Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato:
In the Name of Love (1978)
Review by Dindrane
Film:
DVD:

Features:

• Original trailer
  
• Gallery
  
• Original program book with text translation
  
• Making-of movie
  
• Cast interview
  
• Japanese audio
  
• English subtitles
  

Dindrane's Anime Warnings:

• Naked energy woman
• Sadness and sacrifice

Released by: Voyager Entertainment
Rating: NR, safe for most ages
Region: 1
Anamorphic: N/A; appears in its original 1.33:1 format

My Advice: At least rent it. Just see it once.

This film is set one year after the war with Gamilus, and Earth has been rebuilding and starting the slow process of recovering. But now there’s a new enemy—the evil Comet Empire has been enslaving and/or destroying entire planets, and now they’ve set their sights on Earth. The new spaceship Andromeda has been built with Iscandar technology and is Earth’s new hope for a bright future, meaning that the Yamato is about to be decommissioned and turned into a museum. Just then, a mysterious, garbled message arrives warning Earth of danger and begging for help. At the same time, a new quasar appears on the celestial horizon. The Yamato takes off to investigate the danger and encounters a new enemy and an old one. Meanwhile, the Andromeda fights off some early Comet Empire ships but discovers a terrible secret. When the entire Earth Defense Force is destroyed and the Yamato returns to Earth, Our Heroes might find that saving your home can exact a terrible price.

This film was later expanded into the second Yamato TV series, but here we have it as the Japanese market originally saw it. The plot is complex enough to satisfy, not to mention engaging and moving. I am very pleased to see this uncut movie finally available, as the earlier hacked to pieces VHS release wasn’t worthy of this tale of heroism and desperation. If you’ve grown fond of the Yamato and her crew or the Star Blazers saga, then you’ll be well satisfied with this version.

The audio is decent for this release given that the original is nearly thirty years old, but the down side is that there is no English dub available, so fans who hate to read movies and don’t know Japanese are out of luck. It’s a good enough film that such people should still give this one a view, but they probably won’t want to buy it. It’s also not stereo, so get used to mono-directional sound. The video is showing its age, but the colors are still bright enough and the art is engaging. Just cut it a little slack, and you’ll probably be pleasantly surprised with how good it looks.

The extras are quite nice for this release. We get scans of the original program book to start with, each page translated for us. It says that there is a detail option to show close-ups of each page, but I didn’t see that on the actual scan pages. It is still a nice option though and plays into the next special feature, the gallery. This is a great way to show off the distinctive and attractive art. There are also interviews with the various cast members, which is always great, and a short making-of movie that will explain a bit more about how this movie fits into anime history.

In short, this is a fine enough film that every anime fan should see it at least once, but the lack of a good English dub will bug many viewers. Pay your homage to the crew of the Yamato and see this one…but don’t worry—this movie actually gave rise to more movies and seasons, so there’s more to come. Yamato, take off.