Review - Uchuu Senkan Yamato
Chika
Now I know what some folk will be saying to this. Good grief! This is
ancient history! Well, yes, it is, but it's good to review the ancient
every so often to see where the modern stuff developed from. I should also
point out that this review takes two series into account.
In case the title doesn't ring any bells, for example, this is the series
that was taken by a company called Voyager in the US and turned into the
series Starblazers. The version I've been watching, however, is the
original, so we'll ignore mentions of spring water and so forth. Actually,
it's one of the things I missed when watching the original, without the
goofy voices and, more importantly, the various outtakes, including the
infamous scenes of how the Yamato was sent to the sea bed in the first
place. And quite definitely no mention of the Argo!!!
Actually, apart from the above, the series didn't suffer too much in its
transition to the US cut and dub version. For those that have never seen
the Leiji Matsumoto based series in either form, the first series covers
the attack by a mysterious race on the Earth using meteor bombs which
eventually ravage the planet to such an extent that, by the opening of the
story, the planet will expire from radioactive poisoning in about a year.
In response, the Yamato is refitted and sent on a mission to the distant
planet Iscandar to retrieve a device that can clean up the mess. The
person offering this device, Starsha, can't bring it but she did send
designs for a powerful engine that can allow a ship to perform warp jumps,
a design that is adapted to provide an additional weapon, the wave motion
gun, which proves to be so powerful that it has the capability to destro
small planetoids, as they find out in an early use. It's just as well
since the attacking race, Gamilas, wants the Earth as a new home and don't
particularly mind the radiation themselves, whatever it might do to the
indigenous population.
The series continues to part two where a new, even more powerful enemy
appears in the form of the White Comet empire. They've noticed the Earth
and fancy taking it over, using their mobile fortress, which mascarades as
a comet (what else?), and all their other forces to do the dirty deed
including what is left of the Gamilas fleet. The hinge point for this
story is a young lady by the name of Teresa, who lives in a Teresarium on
the planet Teresart. OK, that sounds a bit cheesy, but Teresa is a pretty
powerful person to the point where even the White Comet's self styled
Emperor, Zorder, is wary of her. Things aren't made any easier by the fact
that the Yamato has been reduced to patrol duties, her original crew
dispersed and, when they first come into contact with advanced scouts from
the White Comet empire, they literally have to desert to get the Earth
defence committee to take them seriously!
I've seen the US dub of the first series more than once, distributed
locally by Kiseki Films originally, based on Voyager's US dubs. Yes, I
bought the tapes and later bought the DVDs. I hope the company is happy!
It was, however, good to finally see the original which allowed me to see
all the bits I missed out on in the dub. I wasn't disappointed. The second
series, however, left me a little cold at the end. In some ways it was
more involved than the first but the ending (no spoilers, I promise!) was
abrupt. Actually, it was worse than abrupt as it seemed to be dragged out,
with a sense of the baddy repeatedly performing the "haha! You thought you
beat me but here I am again!" act until he actually got it right, only for
the story to be brought to a jarring halt with only a few bits of
pseudo-philosophical text to explain the end.
I doubt that younger fans will take well to the series, mostly because it
is an anime of its time. Watching series of this age tends to annoy fans
who are used to more sophisticated artwork. This is pure 70s cell
animation, done in the days when a computer was stuck in a back room out
of the way and certainly not on a desk! Some of the continuity is suspect
(guns that are damaged beyond repair in one episode suddenly repair
themselves in the next episode for example) and some of the stories are a
little wearing (I can only take so much of Dessler's "You won't be told"
act to the White Comet folk, for example). However, for all that, the
first series is certainly deserving of what accolades it has and the
second, if it was let down by a shoddy ending, shouldn't be written off
entirely.
--
//\ // Chika <miyuki><at><crashnet><org><uk>
// \// Hazukashii serifu kinshii!!
... All wiyht. Rho sritched mg kegtops awound?
David Damerell
>Now I know what some folk will be saying to this.
... where'd you get it?
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Distortion Field!
Yesterday was Thursday, September.
Today is Friday, September.
Tomorrow will be Saturday, September - a weekend.
Chika
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> Quoting Chika <miy...@spam-no-way.invalid>:
> >Now I know what some folk will be saying to this.
> ... where'd you get it?
Fansub.
--
//\ // Chika <miyuki><at><crashnet><org><uk>
// \// Hazukashii serifu kinshii!!
... I may not always be perfect, but I'm always me.
Justin
> [Yay! I'm back! And with Madoka too!]
>
> Now I know what some folk will be saying to this. Good grief! This is
> ancient history! Well, yes, it is, but it's good to review the ancient
> every so often to see where the modern stuff developed from. I should also
> point out that this review takes two series into account.
>
(snip)
> I doubt that younger fans will take well to the series, mostly because it
> is an anime of its time. Watching series of this age tends to annoy fans
> who are used to more sophisticated artwork.
This is pure 70s cell
> animation, done in the days when a computer was stuck in a back room out
> of the way and certainly not on a desk! Some of the continuity is suspect
"Hey! Aren't you guys meant to be blue?!"
"Uh... um... light! Yes! Light! Different... lighting in here! Like in
your Earth toilets. Not that we hang around Earth toilets. At all."
(snip)
--
*"Hes like a kid who just got a new toy!"* jus...@briareos.demon.co.uk *
*"Men are kids their whole lives..." * *
* - Tanabe and Fee, Planetes. * You copy? *
Studio Toledo
> [Yay! I'm back! And with Madoka too!]
>
> Now I know what some folk will be saying to this. Good grief! This is
> ancient history! Well, yes, it is, but it's good to review the ancient
> every so often to see where the modern stuff developed from. I should also
> point out that this review takes two series into account.
People need to learn!
> In case the title doesn't ring any bells, for example, this is the series
> that was taken by a company called Voyager in the US and turned into the
> series Starblazers. The version I've been watching, however, is the
> original, so we'll ignore mentions of spring water and so forth. Actually,
> it's one of the things I missed when watching the original, without the
> goofy voices and, more importantly, the various outtakes, including the
> infamous scenes of how the Yamato was sent to the sea bed in the first
> place. And quite definitely no mention of the Argo!!!
To correct you a little, the originally company that distributed Star
Blazers 30 years ago was Claster Television (A division of Hasbro
Industries), their advertising partner, Bascal-Griffin, handled the
English version dubbing I've read. The agency would later create
Sunbow Productions to handle the production of cartoons based on
Hasbro properties in the 80's. Westchester Films would assume
distribution/ownership of Star Blazers for most of the 80's until
Yoshinobu Nishizaki, the producer of the original shows gave the
rights to Voyager Entertainment to release the show on home video from
the 90's onward. I hope I got it all there, but I could be wrong on
a few points.
> The series continues to part two where a new, even more powerful enemy
> appears in the form of the White Comet empire. They've noticed the Earth
> and fancy taking it over, using their mobile fortress, which mascarades as
> a comet (what else?), and all their other forces to do the dirty deed
> including what is left of the Gamilas fleet. The hinge point for this
> story is a young lady by the name of Teresa, who lives in a Teresarium on
> the planet Teresart. OK, that sounds a bit cheesy, but Teresa is a pretty
> powerful person to the point where even the White Comet's self styled
> Emperor, Zorder, is wary of her. Things aren't made any easier by the fact
> that the Yamato has been reduced to patrol duties, her original crew
> dispersed and, when they first come into contact with advanced scouts from
> the White Comet empire, they literally have to desert to get the Earth
> defence committee to take them seriously!
It was quite an interesting series 2 (or second season in Star Blazers
terms).
I
> bought the tapes and later bought the DVDs. I hope the company is happy!
> It was, however, good to finally see the original which allowed me to see
> all the bits I missed out on in the dub. I wasn't disappointed. The second
> series, however, left me a little cold at the end. In some ways it was
> more involved than the first but the ending (no spoilers, I promise!) was
> abrupt. Actually, it was worse than abrupt as it seemed to be dragged out,
> with a sense of the baddy repeatedly performing the "haha! You thought you
> beat me but here I am again!" act until he actually got it right, only for
> the story to be brought to a jarring halt with only a few bits of
> pseudo-philosophical text to explain the end.
The second series was released a year after the theatrical release of
the second film, "Arrivederci Yamato" (a.k.a. "Farewell to Space
Battleship Yamato: In The Name of Love"), which told a more concise
version of the story that made up the Comet Empire series, and an
ending that was very heart-breaking. Some animation seen in this film
was later reincorporated into series two alongside expanding it's plot
to fill up 26 episodes.
An English dub of that film was also released by Voyager on VHS back
in the 90's, using a number of voice actors who worked by Streamline
and other companies (though it used the Star Blazer names for all
except for the ship being called the Yamato most of the time), but
removed about a half-hour of the film itself for a more shorter
length.
> I doubt that younger fans will take well to the series, mostly because it
> is an anime of its time. Watching series of this age tends to annoy fans
> who are used to more sophisticated artwork. This is pure 70s cell
> animation, done in the days when a computer was stuck in a back room out
> of the way and certainly not on a desk!
As it should be!
Some of the continuity is suspect
> (guns that are damaged beyond repair in one episode suddenly repair
> themselves in the next episode for example) and some of the stories are a
> little wearing (I can only take so much of Dessler's "You won't be told"
> act to the White Comet folk, for example). However, for all that, the
> first series is certainly deserving of what accolades it has and the
> second, if it was let down by a shoddy ending, shouldn't be written off
> entirely.
One podcaster who did a review of the first two Yamato movies (as the
first film was a mere compilation of scenes from the first series),
said he prefers to only watch the first TV series and then the second
movie, that's all you need to watch as the later third series and
movies that follow further go in the direction the fans wanted.
Invid Fan
<271d7954-ce3e-47a3...@d21g2000vbm.googlegroups.com>,
Studio Toledo <sobi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The second series was released a year after the theatrical release of
> the second film, "Arrivederci Yamato" (a.k.a. "Farewell to Space
> Battleship Yamato: In The Name of Love"), which told a more concise
> version of the story that made up the Comet Empire series, and an
> ending that was very heart-breaking. Some animation seen in this film
> was later reincorporated into series two alongside expanding it's plot
> to fill up 26 episodes.
>
> An English dub of that film was also released by Voyager on VHS back
> in the 90's, using a number of voice actors who worked by Streamline
> and other companies (though it used the Star Blazer names for all
> except for the ship being called the Yamato most of the time), but
> removed about a half-hour of the film itself for a more shorter
> length.
>
The interesting thing I got from watching that is that the dub must
have been made BEFORE the movie was edited. There was no attempt to
cover the edits with simple dialog changes, so somewhere out there
there must be an original version. I'd also be interested in knowing
why the dub was done, given it just showed up out of nowhere and
obviously wasn't translated at the same time the subtitled releases
where. Who knows how long it was in storage...
--
Chris Mack *quote under construction*
'Invid Fan'
Studio Toledo
If anything, perhaps it's tuck away somewhere in Nishizaki's closet
along with some howitzer shells!
The dub itself does feel like it was made perhaps in the 80's, and
perhaps at Intersound or some other LA studio, but I can recognize
some of those voices like Mike Reynolds doing Avatar. It makes you
wonder why they needed to edit it down at all though I kinda wonder if
it was to save on tape stock if they could fit it on a T-120 without
problems.