New 'Space Battleship Yamato 2199' Footage Sails Online [Video]

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Nearly four minutes of new footage from the new Space Battleship Yamato 2199 anime series helmed by Yutaka Izubuchi (RahXephon), Nubuteru Yuki (Escaflowne) and Makoto Kobayashi (Battleship Yamato Resurrection) has surfaced on Amazon. Set to debut this spring in Japan, the new TV series is a remake of the 1974 original, which was known as Star Blazers to US audiences. Unlike the 2010 live action film, the new anime won't swap any character genders and will seemingly stick to the same plot as the original show. As demonstrated by the new footage, though, the series' animation is appropriately more sophisticated than its predecessor, with CG animation blended in to dramatically expand the scope of space combat. The physics of it all aren't necessarily any more accurate than the '74 series, but the space battles feel a little less like they're underwater and more like they're in space. See what you think after the jump.

Star Blazers English Opening Theme

[Via Jefusion/ANN]

Tags: Space Battleship Yamato - Space Battleship YAMATO 2199 - SpaceBattleshipYamato - SpaceBattleshipYamato2199 - Starblazers

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Jay Barnett

Looks awesome! I wish they'd stayed a little closer to Matsumoto's character designs (the guys look too bishie to me) but the ships look awesome... glad they stayed so close to such great designs...cel shading on CG has really come a long way.

February 22 2012 at 6:13 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Hall442

Looks interesting. I hope the release at LEAST a sub-titled version.

February 22 2012 at 1:18 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Chunky Style

As a fan of "Star Blazers" since it first reached American shores, I say the only thing it really needs is a better re-dub of the original. Better voice actors, less toning down of the violence ("Sergeant Knox got out right after you" -- some of you know exactly what I'm talking about).

The original animation was sometimes crude, but it nonetheless had style that you don't get with CGI. Compare the original "Wallace and Gromit" stop-motion with, say, "Flushed Away" ... the latter is unquestionably more fluid as a CGI creation, and there are things you can do with CGI that you'll never be able to achieve with stop-motion. Nonetheless, I prefer the stop-motion of "Wallace and Gromit".

Speaking of the toned-down violence, there's something funny in a couple season 2 episodes. While there was plenty of killing in the series, on occasion they'd try to clean it up by claiming that the enemy riflemen were "robots". I love the infinite versatility and sociopathy of that: any time someone pisses you off, just say "My god, he's a robot!" and then you may, er, dismantle him without remorse.

February 21 2012 at 10:58 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Chunky Style's comment

WizarDru

I'm not really buying that, though. The Wallace and Gromit movie used CGI so effectively that you couldn't tell where one stopped and the other began.

The original animation was not crude for it's time, but it was constrained by budget and technology (such as the necessity for reusing certain animated sequences). Leiji Matsumoto has certainly never shown a reluctance to revisit his previous works and even redo them, so I don't see this as anything different. I also don't see there as being enough of a market to justify a new dub's cost. Any new audience will want the originals with subtitles (which is already available) or a dubbing of the newer version.

February 22 2012 at 8:18 AM Report abuse Permalink +1 rate up rate down Reply

magallanesluism

Tell me the top Image doesn't look like a Star Destroyer!

February 21 2012 at 10:56 PM Report abuse Permalink -1 rate up rate down Reply

Ray Cornwall

So let me get this straight- they remade Star Blazers, but kept all the good stuff (character designs, music, plot, etc.), updated the animation from 1970s okay to modern day wow, and all I need is 5236 yen and the ability to speak Japanese?

*IN!* Honey, where's the Rosetta Stone? This looks AWESOME.

February 21 2012 at 6:53 PM Report abuse Permalink +2 rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Ray Cornwall's comment