Uchuu Senkan Yamato Episode 02
宇宙戦艦ヤマト Ep. 02 (TV, Anime)

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: The Earth Defense Force HQ is losing contact with the underground cities around the world, leading Captain Okita to inquire about the progress on the Yamato. In the sick bay, Yuki bandages up Susumu after he and Daisuke were rescued. They are paid a visit by the red robot “Analyzer” who decides he needs to take a look under Yuki’s skirt. After the robot retreats from the room under a rain of medical items thrown by Yuki, Daisuke and Susumu are summoned to a waiting air car and are joined by Analyzer, who invites himself.

The car takes them to a part of the industrial section of the underground city along with Sado-sensei. They look up and see the bottom of a space ship’s hull protruding from the ground above them. As they gape in wonder, a voice on a loud speaker instructs them to get into elevator 10. They do so and are surprised when the elevator tilts at an angle before depositing them on the bridge of a ship. There on the bridge is Captain Okita. He explains to Daisuke and Susumu that they had been on special training for a mission on this ship. Further, the blueprints they brought back from Mars were used to create the new faster-than-light engine, the Wave-Motion engine.

The ground above them comes under attack from a Gamilon carrier, which has launched fighter-bombers. However, the ship’s engines have not come to full power yet, meaning they cannot leave the ground they are encased in. The attack continues until the engines are up to power. Okita assigns Daisuke to be the ship’s helmsman and Susumu to be in charge of the combat crews. The ship emerges from the ground and sheds its WWII scrap to reveal a similar battleship within. While the weapons look like WWII weapons, they are in fact current weapons of the day and with them, the Yamato takes out the enemy carrier.

On Gamilus, Supreme Ruler Desler receives word of the destruction of the carrier and the Earth having built a new warship in secret named the Yamato. Meanwhile on the Yamato, Captain Okita asks Daisuke and Susumu what they think of the ship. He explains that it had been built using the original WWII ship and then gives the history of the WWII ship. The new Yamato had not been built as a warship initially, but as an ark to allow some humans to flee the Earth. However, with the Wave-Motion engine combined with the opportunity to get help from Iscandar, the mission of the Yamato has changed and they have 1-year to get the Cosmo Cleaner-D from Iscandar and back.

Thoughts/Review: I don’t like how the first two episodes are presenting the story. The writers make things confusing at the start, then go back and explain things in the 2nd-half of the episode. The one thing they didn’t explain is how the heck they were able to construct this new Wave-Motion engine onto the new Yamato hull so quickly. It is difficult to gage how much time has passed since Susumu and Daisuke found the message capsule which contained the blueprints for the new engine. It only felt like a few days at most.

It is clever to use the old WWII Yamato hull as a shield to disguise the fact that they were building a new ship underneath. The fact that the new Yamato‘s mission was one to preserve some of humanity and not be a warship worked too. There’s still the issue radiation though. With radiation covering the entire planet’s surface and seeping underground, why isn’t the Yamato irradiated? Then again, maybe a change in radiation readings is what prompted the Gamilons to attack the Yamato wreckage since they clearly didn’t know what it was hiding.

Well, I guess we’ll see where things go.