Space Battleship Yamato 2 20
Uchuu Senkan Yamato 2 Episode 20
宇宙戦艦ヤマト2 Ep. 20 (TV, Anime)

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Earth President receives a briefing from the military while Earth Defense Force Fleet Commander Hijikata summons all of his captains for a briefing on the situation and the forthcoming battle. Afterward, he summons Susumu, where he has a special mission for the captain of the Yamato. Since the enemy fleet is divided with the battleship fleet taking point and the carrier fleet (with escorts) a distance behind. Hijikata knows that the enemy can wipe them out if the carriers launch their planes. The Earth fleet will be severely damaged and by the time the enemy battleships arrive, all they’ll have to do is mop up. So Susumu is ordered to take the Earth carriers, find the enemy carriers, and destroy them before they can launch.

Susumu briefs his crew on this and takes his fleet to Iapetus. He dispatches two of his own fighter squadrons to search for the enemy carriers while Sanada and Analyzer take a scout craft to search. After some time exploring the region around Saturn, Sanada flies to Phoebe where they find the enemy fleet. After reporting this to Yamato, Susumu orders his carriers to launch their planes for attack. At that time, Admiral Gerun is getting ready to execute Admiral Balsey’s order to attack the Earth fleet at Saturn and he is stunned that his fleet is under attack. Because the carriers were bringing bomber craft to the deck, no fighters were ready to defend them. Admiral Gerun reports the surprise attack to Balsey, who won’t change his plans because of this.

The Earth planes begin damaging and destroying the enemy carriers, having been ordered to ignore the escort ships and concentrate on making sure no carrier can launch any planes. This the Earth planes do quite well, even destroying several carriers in the process. Susumu, who’d joined the other fighters, orders Sanada, who’s back on Yamato, to take Yamato and destroy all surviving carriers. Seeing the battle is lost, Admiral Gerun commits suicide. News of the carrier fleets annihilation is reported to Admiral Balsey. Despite this loss, Balsey feels the Earth fleet is no match for him. Hijikata also gets the news of the enemy carriers destruction and orders Susumu and his fleet to come home. Susumu plans to do just that, attacking the enemy’s rear while Hijikata meets the enemy head-on.

Thoughts/Review:

This episode was enjoyable from a certain tactic perspective. Balsey’s plan of attack made sense seeing as how he expected the Earth force to simply wait for the attack. Balsey keeps his carrier fleet and escort protection back to avoid direct combat, then those same carriers will have their planes soften up and cripple the defending fleets, after which, Balsey’s forward battleship fleet mops up and moves to Earth. Hijikata realizing that the best defense is a good offense did the right thing and caught the enemy with its pants down. Now that the enemy carrier fleet is gone, Susumu can take his carrier fleet with Yamato and hammer Balsey from the rear while Hijikata hits from the front. Goodbye enemy fleet.

The one thing that was eye-rolling was Susumu running off to join the fight in his special fighter. He’s the captain of the Yamato and as such, that’s where he should remain, like it or not. He didn’t even leave anyone in charge. That’s almost as stupid as something that gorilla Saito would do.

Unfortunately, the title for the next episode pretty much spoils what will happen there. Oh well. I’ll watch anyway to see what happens, though I expect Balsey to be wiped out, then the White Comet to be destroyed somehow, after which that idiot Desler will make his final attack before being defeated.