Coming out in 1974, the art is very impressive compared to previous anime with minor hiccups occasionally cropping up. The music is pretty epic like that of old Soviet hymns, and consistent throughout the show from point A-B. And, who can say that bellbottom space pants are a bad thing?
Story wise, many have probably already seen the "Humanoid alien race attack Earth" plot line. However, there is for once, a clear-cut reason behind the alien attack, why there are mostly "kids" doing the fighting, and why the aliens (Gamilons) do what they do throughout the anime.
When it came to characters, no, they aren't too impressive, and are fairly one dimensional with little to no character development. That being said, it really doesn't matter. The main character doesn't really feel like the main focus. It's the journey and trials the Yamato must make to save Earth. "You" do see Kodai (MC) evolve as a human, the evil alien Desler be James Bond villian 101, Captain Okita be calm cool courageous savior of everything, and the best robot (Analyzer) I have ever seen in an anime in a long time.
As much as I enjoyed this, during the end of development, the staff had two projects going on at time. This made the animation staff crunch for the deadline, and made the ending extremely rushed. Very sad for almost a perfect space opera anime.
As a biased fan of mecha and space operas, this was an almost perfect show. I am definitely going to watch more Yamato anime.
