The Old School Otaku Lounge

greg wrote:I'd recommend watching the original Yamato if you can find fansubs for it. It's a classic and I'd say it's highly recommended viewing as a result. It helped me to appreciate this new series even more because the technical beauty of the animation in this is superb. Sure, it's all computer assisted animation and therefore won't be as impressive as if it was done by hand, but there's also the aspect of the show making you forget you're watching anime and it feels more like an action movie. The remake of Area 88 was like that, too. Both it and the original Area 88 are both great on their own merits.

I sure see a lot of merchandising for Yamato 2199, particularly at plastic model shops. I thought perhaps this was an OVA, but it was aired on TV in Japan (most likely late at night).

If you are looking for the fansubs our version is seeded on nyaatorrents.

Season 1:
http://www.nyaa.eu/?page=download&tid=219454
Season 2:
http://www.nyaa.eu/?page=download&tid=219661

Heibi wrote:If you are looking for the fansubs our version is seeded on nyaatorrents.

Season 1:
http://www.nyaa.eu/?page=download&tid=219454
Season 2:
http://www.nyaa.eu/?page=download&tid=219661

That would be excellent, but unfortunately, I won't dare attempt that while in Japan. Maybe I can ask my friend to snag them for me.

greg wrote:

Heibi wrote:If you are looking for the fansubs our version is seeded on nyaatorrents.

Season 1:
http://www.nyaa.eu/?page=download&tid=219454
Season 2:
http://www.nyaa.eu/?page=download&tid=219661

That would be excellent, but unfortunately, I won't dare attempt that while in Japan. Maybe I can ask my friend to snag them for me.

If you can set up an ftp I can upload it directly to you. Or if it comes down to it I can bring you some DVD roms on my next trip to Tokyo.

According to Tim Eldred in a post in the Star Blazers group, this show has nothing to do with the Leijiverse. Also, I liken it to the Battlestar Galactica reboot and I'm liking it a lot. No series of the past 15 years has made me want to sell some of my old collectible toys to acquire new ones from this show. So, that's quite the feat.

_D_ wrote:According to Tim Eldred in a post in the Star Blazers group, this show has nothing to do with the Leijiverse.

I must say this is the first time I'm lost as to what what you are referring to here.

Reread the first post in this thread. I had made a comment in the Yahoo group about a side story that Matsumoto had done years previously that made reference to the name Jura. I had said that was the name of Mime's home planet destroyed by the Mazone and that I wondered what other homages there were to Matsumoto's work. The answer is that there are no references to Matsumoto's work in this production of Yamato, which was surprising to me.

Ah, I understand what D means. In the Leijiverse, all of the various Matsumoto series sort of tie in together (however just forget about continuity). Maetel, Harlock, and others seem to float around, and I guess Galaxy Express even brought Yamato into the same continuity. This new Yamato reboot stands on its own and makes no effort to connect to the other shows is what I take this to mean. This makes sense, really, since it is not Matsumoto's own work here, but rather a reboot. The comparison to Battlestar Galactica is indeed accurate.

After Matsumoto's ham-fisted attempt to claim ownership of Space Battleship Yamato a few years back, it's not surprising that the 2199 producers would distance their production as far away as they could from anything Matsumoto could concievably lay claim to.

Mimay's home planet was changed to Alozaran in "Eternal Orbit SSX". Of course that wasn't Mimay, but La Mimay, a completely different character who happens to look and act exactly like Mimay (eye roll). I like Matsumoto's work, but sometimes it's a bit much.

davemerrill wrote:I like Matsumoto's work, but sometimes it's a bit much.

Yes, tell me about it. I tried making sense of the continuity between shows, especially since Harlock and Maetel are supposedly living in the same timeline, yet Earth in Harlock is not populated by robots, etc. And the story of how Tetsuro died was shown in different ways, too. I pay attention to continuity to the point where it bugs me that suddenly Peppermint Patty is in the same classroom as Charlie Brown, since it had already been established that she, Marcy, and Franklin live on the other side of town and attend different schools.

The worst violation of continuity is that Captain Beard Papa...what's his name? Okita? The captain from the first Yamato series who dies at the end. By the 3rd or 4th season of Yamato, somehow he isn't dead and was just somehow in stasis the whole time. That's pretty stupid. He's dead, buried, they made a big deal about his death, and even erected a monument in his memory. Then suddenly he is alive again. That's just sloppy.

Captain Okita being alive in Final Yamato is one of the weaker plot elements in a film that is fairly well filled with weak plot elements.

I've seen a lot of fan commentary and even some fiddly-faddly statements from Matsumoto that attempt to tie all his characters into one over-arching narrative, and it's all a painful waste of time. I guess if you're the sort of person who straightens items on store shelves because you can't stand to see anything out of place, it might be appealing to have this kind of order imposed on creative works, but for the rest of us it's dreadfully dull.

A good story and good characters should stand on their own without having to be tied into a larger continuity or be dependent upon the reader being familiar with loads of back story. Unfortunately it's not just Matsumoto who's doing this, it seems like every sort of popular fiction is weighed down with continuity, back story, world-building, cross-over, tie-in, "book 4 of a 10 book series" nonsense. It's bad enough when it's applied to narrative fiction, but characters like Captain Harlock - he's literally two-dimensional - suffer when being inserted into every conceivable situation.