Space Battleship Yamato 2199: Episode 13 – Space is a Literal Ocean

Yamato 2199 had an extremely simple episode this week. It had a lot more flash then flair and had more action then good writing. Is it strange to think of an action episode as something that is relaxing? The Yamato 2199’s writing is amazing, but it’s nice to see some space combat too. Especially if it involves trans dimensional space submarines. Isn’t that just a cool concept? So what if all the great character writing and other things took a back seat this week? Spectacle is good and Yamato 2199 spectacle is even better.

Spoilers. Spoilers and things happen from this point.

I know that I talked about spectacle happening in the battle stuff, but that opening shot man. That simple scene of Domel’s ship making it to the forward Gamilas Milky Way Base was just stunning. The Base looked cool, Domel’s  ship jumping out of ftl travel and traveling  to this base in normal space looked cool, was shot in a unique way, and I don’t know what else to say about it. Watch it yourself. It’s very simple scene shot in such a unique way that conveys how extra and massive the Gamilas empire is. Also story stuff, Dommler takes over command from Admiral Goer. Goer doesn’t like it, but its from Dressler’s orders so what can he do? Also, there is mentions of the space submarine hunting down the Yamato as they speak, which is a good transition to the battle scene.

The Yamato was hit by a torpedo in last week’s stinger, so now the ship is hidden in the asteroid field. The space submarine can’t see the Yamato through it’s periscope, so they continue to fire torpedoes in order to feel them out. I have to say that I love the personality of the space submarine’s captain. Especially how he dresses and acts like a big game hunter? My dad was a submariner and I’m sure he would be proud of this portrayal. It’s all so wonderful. Still, important things. After four hours of waiting out the storm, Captain Okita is in a critical condition and needs to be operated on. That means that the XO Engineer Sanada is taking the healm. Also, we get some more insight on the female scientist that’s been around, Kaoru Niimi. She has some contention with Kodai because she wants to send a dimensional sonar ping from the ship, but Kodai wants to go out in a Seagul and launch sonar buoys to find the enemy sub that way. As you can expect, the XO uses Niimi’s plan.

You probably know what happens from here. Niimi’s plan moves forward, the sonar ping from the Yamato goes out, and the Enemy submarine finds them. Cue torpedoes appearing from another dimension heading toward the Yamato. Some are dodged, some are shot down, and some hit the Yamato again. At the same time, Kodai goes against orders after visiting Okita after his surgery and heads out to space on a Seagul. He starts planting sonar buoys around space. Through this strategy, Kodai finds the space periscope, sends the coordinates to the Yamato, and the rest is history. The space battleship gets away, our cool sub captain allows their prey to get away for another day, Kodai gets off with no punishment because he saved the ship, and our episode ends. That was a lot of fun from a visual and character perspective. What else can I say?

That’s about it from me, see you next week.

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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?