English Dub Review: Star Blazers: Space Battleship Yamato 2202 “Escape From The Nightmare”

The Yamato has escaped its rock fortress, but needs the help of the Ginja and the Andromeda to be pulled from the gravitational field coming from the White Comet before it can be on its way. Fortunately, the Andromeda comes equipped with tow cables which come to good use in assisting the Yamato and hopefully getting it to the point where it’s back in action as we head into the final episode of this cour.

A.I. is a concept that has been seen before in the Star Blazers: Space Battleship Yamato lexicon, however, is much less important in the 2202 run of things versus the 2199 run…until now. By far and away, humanity wrestling away the controls of the Ginja from the jaws of automation is as powerful of a notion as we’ve seen and one that resonates today. As Presidential hopefuls like Andrew Wang talk of an impending time that will see menial jobs be turned over to machines rather than people, how timely is it that we’re focusing on aspects of a story that were brought up decades ago where producers certainly thought that, in about 200 years, we will still be in a position to usurp power from machines, a very un-Terminator way of looking at things once you stop to think about.

Yes, the epic space battles are still the eye candy, and we definitely get more of that. But, the more profound message surrounding mankind’s battles with the notion of automation versus manpower is the stuff that keeps me coming back here. Isaac Asimov’s questions are thumb printed all over this one.