Space Battleship Yamato 2 07
Uchuu Senkan Yamato 2 Episode 07
宇宙戦艦ヤマト2 Ep. 07 (TV, Anime)

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Yuki is working her latest job as waitress in the mess hall where all of the Space Cavaliers are eating. Being Yamato‘s only girl, they start sexually harassing her despite Analyzer’s attempts to defend her. This annoys Kato and other Yamato crew members and when Susumu sees what is going on and how they really aren’t responding to him, he heads off to find their commanding officer, Saito. After meeting with him in an observation room, Susumu finds that Saito has a strange, casual attitude about things.

Meanwhile on the Comet Empire base ship Gatlantis, Sabera demands that Military Commander’s Razela and Goenitz (Genitz?) explain why Nazca lost to Yamato and that they contact the Admiral immediately. After she leaves, Razela declares that despite this setback, he is more determined than ever to establish their forward base on Earth. An angry and frustrated Sabera heads to the room where the Emperor is, pours herself a large adult beverage and gulps it down to the Emperor’s amusement.

On Yamato, the dimensional radar reveals a new enemy craft not previously seen. Susumu decides to play is cautious and puts Yamato on alert. Yuki sees nothing on their standard radar, leading Sanada to suspect they are dealing with space subs and thus need to drop depth charges. A couple of torpedoes slam into Yamato as it floods its wake with “depth charges” (more like mines) and sure enough, they begin to explode as they come in contact with two space subs. Yamato takes more hits as the crews race to battle stations.

While this is going on, Saito decides that he should join the fighter pilots, who’ve just been ordered to deploy. However, he is not a pilot and they force him out of the way, which does not set well with him. Saito then heads to the gun control room and insists on being allowed to work Yamato‘s turrets. Because he’s not a gunner, they reject the offer, but his attempts to try to get involved anyway causes the turret to miss one of the enemy subs. Saito then heads to where Sado-sensei is, finding him getting drunk on sake because that’s all he can do during combat. So, Saito joins Sado as the Black Tigers take out the two space subs.

Yamato finds a small planetoid to land on to make repairs while sending a report to Earth on their latest battle. (The Earth Military Chief then orders that the 2nd, 3rd, and 8th fleets be dispatched to the 11th Planet at once. ) The space cavaliers are making a huge nuisance of themselves, which leads to a massive fight between Yamato crew members and the soldiers. Saito arrives and rather than break up the fight, he starts attacking Yamato crew members for fighting his men. Susumu arrives and seeing the situation, he and Saito get into a fight. Sado-sensei shoos everyone out but the two leaders, who then stop their fight. Despite knowing that Saito and his men are a time bomb, Susumu does not kick them off the ship.

Back on Gatlantis, Emperor Zwordar and Sabera receive a report that Nasca’s fleet has been wiped out. Sabera is shocked but this, but the Emperor urges calm. Despite what the Yamato has done, Zwordar sees Andromeda as the bigger threat since it is the more powerful battleship. The Emperor feels that in the end, they will be victorious. Meanwhile, Yamato has finished repairs and after receiving another partial message (which Daisuke uses to help plot their course), Yamato resumes its journey.

Thoughts/Review:

Nice to see Yuki has a new job — waitress. She’d been a coffee and beverage wench, so it isn’t surprising to see her serving food.

I believe that the space cavaliers were only supposed to have 20 survivors but the scene in the mess hall clearly showed more than 20. There were also cavaliers in sick bay too so who knows how many there actually are.

I liked how we had a brief scene showing the fleets heading to the 11th Planet. With Andromeda getting a name-drop, I’m guessing we’ll see it again in the near future.

Now, for the pièce de résistance — the space cavaliers. 😑 For starters, I understand that the writers are trying to make these guys like bastard jarheads. When I was stationed at Yokota AB, marines used to come by on weekends because the dorm I lived in had the most women in it. They would be drunk, horny, and would literally trash the place. It got so bad, our chief master sergeant ( a LARGE, muscular man with a deep, booming voice) came in one Saturday night (after we had complained about the mess they were making) and literally threw them all out. So yeah, I understand the idea of pain in the rear troops.

That said, the way the writers handled things here came off as if it were written for kindergartners. Saito does not strike me as a military leader. After all, what fool hears the alarm klaxon go off for battle stations and then says, “Give me a plane so I can fight. Yeah, I haven’t been trained but who cares — fightin’ is fightin’!” Then being rejected there, goes running off to the gun turrets and again knowing they aren’t trained says, “Duuhhhh, I can do dat, duuuuuh.” Bad, bad stuff, and made worse by the fact that he (1) complains to Sado that everyone hates him and (2) he wonders why it is OK for Sado to drink sake during combat. Complete and total crap.

Further, Saito and his men didn’t act like a group of soldiers who’d gotten their butts beaten on the 11th Planet and lost many friends and comrades. No, they get on board Yamato and start acting like the cock of the coop and that didn’t play well at all. I guess the writers want things on Yamato to not be “we are all great friends and co-workers” and thus add some conflict. However, if this is their intent, it fails simply because these soldiers don’t act like soldiers would in that situation.

So while the episode wasn’t horrible, it wasn’t that great either simply because of how the space cavaliers are being written to inject some drama into the series.