English Dub Review: Star Blazers: Space Battleship Yamato 2202 “The Beam of Light Flashes! / “Radiance of the Wave Motion Gun”

But are we blinded by the light?

Overview (Spoilers Below)

This week’s episode sees the Yamato buried under a pile of rubble. Before they leave it, they save a bunch of survivors including the Admiral then use the Wave Motion Gun on the Gatlantian forces whom had pretty much cocked locked and were ready to unload a massive weapon threatening to destroy Earth. Fortunately, the Yamato is able to incapacitate the source of the weapon’s power and, as such, save the day…but are there repercussions for using a weapon that they swore not to use ever again after Earth’s war with the Gamilas?

Our Take

While the final scene was cool, it was way more underwhelming than I was expecting in terms of mass devastation on a crazy scale. With how much build up and non-sensical debate there was in leading up to the Yamato’s use of their main weapon, the damage appeared rather minute compared to the grave consequences that are probably going be a bit more ostentatious in the “promises broken” department rather than anything on a death scale.

Chris Wehkamp’s take on Kodai, from a performance perspective, is single-handedly carrying this show, but it really doesn’t sound like the character is fighting for anything right now. It hasn’t really been established by the Gatlantians hate us in the first place nor does it appear that Kodai has a vested interest in fighting them either. It’s a race against time for our fabled captain to get answers to questions that haven’t been proposed yet, which is so far making this season of 2022 feel largely uninspiring and lacking any compelling story elements.