of CGI in the show is good, but not perfect: ships sometimes feel weightless and the Yamato doesn't get the same level of detail on its big scratches after every battle as it did in 2199. 2D animation, fortunately, is in the same standard as it was in the first season.
The mecha designs are a mixed bag: while some are good and detailed, adding a lot to the series, others have a debatable quality, such as the Earth's new aircraft carriers, the Ginga with its glass dome, and the Comet Empire's new "true form", which completely obliterated the original design (the same here applies to Zordar dreadnought, although this one might have happened due to budget reasons).
The direction of the action scenes is good, despite the overuse of the Wave Motion Gun (which caused a loss to its dramatic effect) the action here is one of the best things in 2202, however, given how there's little emotional attachment to being found between the viewer and the characters, especially new ones, some scenes are often very bland.
As for the drama, it is even more diluted than the one in Yamato 2. Characters here die for the sake of dying, Saito's, Kiman's and Higashikata's deaths don't have a fraction of their original deaths. And Kato had a death so mediocre it was comical.
The soundtrack is absolutely the best thing of the series, although Akira Miyagawa's style is somewhat different than the one from his father, being more bombastic and colorful, his additions are often amazing (cf. Tsubasa).
Overall, Yamato 2202 is a disappointment for a show that had everything to be great but turned out to be mediocre as a show and as a remake. If you want modern action scenes, go for it, but if you want a better sequel to the first season, I think both Farewell to Yamato and Yamato 2 are more worth your time and investment.
Jun 23, 2019
**Contains spoilers**
Yamato 2199 was great, but not perfect: though the pacing could be better, some plotlines led to nowhere, and Desler was way worse than his counterparts in all versions and remakes of the original anime (except his counterpart in the 2010 live-action), the character development and animation, alongside the spectacular soundtrack remade by Akira Miyagawa, the son of Hiroshi Miyagawa, the original composer of the OSTs, plot and dialog, made 2199 a great space opera and remake of the original. As a result, 2202 was expected to be even greater, bigger, and better than 2199, given how great its precursor was and how amazing the ... |
