Space Battleship Yamato 2 05
Uchuu Senkan Yamato 2 Episode 05
宇宙戦艦ヤマト2 Ep. 05 (TV, Anime)

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

As Yamato approaches the moon and Earth’s outer defense base there, the crew of Yamato are on alert expecting an attack. Almost on cue, several squadrons of fighters emerge. However, rather than attack, they fly past Yamato and take position on her six. The lead fighter waggles its wings and Kato sends a message to Yamato, requesting permission to join. The leaders of two other squadrons, Yamamoto and Jiro, also announce they and their squadrons would like to join Yamato. Naturally, Susumu agrees to this, happy to have his former fighter pilots, the new pilots, and their new Cosmo Tiger fighters.

Earth Defense HQ orders Andromeda to intercept Yamato, which is expected at Jupiter. The crew of Yamato celebrate their escape from Earth when Sado-sensei’s cat jumps on the table where Susumu is. He chases the cat and is stunned to come across Yuki. Yuki flees to the medical station where Sado-sensei is getting drunk. Susumu demands to know officially who this woman is, and she announces herself. Since Sado-sensei “forgot” to include her on the roster, she’s not a member of the crew. He pleads with Susumu to let her stay and he leaves the two alone. Susumu orders Yuki off the ship, so she starts undressing to put on an EVA suit to leave. Susumu stops her, and while he had not wanted her to be on this dangerous mission, he’s glad she’s there.

On Andromeda, Captain Hijikata orders that his ship intercept Yamato at the asteroid belt before Jupiter since Yamato is blissfully unaware of their approach. It is only by accident that a member of the crew detects Andromeda, the newer battleship exploiting a weakness in Yamato‘s sensors. Andromeda sends the order for Yamato to come to a stop, but Susumu refuses and orders the ship into the asteroid field. There, Daisuke shows the skills he picked up and loses Andromeda in the asteroids. As such, Captain Hijikata orders that Andromeda leave the asteroid field and get ahead of Yamato at Jupiter.

Despite having lost Andromeda, Susumu suspects that Captain Hijikata won’t give up. Sure enough, Yamato finds Andromeda waiting for them at Jupiter. Hijikata orders that Andromeda be positioned to give Yamato a broadside. Susumu orders that turrets one and two stand ready and they press forward. He does not give the order to fire, nor does Hijikata. Soon, the two battleships are at a range where both will be destroyed if they fire. Neither ship does and Yamato barely makes it over the top of Andromeda. Andromeda‘s 1st officer orders pursuit but is countered by Hijikata, who is letting them go. He sends a good luck message to Yamato and a message to Earth saying he did not find Yamato.

The Yamato leaving Jupiter is noted by Nazca, who had no plans to report it. However, Desler had also been monitoring the situation and reminds Nazca that he is to give Desler reports on the Yamato. When the communication with Desler ends, Nazca is not amused with how Desler pushes his weight around. He decides he doesn’t care as he has a duty to perform and Yamato isn’t anything to be worked up over.

Thoughts/Review:

Well, we did have the confrontation between Yamato and Andromeda with basically another game of chicken resolving the issue. However, my prediction of a joint fight of Yamato and Andromeda against the Comet Empire proved wrong. I do hope that somehow, the story has the Andromeda seen doing whatever in defense of Earth as Yamato does its mission. I think that will be a bit more interesting to me than a simple redressed version of the original Yamato series.

Its pretty sad when the first indication that the Yamato has that Andromeda is perusing them is when someone sees it out a window while taking a pee. Seriously, that does not bode well for our band of renegades. After all, if their equipment can’t detect Earth’s best warship, how are they going to detect and fight the Comet Empire? Well, we may get a magic upgrade to Yamato‘s sensors.

It seems to me that the writers are telegraphing that the way the Comet Empire will ultimately fail to defeat Earth or Yamato is because of the resentment the commanding officers have against Desler. After all, this loser literally lost almost everything to a single ship, thus his ability to properly fight appears to be rather lacking.

So while an entertaining episode, the only thing that happened is that Yamato is outside Jupiter’s orbit. The previews for the next episode look to have a confrontation with the Comet Empire.