Uchuu Senkan Yamato Episode 19
宇宙戦艦ヤマト Ep. 19 (TV, Anime)

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Chief Communications Officer Aihara is experiencing some symptoms and goes to see Sado-sensei. The doctor finds nothing physically wrong with Aihara but determines that the man is suffering from stress. He sends Aihara to see Yuki for some rest and relaxation time. In the hologram room, Yuki sets up Aihara’s favorite music and starts a holographic program in which a snowy area on Earth is revealed. A cabin is soon shown and Aihara sees his elderly mother. However, because she is only a hologram, he cannot touch her and breaks down in tears about the falseness of it all.

Meanwhile, communications with Earth are somehow restored despite the great distance where Captain Okita communicates with the head of the Yamato project. After they have a polite conversation where Okita gives an ETA on Yamato‘s return and learns that Earth has not suffered any more meteor attacks, Okita ends the call. Aihara enters the Communication Room hysterical, saying that their mission is a fool’s errand since they have no guarantee of succeeding. Further, he states that there are riots on Earth daily amongst other problems. He then collapses and has to be carried away.

The captain invites the heads of various departments to the Captain’s Mess to thank them for their efforts while he’s been ill. Daisuke states that what Aihara said earlier has been bothering him and he wonders if things are really hopeless. Captain Okita calmly tells Daisuke and the others that they should believe in the cause and just take one step at a time. With that, the meal carries on in silence.

That night, Aihara gets up and relieves the officer on duty in the Communications Room. He then establishes communications with Earth and his mother, whom he’d given a special transmitter to. The food riots on Earth continue and his father decided to participate but ended up in the hospital. His father comes to just long enough to see his son and say his name a few times before passing away. Susumu enters the Communications Room and realizes that Aihara’s unauthorized comm traffic to Earth is the cause of his depression. When threatened with having this reported to the Captain, Aihara attacks Susumu and flees.

Aihara comes to the bridge where Daisuke is on watch. He tearfully pleads with Daisuke to turn the ship around so that they can return to Earth and die there rather than in space. Naturally, Daisuke refuses, so Aihara flees. Susumu comes to the bridge only to learn that Aihara has left. On the flight deck, the officer on watch there, Kato, sees someone there and calls it in to Susumu. However, they are unable to snare Aihara as he dons a spacesuit and flees the ship.

On Balan, General Domel is asked by an aid if he isn’t taking the Yamato situation too lightly. Domel feels that he can smash Yamato when they are surprised by the base on Balan. However, to help reduce moral on the Yamato, Domel has deployed a relay probe behind Yamato which is why the ship has been able to communicate with Earth. With the hopelessness of Earth revealed, Domel figures Yamato to be easier to deal with.

Meanwhile, Aihara is having hallucinations that he can see Earth. He ends up drifting into the Gamilus communication probe and realizes that this is why Yamato could talk with Earth and that he fell into the trap. Elsewhere, Yamato has stopped and the Black Tigers are out looking for Aihara. Susumu finds him on the probe and after rescuing Aihara, he has Aihara pull the trigger to destroy the communication platform.

Thoughts/Review:

There were again hints of Captain Okita not being well this episode with him being assisted into the Communications Room as well as the scene in the Captain’s Mess. So maybe the writers are going to do something with that storyline.

Yuki gets to be moral officer this week and fails. Well, she be perfect at every job now can she? ^_~ She attempts to make up for it with a fanservice shot in her see-through negligee though.

The writers came up with a clever means of allowing us (and the crew of the Yamato) to get an update from Earth. Initially, I’m thinking, “What the heck is this? How can Yamato have communications with Earth in real-time?” Learning that it was done via a Gamilus communication platform gave it an element of believability.

Despite this, I didn’t care for Aihara at all. I understand what the writers were trying to accomplish and they did communicate the unspoken moral issues on the ship. That didn’t make me feel anything for Aihara.

I’m hoping that with the next episode, the story moves to the conflict with the Gamilon forces on Balan because things just plod along kind of slowly.