Jun 1, 2019
As the credits finally began to roll for the last time of Yamato 2202 and Yamato Yori ai wo Komete played, I felt a sense of relief that this dreadful re-imagining of the 1978 Space Battleship Yamato II had reached its ill fated conclusion. I had gone into 2202 with incredibly high hopes after the spectacular Space Battleship Yamato 2199 introduced me to this wonderful universe. After completing 2199, I went back and watched nearly every single Yamato series and movie (season 3 is the sole exception here with no decent subtitles existing to my knowledge) I could get my hands on, eager to immerse
...
myself into the trials and tribulations of the Yamato and her crew.
And then this series happened. Featuring a different director than 2199, and new character designs, Yamato 2202 failed spectacularly to capture any of the enjoyment and adoration I have for the rest of the franchise. The story is mostly made up of philosophical musings from the leader of the White Comet Empire revolving around the notion of love and humanity that never really develops into anything except a plot device to copy the ending of Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato and give it a new twist. Every time Zordar spoke, I found myself rolling my eyes at how shallow and silly the writing was. I am supportive of attempting to change the formula. After all, this is a re-imagining and not a full fledged remake of the original season 2. The execution, however, is conducted with all the skill and grace of a 12 year old writing a fan-fiction in their head during school as they day dream. The writing thinks it is far smarter and deeper than it actually is. Nothing ever quite comes together smoothly. Characters just die for the sake of dying while newly introduced characters are woefully underused despite being incredibly interesting and full of potential. Characters do not really develop much at all, save the space marines really. One character in particular is able to just magically figure things out and explain them to the audience because the show simply is unable to convey what is going on visually or through actual storytelling. In 2199, we would have been treated to scenes of characters researching and trying to understand things, allowing for explanations to the audience as they shared theories with one another and debated for an answer. In 2202, they just know things and that's that.
Visually, 2202 is a mixed bag. The space battles are wonderfully animated surpassing 2199 in the scale and quality and a magical plot device is able to keep Earth in the fight far longer than it had any right to be giving the viewer plenty of eye candy to watch during battles. Unfortunately, the character designs and direction during battles at times is jarring. Characters now look much less crisp than they did in 2199 instead with sketch lines and awkward looking faces due to oddly drawn mouths and noses. As for visual direction, there clearly was some sort of eye fetish going on. Many times in battles or even normal dialogue, the only thing we see is a characters eye/s as they stare in horror at something or just look at something in general. During one egregious part in the first episode, a large battle is taking place. As ships are destroyed, the camera keeps cutting back to Kodai over and over again as he makes the exact same determined, grit teeth, face for about 30 seconds. This sort of weird visual direction takes place multiple times during the show, with awkward, jarring cuts during dialogue and battle. At least the music is solid.
If you go into Yamato 2202 expecting nothing on the story or character development front, you are likely to find an enjoyable space action show. Otherwise, steer clear of this mangled mess of a re-imagining. As for me, I am just going to pretend that this was never made and rewatch the original season 2 and Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato film instead. That simple and basic writing of 1978 is somehow superior to the poor attempts of the 2202 team to re-imagine its namesake.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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