Space Battleship Yamato 2199: Episode 10 – Frenemies

After watching last week’s episode and saying everything that is great about it, you think that this next episode would be a letdown. In some ways it is and some ways it isn’t. Episode 10 of Yamato 2199 is a lot less complicated when it comes to its themes and story then episode 9, but that episode is great as well. The characters are still great and this is a well down rehash of a story that you have probably seen before: Enemies stuck in a hard place trying to get out. Only some minor complaints here.

Spoiler Warnings! Get your Spoiler Warnings!

Today’s episode’s plot can be explained in a few paragraphs. Let’s dive in:

Just like a lot of plots in Star Trek, this episode starts with a warp jump gone wrong. What seems like routine at this point, emphasized by the crew being completely relaxed by it, quickly becomes a mess. The nanosecond that it takes to jump takes much longer then you would expect. I mean, there were characters talking and even moving around the ship in the middle of a jump. What’s up with that? That never happened in Battlestar Galactica! When the Yamato does make it out of it’s jump, it ends up in a dimensional rift that sucks up energy. I mean, you can tell that just by the other ships around them that are dead. This is a dimensional rift that is a ship’s grave yard. The only other ship in that area that is alive is a Gamilas one. Oh the drama.

So, the ships don’t end up fire at each other but decide to cooperate together to escape the rift. After the Gamilas ship sends over their liaison, Melda Ditz, an attractive blue skinned female who is also a pilot and is the daughter of Admiral Ditz (who is a person), the humans on board see a real Gamilas soldier for the first time. We knew they were humanoids with different colored skin, but the Yamato crew didn’t. Such an interesting dynamic that I wish was played on more here. Kodai and Ace Pilot Akira meet Melda in what looks like an interrogation room and a plan is reached. The Yamato will fire its Wave Motion Cannon and the Gamilas ship will tow the Yamato out. The plan goes under way, has a short detour when the elite on board the Gamilas ship tries to leave the Yamato behind after sending a message out of rift, but he gets shot and killed, and the honorable captain of the Gamilas ship tows the Yamato out. No problems at all. It did add a clip of two attractive females, Melda and Akira, fighting each other out of distrust which I enjoyed. I’m a male, sue me.

More drama happens when the Gamilas ship and the Yamato exit the rit. Admiral Goer, some one who just wants glory, got the elite’s message. We see how cowardly he is. First, he destroys his own fleet’s ship (the one that was towing the Yamato), because that ship wouldn’t move. Second, while his fleet was in the middle of getting destroyed by the rift, Goer fled. The coward. (I guess he is called Admiral Goer for a reason). The show ends with the Yamato crew saluting the sunk Gamilas ship.

Conclusion

Watching this episode showed some flaws that I’ve been seeing more and more as time goes on. This show is too devoted to showing off it’s cast. I mean ALL of them. Kodai, who was our protagonist in the beginning, gets only a few minutes of screen time. What about Shima? Then there is the captain of the Gamilas ship. I wanted to know more about him, but the Yamato 2199 never had enough time to give into this character’s backstory a little more or give him a personality more then “he’s an honorable man”. I guess it does change the perspective of the Gamilas race for the Yamato 2199, but still. Some more fleshing out and some more focus would at least be nice for this episode. I would complain about this episode not adding more to complexity of the human and Gamilan relationship, but I am sure next episode will do that. Melda is still on board the Yamato after all. I had a great time with this episode. Highly recommend. See you all next Friday.

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This post is a part of the Yamato 2199 blog tour between me and DerekL. If you want to get involved: please click this link here, read what it says, watch the show with us, and post before noon on Fridays. Simple enough right?