English Dub Review: Star Blazers: Space Battleship Yamato 2202 “Shock: Legacy of the Cosmo Reverse”

No turning back now.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

This week’s episode of Star Blazers sees Kodai learning the truth about what Earth and the Gamilas have been doing with the reverse tech…developing weapons of mass destruction. As a result, both he and the old Yamato crew commandeer their old ship (minus a heartbroken Yuki) to answer the distress call coming from the Goddess Teressa who is sending us our first warnings about the war-mongering Gatlantis who are after a different kind of tech that could allow them to control time.

Our Take

A bit more build up this week. Unfortunately, so far, Star Blazers 2022 doesn’t feature the over-the-top action sequences of the show’s predecessor. The strength of the show is its technical prowess, and other than the scenes underground, there’s not a whole lot going on. If you’re a fan of more political fare, like ACCA, you may actually prefer this type of storytelling, but I prefer my Star Blazers more outer-spacey and crazy spaceships doing battle. Fortunately, with the cliffhanger of a finale that we got, we might be on a path to more action sooner rather than later.

I do like the added brevity given to the relationship between Yuki and Kodai, it adds an element to the franchise that was largely absent in 2199 save for the last couple of episodes, but give me the action more than the sap.