Space Battleship Yamato 2199

[Ithekro]

Some of the more disco-like beats seem dated, but that is about it. Tight skin female uniforms is sort of a sci-fi staple in Japan. They are lucky they aren't showing off a lot of skin. Though it might be nice for them to be in the regular uniforms, I suppose it was (A: tradition) and (B: unflatering for their figures).

The UNCF (Army) uniforms had a skirt while the UNCN (Navy) uniforms wer basically just like them men's uniform. Though what I guess in the Marines uniform has a skirt (Niimi wore a blue uniform with a skirt in Episode 2, but I think she is suppose to be in the same service as Sanada who was in green).

 

[bullethead]

Some of the more disco-like beats seem dated, but that is about it. Tight skin female uniforms is sort of a sci-fi staple in Japan. They are lucky they aren't showing off a lot of skin. Though it might be nice for them to be in the regular uniforms, I suppose it was (A: tradition) and (B: unflatering for their figures).

I think the major problem I have with the female uniforms is that there's a part that could be removed and show off the girls' cleavage. I'd been fine if they gave the girls the regular uniform shirts over the tight pants in the current uniform and make the shirts hug their curves a bit more.

 

[firehawk12]

^^^ Encouraging numbers. Although I find the English/Japanese mish-mash combinations in some of these titles quite amusing. Very "all your base"...

Yeah, 30k is pretty good in the grand scheme of things. This show may be special because of how it is being distributed, but typical shows need 5k per volume to break evenish.

I think $100+ per disc of 2 episodes is also putting a lot of people off. That price is quite patently absurd. What do they think this is, the 90's, when people had a lot more disposable income to afford it? The story has always been strong and based on many reviews I've read about it, is not only faithful to the source material but in some ways noticeably better. My bet is on the cost. It's the only reason I haven't gotten the discs as soon as they came out and I wager 500 quatloos that many others feel the same way.

Media is ridiculously expensive in Japan. That's just the way it goes. Anime more so because they know fans will pay for it if they want it and that lowering the price won't really increase sales.

 

[Ithekro]

I think the major problem I have with the female uniforms is that there's a part that could be removed and show off the girls' cleavage. I'd been fine if they gave the girls the regular uniform shirts over the tight pants in the current uniform and make the shirts hug their curves a bit more.

They could, but in the original series they never did that with Yuki. (they did other things, but never cleavage via her uniform)

Plus with the male unforms it would probably be as easy (or easier) to undo the top and show off. If I remember correctly, the original version had Kodai with his shirt open or off several times during the course of the series. Having the shirt open back then was interesting...since it usually was drawn as a pull over.

 

[sunburn800]

Japan has seen its last red cent from me, their prices on just about anything is flat out insulting.then you get to add shippping on top of it.

 

[bullethead]

Japan has seen its last red cent from me, their prices on just about anything is flat out insulting.then you get to add shippping on top of it.

I've never bothered to buy anything from Japan. As much as I'd love to support the actual people animating these shows, the Japanese DVD/BD publishers are determined to fleece their customers by providing the worst cost to entertainment ratio ever and screwing over everyone in foreign markets because they won't put up with that bullshit.

And that's not even getting into what they pull with video games.

 

[Duncan MacLeod]

The sad thing is that they really don't seem to realize how dramatically their market would increase if their prices were more in line with the rest of the world. Very short-sighted at best.

 

[Hound of UIster]

Relatively speaking, Yamato 2199 is doing well on sales.

Most anime can't get to 15,000 sales average, and Yamato has twice that.

Using older numbers, the series (as oppose to movies) from before 2011 that would beat Yamato 2199 in average dvd/bd sales are:

78380 ** Bakemonogatari
68729 13 Kidou Senshi Gundam SEED DESTINY
58589 13 Kidou Senshi Gundam SEED
46147 *9 Macross Frontier
45367 *9 Code Geass: Hangyaku no Lelouch
43064 ** K-ON!
42690 *9 Code Geass: Hangyaku no Lelouch R2
41038 *8 Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu
38514 *7 Kidou Senshi Gundam 00
36511 13 Fullmetal Alchemist
34601 *7 Kidou Senshi Gundam 00 2nd Season
32410 *2 Uchuu Senkan Yamato 2199 (currently)

Looks like it's mostly nostalgia driven.

 

[Drago-Kazov]

Could somebody tell me why Macross Frontier was never dubbed in english?

 

[lennier1]

Could somebody tell me why Macross Frontier was never dubbed in english?

Two words: Harmony Gold!

 

[Ithekro]

Macross would be expensive to get over here and dubbed. One because they are probably asking for a bunch of money, and two...Robotech. It has been said that as long as Harmony Gold owns Robotech, they will be able to keep out any dubbing of new Macross series. I'm not entirely sure that is true, but that is what is been said.


A reason the anime market is so high priced is because some forms of it are not show during commercial television hours. So it gets no money from commercial sponsors like a show would get if it was shown in prime time or even during the early morning when kids shows use to be on. Anime of this sort tends to be shown in the late night time slots that would be reserved for infomercials and the like. And basically anime are infomercials of a short. The production company spends money for the time slot and fills the commericals with their own products (model kits, figurines, DVDs, video games, and anything else they can tie into either that show or other shows the production company produces).

Yamato is in the movie theaters first, which is a new tactic. They will sell a Limited Edition BD in the theaters and later release the standard BD and DVDs. (The Limited Edition comes with more extra stuff like books, stickers, and other things that are not the BD...the BD itself is the same as the standard edition). However it was only ten theaters, so while that does get them some moeny, it isn't like a nation wide screening for months and a hundred theaters or something.

Part of the high pricing for other series is that they tend to come with extras. Special booklets, figures, or other things collectors might want. It is a collector hobby over there for the most part. The DVDs are a little cheaper sometimes, but do not have the extras (or are the same priced and have different extras). (because with the exception of things like Yamato, OVAs, and films, they can just record the shows right of the TV)

For Yamato, I think the DVD comes with less stuff so those sell less often. They are cheaper though. However for the foreign market, the BD have English subtitles. The DVDs do not (since those are Region 2).

The first BD sells on Amazon for a little over 5000 yen (with shipping it comes to about $80 USD. The rest of them have more episodes and sell for around 6000 yen (with shipping around $100 USD). So by the time the series ends, it will cost a little less than $700 USD to own. If you wait on shipping until more than one are out you might save the $20 USD each. That is assuming they don't make sequels or a prequel OVA. (There was talk of making an OVA based on the War with Gamilas to see how Earth failed and where they won a few battles before the Battle of Pluto. Also probably show when the first Iscandarian ship arrived a year before the Battle of Pluto).

The only other option, aside from finding it online someplace to watch (and it is out there), is to wait until it gets a North American release. But that will take a while since it will be some time before the series finishes at this rate (I'm guessing the series will finish around October 2013 at the current rate of release). No telling if it would get a dub or not.

 

[bullethead]

Macross would be expensive to get over here and dubbed. One because they are probably asking for a bunch of money, and two...Robotech. It has been said that as long as Harmony Gold owns Robotech, they will be able to keep out any dubbing of new Macross series. I'm not entirely sure that is true, but that is what is been said.

There's three main reasons why Macross stuff will never come out here: 1) the music rights make it too expensive, 2) Harmony Gold trademarked Macross in the west (so I'm told) and force the Japanese to go through them, and 3) the DVD boxset release of SDF Macross as Macross didn't do too well in the US.

The only other option, aside from finding it online someplace to watch (and it is out there), is to wait until it gets a North American release. But that will take a while since it will be some time before the series finishes at this rate (I'm guessing the series will finish around October 2013 at the current rate of release). No telling if it would get a dub or not.

Well, Funimation licensed the last Yamato film to be made before 2199, so there's a chance that it could get over here. Plus the company that produced Starblazers is apparently a major production partner in 2199, so it seems like a possibility that the Japanese planned for from the beginning.

 

[137th Gebirg]

^^^ That might shorten the wait time dramatically if Voyager is a stakeholder in the production. Very encouraging. Although, as was said earlier, the series won't be finished until late next year. A full box set will have to wait for at least that long - probably Q1 2014. Prequel one-off's of the events leading up to 2199 would be welcome additions.

 

[Lynn Minmay]

A bit of a delay due to out of stock's at Amazon Japan. I ended up paying about $15 more going through E-bay but the 2nd BD is finally arriving tomorrow.

 

[firehawk12]

Looks like it's mostly nostalgia driven.

I dunno, something like Eureka Seven AO isn't reach those levels, and it's the sequel to a fairly successful series from a while back.

The sad thing is that they really don't seem to realize how dramatically their market would increase if their prices were more in line with the rest of the world. Very short-sighted at best.

They're making content for Japan first though. The international market is an after thought for the most part.

 

[Ithekro]

The international market might be an afterthought, but clearly they did think of it with Yamato, else they would not have bothered with English subtitles for their Blu-Ray releases. Blu-rays that work on North American players.


They seem quite aware of Star Blazer's fandom, which has mostly coverted to Yamato fandom. It is becoming less common to see people use the name "Argo" and most publications use "Yamato" for the ship even if all the character names are still in their English dub variant. The exception to this is if something is being made "in story" where it needs to fit the existing show. Fan-comics for example. Some use "Yamato", but some use "Argo". Sometimes it depends on the writer, but other times it actually depends on how the story is to be presented.


Take the Argo Press Comics from ten years ago. Those are set during or around the Dark Nebula Empire films in after the Comet Empire War but before the Bolar Wars (between Season 2 and 3). In those they author calls the ship "Yamato" However more recently, in the Star Blazers Rebirth and Extended Bolar Wars comics, the same author uses "Argo". It fits the style better even though for just about everything else, the ship is called Yamato.


Anyway, the Japanese fandom groups (the director seems like he was part of one) are quite aware of the international fandom groups. Some of the changes to Yamato 2199 verse the orignal seem to be similar to the script changes for Star Blazers. At least so far. The reasoning for Mamoru Kodai's last stand is more in line with the Star Blazers version than the original. The robots driving the tanks is more in line with the Star Blazers script (though that was to avoid on screen violence, since it was 1979.) "Robot tanks" makes the crew's reaction to the introduction of a live Gamilon later in the show more believable. Also Analyser's unit designation "AU-09" is very, very close to the Star Blazers "IQ-9" name.


We'll see if they take the Star Blazer's reasoning on the subject of Balan when they get there verses the original reasoning. Derek Wildstar's reasons for wanting to attack a Gamilon base were a whole lot more logical and rational than Kodai's were in the orignal.

 

[Drago-Kazov]

I think Yamato might be acceptable now. He was a tragic character who warned Japan not to attack the US but followed orders anyway.

 

[137th Gebirg]

^^^ I think you're referring to Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. Slightly different spelling from Yamato but, yes, similar. He studied in the U.S. prior to the war, as did many Japanese officers at the time and he did feel the high command made a grievous error in attacking us the way they did.

 

[bullethead]

I think Yamato might be acceptable now. He was a tragic character who warned Japan not to attack the US but followed orders anyway.

^^^ I think you're referring to Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. Slightly different spelling from Yamato but, yes, similar. He studied in the U.S. prior to the war, as did many Japanese officers at the time and he did feel the high command made a grievous error in attacking us the way they did.

I think that Rei/Akira Yamamoto character might be a nod to Admiral Yamamoto, but I hear she's actually a genderbent version of a male pilot from the original Yamato continuity, so...

Anyway, I think selling this show as Yamato 2199 in the West is pretty easy, since no one but military/history buffs knows the legacy of that name. The problem might be dealing with Asian markets, since Japan has ruffled feathers by making unpopular comments about their involvement in WWII and this show might be considered nationalist by other Asians (which is unfortunate, because this is among the least nationalist anime I have seen). Really, the only thing that I can see being nationalist besides the entire crew of humanity's last best hope being Japanese (which can be rationalized in story) is the fact that Japan seemed to own an entire fleet that was operating under UN auspices. I think the producers of the show dropped the ball on that, since UN ships with all Japanese markings makes no sense except if these were old Japanese ships pressed into service by the UN really quickly.

 

[Ithekro]

The 21 Earth ships at the Battle at Pluto were all Japanese ships with Japanese names. However they were all old ships by this point in the war (the battleship and cruisers were from the 2170s). It is stated that this was all Earth had left. If all they have left is nearly 30 year old Japanese warships after fighting the Gamilas for 8 years, that means everyone else's fleets have been destroyed and Earth's last gasp is basically a self defense fleet from a second or third line navy.

There is backstory about another space war between Earth and Mars. One assumes that is were the UN forces using different nations ships comes from. We know the Earth (or Mars) had a mining base on a moon of Saturn, so by the late 2100s humans have expanded into the solar system quite deeply. The Gamilas attacking would unite humanity against a common foe, but the Gamilas have major techological advantages. The Earth may have had numerical advantages early in the war, but by Pluto, the Earth Fleet was outnumbered at least 6 to 1. The only victory that we've been told about in Operation K-2 (the Second Battle at Mars) under Admiral Okita (the hero of the Second Battle at Mars). Yet we don't know a lot about that save that it was a costly victory. The Earth fleet turned away the Gamilas advance. The Earth ships uses their new bow mounted Shock Cannons to do damage to the Gamilas ships. The results was the stepping up of the long range planet bombing siege of Earth, instead of a direct attack or invasion.

The war pretty much equalizes the surviving nations of Earth it seems. With Japan, under the Far East Regional Command, having the only two known warships left (Kirishima and Yamato) they have a leg up when Earth recovers. But the UN is still in charge, and judging by the power grids the EU and United States still have the largest amount of reserves, though I image they were targeted first by the Gamilas to remove their space forces early.

By 2201, if things go as it did before, the Flagship Andromeda could be anyone's design, but the most experiance surviving flag officer is Hijikata. The new Earth fleet could have been built by the Americans for all we know.