2012's Yamato Will Be Space Battleship Yamato 2199

[darkyamato]

Over the weekend, I found out from Anime News Network that the upcoming 2012 "Space Battleship Yamato" anime will be a television series titled "Space Battleship Yamato 2199". It is currently being produced by XEBEC and Anime International Company (or simply "AIC") and planned as a basic retelling of the first "Space Battleship Yamato" T.V. series' plot with its first two episodes to be joined together as a 50-minute preview to be screened in Japanese theaters on April 7, 2012. It's director is Yutaka Izubichi of "RahXephon" fame and its character designer is Nobuteru Yuki, who worked on the character designs for "Vision of Escaflowne" (1996) and "Space Pirate Captain Herlock: Endless Odyssey" (2002).

Not the new SBY anime I was expecting, but I guess it's better than no SBY at all. Also, from what I've seen in the trailer, it is looking to keep some nostalogic anime value through mecha designs.

[shantastic]

I was a little disappointed when watching the small amount of footage that the character designs look pretty much like any other anime out there. There was very little Matsumoto-style in the very quick looks we saw (Yuki had a little.) A little surprising considering Nobutero Yuki did an amazing Matsumoto-style update when he did, "Captain Herlock: Endless Odyssey."

I'm sure it may have been a conscious choice to take it in a new direction considering this is from Nishizaki's company & not Matsumoto's, but as a huge fan of Matsumoto's it is a little bit of a disappointment (I had always wished that a remake could have been done using the Studio DNA boys who did all the cut scenes from the Playstation games.)

But alas, it is too early to pass judgement on this, so I'm just excited to have a new interpretation to the classic series brought back to life. Yamato fans have been really rewarded with some awesome gifts these past few years and it continues.