Only a year has passed since the defeat of the Gamilus Empire, and the Yamato and her crew return to the helm in this sequel to the wildly popular Japanese series.
Earth is prosperous once again, but on a routine training mission, the Yamato comes across a new enemy. Scout ships from the Comet Empire (green skinned humanoids) come across the Yamato in space and quickly attack her. Their technology is vastly superior to anything the Yamato has to offer in terms of battlements, but they escape their attackers, and head back to Earth to report this new enemy. Additionally, the Yamato is no longer the only ship in the fleet, and is vastly out gunned next to her sister ship; the Andromeda Class Battle cruiser. The Yamato crew, lead by acting captain (as he's referred to throughout the series) Kodai, are ordered to stand down and await orders, after Earth's forces have discovered a massive White Comet traveling at an incredible speed towards earth. They perform a somewhat impromptu mutiny, disobeying their Admiral's orders, and board the Yamato while she is being repaired. They are on their own, and no longer protected by Earths powerful fleet of spacecraft. They will meet with the Comet head on, and try to stop it before it reaches earth.
This series came about after a poorly received finale film (Arrivederci Yamato) was released in Japan, following the end of the original series . This film, although wildly popular in the cinema, was a surprise upset to fans of the series and fans were upset at the death of beloved characters, and the destruction of the Yamato in the previous film. So much so, that producers and studio decided to scrap the movie after its release and turn the film into another franchise series. The plots between Yamato 2 and Arrivederci Yamato are exceptionally similar of course, but the series takes a lot of different turns along the way, adding a few new characters, more battle events, and much more upbeat story line.
Where Yamato 2 excels most though is in the level and clarity of animation. Viewers are treated to more frames per second, and a lot of beautiful rendering and artwork, far better than the jumpy framework of the original series. The series runs for 500+ minutes, but only a few episodes have any real technical errors, or looped animation sequences. I was particularly impressed with the number of star-ship battles, as there are nearly twice as many in the second series.
Overall, it's an excellent sequel to the first series, although similar in plot the events are much deeper in emotional content and certainly more fun to watch.
7/10
