English Dub Review: Star Blazers: Space Battleship Yamato 2202: Clash! Yamato vs Andromeda

Now THAT’S more like it!

Overview (Spoilers Below)

This week’s episode sees the Yamato flee Earth with the Andromeda close behind it. Fortunately, the battle-tested savior of Earth from 2199 gets a small contingent of new arrivals that helps keep the ship alive and moreover helps get Earth off of it’s back and allows it to continue on its journey unimpeded.

Our Take

It took five episodes, but we got ourselves a proper episode of Star Blazers for the 2022 year. While not very long, the intergalactic battle moments are simply to die for from this franchise. Best scene was definitely the slow driveby with the shadowing effects on both pilots as they near miss each other from a cataclysmic collision, all this after having a DBZ style space battle featuring an asteroid-covered Yamato and heavy space artillery that fails to disappoint.

Unfortunately, when we look under the hood, the guts aren’t there in terms of overall premise. We still haven’t a clue why the fuck we’re going to space other than the fact that we heard a voice and now we’re following it. A lot of the show star fucks the prior season, constant callbacks to the past are almost making it a requirement that you watch the 26-episode prequel season just to gain an understanding a lot of what we’re talking about, otherwise, a first-time viewer may not give a shit about this mission. Will there be enough eye candy for the casual fans? This week’s episode is a good start, but more is needed to sustain a workable season.