In the year 2199, war rages between Earth and an unknown invader from beyond the solar system, the Gamilas. It’s a war that the human race is losing; infusing asteroids with radiation and firing them at Earth from mass drivers, the Gamilas have driven the survivors of the human race underground. Earth tries to take the fight to space, but the United Nations spacecraft are overwhelmed by the Gamilas’ advanced technology, and can only get the luckiest of shots through the aliens’ defense. Captain Juzo Okita, leading a largely Japanese fleet into battle, finds himself outgunned, and soon his flagship, the Kirishima, is one of the only ships left. Heavily damaged, the flagship escapes only due to the sacrifice of one of Okita’s former students, Captain Mamoru Kodai, and the crew of Kodai’s ship.
At a listening post on Mars, two junior officers, Susumu Kodai and Daisuke Shima, detect an incoming ship. It’s already too heavily damaged to make a safe landing, and Kodai and Shima find its sole occupant – a female who appears to be human – dead on impact, clutching some sort of cannister. Once opened and decoded, the cannister is revealed to be a message. Back on Earth, Kodai learns that his older brother sacrificed himself to save Captain Okita’s flagship near Pluto, and goes to confront Okita personally. After a tense meeting with Okita, Kodai is admiring one of the new Cosmo Falcon fighters; the sound of an air raid siren provides him with an almost-legitimate excuse to try it out in the air. He and Shima climb aboard and take off to intercept a Gamila scout plane that’s made it all the way to Earth. The rushed takeoff, however, means that Kodai has forgotten to make sure that his own plane is armed.
written by Yutaka Izubuchi
directed by Akihiro Enomoto
music by Akira Miyagawa / original series themes by Hiroshi Miyagawa
Cast: Daisuke Ono (Susumu Kodai), Houko Kuwashima (Yuki Mori), Kenichi Suzumura (Daisuke Shima), Takayuki Sugo (Captain Juzo Okita), Akio Ohtsuka (General Domel), Aya Hisakawa (Lt. Kaoru Niimi), Aya Uchida (Warant Officer Yuria Misaki), Cho (Analyzer / Sukeji Yabu / Ganz), Daisuke Hirakawa (Hiroki Shinohara), Fumihide Ise (Hajime Hirata), Hiroshi Tsuchida (Susumu Yamazaki), Houchu Ohtsuka (Shiro Sanada), Keiji Fujiwara (Master Chief Isami Enomoto), Kenji Akabane (Yasuo Nanbu), Kikuko Inoue (Starsha of Iscandar), Kouichi Yamadera (Desler), Masashi Hirose (Gremmdt Goer), Masato Kokubun (Yoshikazu Aihara), Mitsuru Miyamoto (Mamoru Kodai), Motoki Takagi (Toru Hoshina), Mugihito (Hikozaemon Tokugawa), Rie Tanaka (Ensign Akira Yamamoto), Rina Satou (Makoto Harada), Shigeru Chiba (Dr. Sakezo Sado), Shinji Ogawa (Heikuro Todo), Tessho Genda (Kotetsu Serizawa), Toshihiko Seki (Shinya Ito), Unshou Ishizuka (Ryu Hijikata), Yoshimasa Hosoya (Saburo Kato), Yousuke Akimoto (Redof Hiss), Yuuki Chiba (Kenjiro Ota), Akira Harada (Commander Ishizu), Ei Mochizuki (Kirishima Navigator A), Hiroyuki Takanaka (Yukikaze Communications), Masaaki Itatori (Kirishima Radar), Masayoshi Sugawara (Kirishima Gunner), Ryuichi Kijima (Kirishima Navigator B), Taira Kikumoto (Kirishima Communications), Takaomi Ashizawa (Yukikaze Navigator), Toshiharu Nakanishi (Yukikaze Helmsman)
Notes: Space Battleship Yamato 2199 is a remake of the first season of the seminal 1974 anime series Space Battleship Yamato, drastically updating its visuals and design aesthetics while essentially telling the same story. Now in HD and featuring battle sequences that lean heavily on CGI, the look of the new episodes is overseen by Yutaka Izubuchi, who was a mechanical design artist on the original Yamato series. He also directed and/or designed episodes of Macross, Rahxephon, Escaflowne, and Record of Lodoss War. The series’ composer, Akira Miyagawa, is the son of original Yamato composer Hiroshi Miyagawa, and uses new arrangements of many of the original series musical themes. The Cosmo Falcon fighters’ equivalent in the original series were Cosmo Tigers. Voice actor Cho was also the voice of Neelix in episodes of Star Trek: Voyager dubbed for the Japanese market.
LogBook entry by Earl Green
