Star Blazers: Space Battleship Yamato 2199 (Blu-ray) Unboxing

Star Blazers: Space Battleship Yamato 2199 (Uchū Senkan Yamato 2199) is a 2012 theatrical anime film series that remakes the classic Space Battleship Yamato series directed by Leiji Matsumoto and written by Yoshinobu Nishizaki. The anime series is animated by studios AIC and Xebec with the film format re-edited into television episodes around the same time as its theatrical release and published by Voyager Entertainment.

Background:

“Earth is on the verge of complete annihilation. Threatened by an intergalactic superpower known as Gamilas, humankind’s last hope for survival depends upon the generous assistance of another alien civilization – Iscandar. The Space Battleship Yamato – manned by a skilled, motivated crew and with advanced tech at its core – has only one year to seek out this planet and recover a device that could revitalize Earth. But Gamilan interference, dangerous cosmic phenomena, and conflict among the officers will test the whole of humanity’s resolve.”
Plot Synopsis via Manga Entertainment, June 2020

This is probably one of the few anime that I never would have thought would see a release in the UK due to its history of releases. Yamato has been with Voyager Entertainment for years and it actually did get an English release, but as a import style set with the episodes split across multiple volumes (about seven in total) and was subtitled only with the authoring done by Justin Sevakis. Though these releases were short-lived, the Japanese Blu-ray Box did include English subtitles.

Eventually out of nowhere, Funimation announced they acquired the English speaking rights and made it available on Crunchyroll subbed and Funimation dubbed. Though for the UK & Ireland, we never got access to the subbed version until the Crunchyroll x Funimation partnership ended and the subbed version was made available on Funimation. Funimation also acquired the rights to the show’s sequel Yamato 2202.

When Manga Entertainment was acquired by Funimation, they were able to release a bunch of their titles which included Yamato 2199 and this time as a complete series collection. The US did get a limited edition release but those were designed for the two-part sets and it is no longer in print.

Regular Edition & On-Disc Contents:

Distributor: Manga Entertainment
Released: 29th June 2020

Star Blazers: Space Battleship Yamato 2199 contains the entire series (episodes 1-26) across four Blu-ray discs using the Funimation author (though the work done for the subtitles and video quality has been carried over by the localised Voyager Blu-ray sets).

The audio options available include the Japanese language with English subtitles and the Funimation English dub. The white subtitles are locked during playback and the Blu-ray discs are region locked to B for Blu-ray players.

Blu-ray Specs:

Languages	English, Japanese
Audio	English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Japanese Dolby TrueHD 2.0
Video	1080p High Definition Native format 16:9 aspect ratio
Region	B
Subtitles	English
Locked Subtitles	Yes
Discs	4