Space Opera Fans - Space Opera Anime/Manga/Comics: Everyone should watch Yamato 2199(Starblazers remake) Showing 1-12 of 12 (2024)

message 1: by Aaron (new)

So everyone knows that many space opera's are basically naval combat taken to space often featuring the drama's of war and politics where both sides have their good guys and their bad guys, but overall you are rooting for the one side to win.

What if I told you in 1974 Japan made an anime that is a very very thin veil for the pacific front of WWII with Earth = US and Gamilas = Japan, that has an obvious analogy for nuclear weapons. This show drew a big audience and was the main inspiration for Gundam which was basically hey lets do that thing again but marketed towards kids so we can sell toys.

Now what if I told you in 2011 they remade the show cleaned up the plot an actually took some of the things the american version of the original, called starblazers, did right.

Well now you have Space Battleship Yamato 2199. I mean just a quick perusing of a clip on youtube will reveal it's really awesome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2jNP...

With KOR subs so it's not as spoilerific.

Don't worry it's not mostly fighter combat more of it is stuff with big cannons shooting like this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvl6u...

message 2: by Anna (new)

I've heard of Space Battleship Yamato before.

[*yea! I'm not a hopeless nerd!*]

It's considered one of the 'top' rated (quality-wise) anime series, if I remember right? Have to re-watch it. Have only ever caught some clips. Thanks for sharing!

message 3: by Rion (last edited Aug 26, 2014 09:16PM) (new)

I haven't finished 2199 yet. I made it to episode 10 only to discover that many of the plot holes and classically horrible bad guys stayed the same. I've heard a lot of people say they fixed them! Only to find out those people had never watched the original series. And since I mentioned the original series, much of the appeal of the franchise this many years later, is it's creator Leiji Matsumoto and his artistic styling. My rec is to watch the original with all it's cheesy glory. If you're not into watching too much cheese then either watch the animated recap movie versions, Uchuu Senkan Yamato (Movie),,, Uchuu Senkan Yamato 2,,, Uchuu Senkan Yamato: Aratanaru Tabidachi,,, Yamato yo Towa ni,,, Uchuu Senkan Yamato 3, then you can then decide if you want to watch the other movies after this. Full list of Uchuu Senkan Yamato movies. You can watch the other two films if you have some time and want to follow the series farther into the future. Or once you've watched at least the first film, then you can decide if the content is something you'd like to see in better graphics or in a Live Action film format, which was actually pretty good.

Mazinger Z,,, Great Mazinger,,, Chou Denji Robo Combattler V,,, Gowappa 5 Gordam, and the like would probably be more of an influence on Gundam considering they are Mecha series. But maybe you read somewhere that Tomino did credit Yamato as one of his great inspirations and that certainly could be true, but it'd also have to go with some of these other mecha shows that came out in the early 70's, possibly even some shows from earlier than the 70's.

message 4: by Aaron (new)

Basically from what I have read Tomino wanted to write another war film set in space. Bandai wanted another super robot show so they could make toys. Gundam was the compromise if you could call it that. The fights between Tomino and Baidai were quite an interesting read.

I remember watching Star Blazers every morning before I left for school. I also remember loving Speed Racer and Marine Boy.

message 6: by Robert (new)

Star Blazers was probably ridiculously influential on me as a kid. I made sure to catch it every day and watched through the two seasons they played here in America many times. I really enjoyed the Space Battleship Yamato movie that came out a little while back, too.

. . . Wow. 2199 looks really good. The characters were all immediately recognizable, and the animation was great. I'll definitely give Yamato 2199 a try! Can I find it somewhere dubbed in English?

Marine Boy!! That was probably almost as big a deal for me. Marine Boy looks like it might hold up, too. They've released 2 seasons from Warner Bros. recently. Oxy gum and boots with little rotors in them! Good stuff!

Battle of the Planets was up there, too, for me.

Speed Racer, I loved just as much when I was kid, but, man, that show doesn't hold up. I don't even know how I watched it as a kid, it's so disjointed and bizarre. Loved the car design, though.

message 7: by Anna (new)

Hey ... I was a huge Speed Racer fan as a kid! At the time, it was that or Looney Tunes. Speed Racer (and Underdog and Felix the Cat) were my go-to shows. Of course, none of them are Space Opera :-)

Wow! @Robert You're the first person outside my family that remembers Marine Boy! Never thought I'd find another one!

*Starburst* magazine in the UK had, in (I think) its second edition, a massive Space Cruiser Yamato poster, which I loved, and which was thumb-tacked in a high shelf at the back of my parents' wardrobe where my sister and I constructed an impromptu nest. My parents, bemused, left us to it. The poster was extravagantly gorgeous and everything that a spaceship should be - massive, bulbous, bristling with astro-cannon and other, smaller spaceships shooting out of it. Unfortunately I never got to see *Space Cruiser* itself.

message 10: by Aaron (new)

The movie came out on BluRay a few days ago with English Subs I'm going to order my copy once I find a site that doesn't look like a scam I can find it for under $60 after shipping.

message 11: by Robert (new)

Aaron wrote: "The movie came out on BluRay a few days ago with English Subs I'm going to order my copy once I find a site that doesn't look like a scam I can find it for under $60 after shipping."

I got a copy of this on eBay on DVD from Malaysia. The Malaysian DVDs (they are always "official" if they have this little hologram sticker on them) are always great deals. It's not Blu Ray, but it's never bad quality and sometimes come with dubs (this 2199 was all subs, though). I've gotten G Gundam, Twelve Kingdoms, and 2199 from overseas Malaysian eBay sellers in the past 6 months and have been happy every time--we're talking like $12 to $25 for a complete series often with some bonus material. It's a good way to see if a show is worth an expensive Blu purchase down the road, in my opinion.

Anyway, since my last post I have actually watched 2199 all the way through, and it was FANTASTIC. It has become THE official, definitive version of Star Blazers in my mind at this point. I have never seen a reboot or remake create a show better in every way, but this did. And, it was SO TRUE to the original in every little detail artistically and stylistically. The music was fantastic, too. Can't recommend this enough.

Now, to get out hands on the sequel movie about the Comet Empire they released in movie theaters in Japan last Christmas . . .

Robert wrote: "(they are always "official" if they have this little hologram sticker on them)"

That's questionable. I bought a couple of sheets with those stickers from a street vendor last time I was in China.