During the cold war, the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force jointly developed a nuclear submarine with the United States Navy. On its maiden voyage, the captain of the submarine declares the submarine to be an independent state, "Yamato."
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The first thing to clarify about this anime is that the databases have their information a bit wrong, there are technically three episodes but they are not 30 minutes long. In 1995 a 95 minute movie was released, covering all those 30 minutes you see there, and in 1997 and 1998 two sequel OVAS came out, each one being an hour long. So the episode count is right, but the duration of each and the total in your account if you add it as complete is not. The second thing to clarify is how hard it is to even find it, the movie can be watchedwithout a problem but the sequels can only found as RAW on YouTube by searching them by their English name, and the translation of the automatic subtitles in them is hilariously wrong more often than not. So unless you know Japanese you won’t really get the story as a whole, thus making it a hard to recommend title. As for the anime itself, it’s a political war drama about some nationalists Japanese marines stealing a nuclear submarine as an undercover mission, only to betray even their own country and declaring independence, scaling to show the political conflict it leads to between the implied countries, Japan and the United States, how each of them want to deal with the situation, and how different political parties want to benefit from it, and also heated arguments in congress about the situation, while it is also not bad in terms of battles. With that said that last aspect stands in a place between realistic and spectacular, thus I think not a lot of people would be please with them, as the ones looking for realism would be annoyed by the not very realistic moments, while those that prefer spectacle would be bored with them most of the time. As for me, since I know nothing about how submarines work, I was mostly pleased with them and the combination they presented, thus even though there were some moments when I thought “huh? How’s that possible?” I didn’t have any real issues nor immersion breaking moments regarding them. Since the show is overall low on action, it might seem slow paced but the truth is that at every moment the characters are investigating about the submarine, finding it, dealing with the nationalist ideals of the protagonist, showing some battles, as well as the States and Japan accusing each other of treason, then the latter and “Yamato” discussing, for the whole world to see, the dangers and necessity of nuclear power in the hands of powerful nations like the United States and how a little slip in trust could lead to a global disaster, as well as Japan is falling behind in militaristic strength and depending on others, with the weird logic of the main character being that Japan needs to have nuclear power to stand against others if needed, but ultimately deciding that, for nations to be at ease, the whole militaristic power should be exclusively in the hands of the United Nations. I guess the anime takes a stand in showing his reasoning as madness so that’s ok. And the whole third OVA is action, so there’s that. The presentation looks and feels old by now but was good for its time. The artwork has its weak moments and there are coloring mistakes at times, but for the most part the anime looks very good for when it came out. The character designs may look simple but they are serious, mostly realistic, not repetitive, and have some of the best jawlines in the medium. I remembered the backgrounds being limited to just the submarines but turns out I was wrong, as there are a lot more things to see in it, and everything is really well done in that regard. The motions are good but mostly absent as the series is mostly characters sitting and talking, and the special effects are also really well done. The audio department has limited but good orchestral music, sometimes with even an in-story reason for its use, and some beautiful endings. The voice acting is hands down one of the most mature and more fitting in the whole medium. The problem are the sound effects, which are really old, and even often unfitting, imagine torpedoes impacting and what you listen are sound effects from guns from the 50s while that is happening, we are talking that level of weak. Based on the Japanese people commenting this anime on YouTube, the sound effects are reused from Uchuu Senkan Yamato, thus we are talking about a series from the late 90s with sound effects from mid to late 70s, easily the worst aspect of the whole show. Not to say that it doesn’t have any other important problems, there are three in fact: -No ending: The anime is based on a long manga and thus the adaptation is far from over, it doesn’t even have any kind of conclusion on its own, it ends in the middle of nowhere. -Not very good characters: Though character driven, the anime is clearly more focused on the plot, thus although the characters are mature and with good characterization, and no one is a caricature nor demonized, they are also dry, don’t have much of a backdrop, development or catharsis, and are not very memorable. -One sided presentation of the conflict: As I’m sure I mentioned in the past, it is an issue when a war drama has clear cut good and bad guys, in the case the United States being the latter. They are not demonized, and the anime doesn’t feel like propaganda to me, but still it’s worth to mention that they are clearly presented as treasonous and inferior than the awesome Japanese marines. As a whole, it’s a serious and well-presented political war drama for the most part but that can also make it very unappealing for most and there are serious weaknesses in the narrative that some might be even find offensive if they are Americans. Luckily I’m not and I happen to dislike that country most of the time, thus I love this anime, bite me.
The Silent Service is a nearly forgotten OVA, filled with lengthy political exchanges and tense submarine battles. It's no surprise Ryousuke Takahashi, who was the perfect choice, stepped up to direct this, as it's a story of a military faction attempting to free Japan from America being its domineering mommy, referring to them as the "world police." People will put that in quotes, as I just have, sometimes intending to dispute the framing, but it's painfully obvious how well the U.S. lives up to the moniker, what with their 800+ military bases scattered everywhere and constant interference in world affairs. While the character art isrelatively generic manly realism, the art is decent enough, the naval fleets and submarines are detailed, and the animation is functional, with the effects and action scenes getting priority. Even the score is well utilized, and Mozart is used strategically in one of the submarine battles, making this title a bit more inventive than most submarine fiction. There is a lot of plot armor associated with the Yamato, which makes sense because of nuclear deterrence, Cold War paranoia, and the suspicion that Japan might be manufacturing nuclear weapons in secret. From the outside, it probably looks like Japan as a whole might be behind this conspiracy, rather than it being a factional dispute started by a charismatic submarine commander. There are a few parts where the supposedly "cautious" commander seems too reckless (as noted in the script but not explained too well), casually emerging from the ocean and cruising along as missiles explode nearby. This OVA is crammed as is and heavily plot driven. There's not enough time for character development, but it looks like the two Japanese commanders, who are rivals and opposites, would have a compelling dynamic. Unfortunately, only a fraction of the long-running manga was adapted, guaranteeing a low rating. By unfinished OVA standards, it actually ends smoothly enough, completing the initial arc of the Yamato rebelling against the U.S. and declaring itself a nation that will align with Japan. Still, the adaptation is just a tease meant to entice you into checking out the manga, yet there are hurdles to doing so for anyone who doesn't speak Japanese because the manga is 32 volumes long and untranslated. The general view seems to be politics = boring (okay, that's a fair point, lol), and the events and opinions presented are considered "controversial" by international audiences, so I sincerely doubt anyone will bother to translate this unless they are diehard fans and don't care about how popular it will be. There's a lot of talk about "jingoism," "nationalism," "militarism," etc., anytime such works are made, which is usually intended to be some kind of "that's not nice" non-critique because it goes against the status quo. Begging the question, what should Japan do? The answer seems to always be "remain America's bitch, of course, LOL." Honestly, society is being drip-fed too many Starbucks' soy lattes, so they cannot handle strong, independent Manly Men Doing Manly Things. In these kind of works, Japan is demonized for the audacity of wanting the U.S. military to totally pull out (not a sexual innuendo!). The irony is that a lot of these works aren't even as "extreme" as people say when you pay attention to what is being said between the lines and sometimes even directly. Often, they appeal to world peace but realize militarism is necessary in the face of aggression, for the post-WWII arrangements were imposed by force, and the U.S. still tells them to roll over. In one scene, the two Japanese commanders argue: The Yamato's commander says that they have a duty as a nation (specifically, Yamato, but they are of Japan and hoping to align with them) to not be bound by a superpower. They don't intend to abandon their families or Japan. The Yamato commander even says, "We're going to make the world one nation," much like the post-Atomic Age phrase "one world or no world," which was coined by a bunch of sissy scientists who were wetting their pants over the prospect of exciting missile exchanges. The clear idea meant to be conveyed is that the character is attempting to pave a path toward greater unity and peace amongst the entire world, but America is getting in the way of that. America is somewhat caricatured in this OVA, and the writer expects you to know about American foreign policy without telling you much, such as the U.S.'s globetrotting busybody nagging and forever wars.
