The second season of Space Battleship Yamato was a definite improvement over the original, while the story’s more or less the same, that story being the Yamato, the same one used by the IJN, underwent renovation to make it suitable for combat in space, by just kind of flying out of the ocean in pristine condition, and it is humanity’s last hope, and the Yamato must travel to a distant planet to find a mysterious woman and avert complete destruction by an evil empire. And that’s what they do, with how much the story is practically a rehash of the original, it seems strange tome that rather than seeking out the mysterious woman because she holds something that they need in order to live, they just do it because, apparently, if some voice over the space-radio tells you that it needs help, then you have to help, even if it’s light years away. Additionally, I rather liked how Gamilus, the Space Nazis from last time, needed to take Earth in order to live themselves, which gives them a little bit more depth than Gatlantis, who are just plainly evil and conquer everything because that’s just what evil people do.

If we actually look at the Yamato itself, it’s got some definite peculiarities, since you’d think that the Earth Defense Force would only make sure the very best are onboard, but the opposite seems to be true, you’ve got Kodai, Shima, Yuki, and Tokugawa, but everyone else seems to be complete muppets, it is a bit peculiar that, to give one example, the only doctor they could find to board the Yamato is perpetually drunk, but that is something I can perhaps dismiss since it’s being used for comic relief, what I can’t really overlook is Saito and the Space Marines under his command, who are about as well disciplined as the Chinese army in the 1890s, in other words, as undisciplined as conceivably possible, and Saito’s the worst of the lot, he should’ve been court-martialled after about 2 episodes, maybe if it was one incident I’d not make a big deal out of it, but for basically the whole season he just dosses about and compromises the rest of the Yamato, countless times, he gets to redeem himself exactly twice, but, point is, while not everyone has to be Duke Nukem (who should be here considering the existence of the EDF), it’s strange that the majority of the Yamato’s crewmen seem to be some of the most undesirable personnel imaginable. The size of the Yamato itself is a bit strange, since it looks about as large as the real Yamato (i.e. the size of an actual battleship), but it seems to have enough spare parts knocking about to repair it getting critically damaged any number of times, not to mention, the fact that at one point they said it had 3,000 Cosmo Tiger fighters, which is quite a fucking lot, and, more importantly than that, the presence of any fighters at all means that they turned the Yamato into a hermaphrodite battleship, what happened to death before dishonour?

But, that doesn’t matter, the story’s more or less the same as the last one, and there are some peculiarities, but this is also about the IJN Yamato flying out of the ocean to fight Space Nazis, so it clearly isn’t too big of a deal, the point that really determines if it’s any good or not are the moment-to=moment setpieces, how the space voyages go, and they go very well, the combat is certainly good, and in many instances the Yamato’s ways of getting out of things are a lot more intelligent than I’ve come to expect from the sci-fi genre, and plenty is shown from the perspective of Gatlantis, who’ve now got Desler on their side, and while the strategies are perfectly good from both sides, they do give a very good look at how things are going internally, with various factions developing within who attempt to discredit or usurp the other for various reasons, which just adds another layer to things. In the very beginning when the EDF are of importance there’s some interesting bits about the problems inherent in leaving war in the hands of bureaucrats, but there’s also the fact having a CiC Saito would be a disaster, it displays a conflict of ideals that can’t be resolved, and it’d have been interesting if this was a central theme, but it never really comes up again.

The animation is also far better than it previously was, it’s certainly got its issues, it’s obviously not quite up to modern standards, and sometimes the lip syncing isn’t actually in sync, and some movements will look a bit off, or a few other things here and then in that manner, but on the whole, it looks consistently good, and the action, the core of the series, holds up equally well, and the visuals of the Yamato and the various computers and radar systems are quite advanced, as well, all very well done.
Overall, the second season of Space Battleship Yamato is a definite improvement over the first, it (effectively) tells the same story, but with a great improvement to the visuals, characters, and writing, and on the whole, this produces a considerably better experience, while it might not be perfect, it’s not bad in the slightest.