Being a fan of Manga I'm always interested in the crossover between Anime Manga and live action. Space Battleship Yamato started life as a Japanese childrens animated SF adventure in the mid/late 70s (I think, may be a little later). Anyway, the thrust of this thread is the 2010 live action reimagining of the original.

The film was released at Xmas 2010 in Japan and it kicked the living quidditch out of the Harry Potter movie at the box office. Japanese sources raved about the film, I was drooling, just wainting for the DVD to be released as a cinematic release in this neck of the woods was unthinkable. In the new year I discovered that the DVD release was set for end of June, I was delighted.

So, the release date arrives, I eagerly browse all the SF DVD stockists and heard absolutely nothing. Well, not quite, Things From Another World kindly wrote back to confirm they would not be stocking the item. Doh.

So I retired to the pub to console myself with beer, only to find that my good friend and partner in crime Pattenicus had that very morning decided to download the film from a streaming site. Seems crime does pay afterall. Anyway, on to the film...

OK, so we didn't have any subtitles and it's been many years since my last nightschool class in conversational Japanese, but it did not diminish our enjoyment of the film in anyway. It is a BIG SF film, huge shooty spacewar stuff, lasers, alien spaceships and, most magnificent of all, the eponymous battleship. Admittedly there were long passages of dialogue which we had to improvise over (the grog helped with that) and much was indeed lost in our translation. Maybe when I do get to see the subtitled version I will enjoy it more, though I doubt it. A cinematic treat, well worth the cost of a download (not that I countenance such things).