Space Battleship Yamato 16
Uchuu Senkan Yamato Episode 16
宇宙戦艦ヤマト Ep. 16 (TV, Anime)

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Yamato is 20-days away from planet Balan and is approaching the planet Bemera. In the crowded mess hall, Susumu complains that they are just eating the same old things when Yuki arrives in a dress. She models it for the guys there, who are all very appreciative. Analyzer comes by and flips her skirt, showing of her panties. This leads to a lot of excitement amongst the men (including Susumu) and Yuki flees. She reports the incident to the captain, informing him that Analyzer has done this to her before and she wants it put to a stop. He agrees to have the matter addressed.

With Yamato now at Bemera, Captain Okita orders Yuki and Analyzer down to the planet’s surface to find edible plants. In mid-flight, Analyzer asks Yuki to marry it, which causes Yuki to lose control of the craft and crash it into a shallow body of water. They explore the nearby jungle when they find a structure that looks similar to a beehive or anthill. Yuki decides they need to enter it and explore it, which they do. They are soon stopped by a bee-like humanoid and they are captured. Before being thrown into prison, they see a large number of bee-humanoid prisoners being thrown into a massive vat and ground into a thick liquid, which is then poured into containers.

In their prison cell, Analyzer compares this substance they saw from the executed bee-humanoids to be like royal jelly. Yuki is frightened and embraces Analyzer for comfort. Analyzer tries to assure her that people from the Yamato will soon arrive, but Yuki knows that they’ve lost communication with the ship. However, she is happy to have Analyzer there. Meanwhile, the queen bee-humanoid contacts someone from Gamilus to ensure that the freighter to pick up the royal jelly is on time. The Gamilus contact reminds the queen that keeping Gamilus supplied with this substance keeps her throne secured.

On Yamato, the Gamilus freighter is discovered, so Okita orders the Black Tiger squadron to attack. As this is going on, the bee-humanoids take Yuki and Analyzer out of the cell and at a celebration, it is revealed that they are rebels demanding freedom, thinking they’ve captured people from Gamilus. As the freighter is landing, the leader of the rebels demands the queen shoot the ship down with a cannon they’ve provided. Instead, she shoots the leader of the rebels. When two Gamilus troops emerge from the ship, the fall off the platform dead as the ship explodes, taking out the structures nearby.

Troops from the Yamato arrive, lead by Susumu and Yuki runs to him in the chaos. Analyzer sees this as bee-humanoids try to kill it without success. The humans try to tell the bee-humanoids they aren’t from Gamilus, but Yuki tells them it doesn’t matter since they are just as evil for trying to steal vegetables. So the humans return to the ship with Analyzer. Sometime after they return, Analyzer talks with Yuki, who turns down his proposal. Analyzer says it is OK and that he still loves her.

Thoughts/Review:

Well, lets add to Yuki’s list of jobs. She’s now a pilot and a botanist capable of determining what plants are eatable and what ones aren’t. Oh yeah, and she’s a model.

Naturally, the men all react.

But only Analyzer does what they all desire to do.

I’m not sure why the writers decided to have Analyzer suddenly want to do the ecchi with Yuki. Analyzer previous case of flipping Yuki’s skirt seemed nothing more than a cheap way to score some fanservice. Maybe this was a way of addressing the issue of having one woman on board ship and a crew full of men ready to go (as it were) without actually doing it through a male character.

Yuki’s moral equivalence of her mission to find edible plants (which she called stealing) and Gamilus forcing the bee-humanoids to slaughter their own in order to create a type of royal jelly for the people of Gamilus to use (consume?) annoyed me. So Yuki, how is just gathering plants stealing? Further, after talking about being afraid to die, I guess you can’t die of starvation, can you?

Overall, this was an odd episode. I can’t imagine how much of this (if any) survived the Star Blazers re-write considering the topics of death and sex that were touched on.