Akai_Shuichi

-This review may contain spoilers from the movie and from the original series- When talking about anime classics, there are not many series that rank higher than Uchuu Senkan Yamato, and with good reason, as Yamato is one of the greatest space operas out there. This movie takes place in the year 2220, 21 years after the original series (which also has a remake now), and it's a direct sequel, where Kodai will again be the main character and will be in charge of leading an inmigration fleet to an other planet because a black hole is approaching Earth, and the days of the blue planet arecounted. This completely remade story shows us how CGI can actually be an incredible tool in animation when used well (and when having good budget). Yamato's animation, which uses CGI A LOT, is really mindblowing. Throughout the whole movie, there is always consistent great animation, with very well made battles between spaceships. Yamato is second to none in this. Music also plays a big factor in this movie, which uses a lot of beautiful classical music such as Tchaikovsky's Marche Slave, Chopin's Nocturne #1 or Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. Besides that, there's always the classical Yamato theme played in grand fashion and in various ways and a very nice ending to close the movie. The story started good, but it did get worse by the second half. Still, thanks to great animation, sound and action, the movie never ceased to entertain one bit. The first half of the movie was pretty good story-wise. Kodai had a clear mission, we got to meet a great enemy general and, while not very complex, things were very good. Things got a little worse when we suddenly got a rather plain villain, making the series almost a simple evil vs good thing. Still action didn't drop one bit, and the Space Battleship Yamato proved to be as awesome as ever, showing its upgraded power to the fullest. The movie put the ship in some dire situations, which resulted in some of the best space action I've ever seen. Besides Kodai, who enters the movie as a memorable character already, there isn't really any character that stood out much to me. They fullfilled their role well, but they were definitely not as good as the original Yamato crew. Another slight problem is that for flashback scenes, they actually really just used things from the 1983 movie, which of course, looked very out of place in this 2010 movie. Still, that was just at a very specific moment of the anime, so it's not something that will really hinder the experience in any way. You can actually be positive and use the moment to see how anime has evolved in the last 30 years. You will notice that some major events happened between the original series and this movie... that'd be Kanketsu-hen, which hasn't been remade. While it's impossible not to notice, and while having watched Kanketsu-hen before would make the experience better, you don't really need to watch it. Just with the original series you should be fine. This movie's definitely not as good as the original series, but it's still a very nice sequel, and some of the main strong points of Yamato are kept intact. It is something very nice how Kodai has matured as a person between the original series and this movie, as you can see how, little by little, he's becoming more like the legendary Juzo Okita. And even if its not as good as the original series, if you enjoyed that one, Uchuu Senkan Yamato: Fukkatsu-hen should be one hell of a ride. But again, watching the original series is a must in this case.