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Space Battleship Yamato 2202 Anime Previews 1st Film in New Trailer

The official website for the Uchū Senkan Yamato 2202: Ai no Senshi-tachi (Space Battleship Yamato 2202: Warriors of Love or Star Blazers 2202: Warriors of Love) anime sequel project began streaming a new 60-second trailer on Friday for the project's first chapter.

The anime features the following returning cast from Space Battleship Yamato 2199:

• Daisuke Ono as Susumu Kodai
• Houko Kuwashima as Yuki Mori
• Houchu Ohtsuka as Shiro Sanada
• Mugihito as Hikozaemon Tokugawa
• Kenji Akabane as Yasuo Nanbu
• Masato Kokubun as Yoshikazu Aihara

New cast members include:

• Kenjiro Tsuda as Isami Enomoto (replacing Keiji Fujiwara)
• Hiroshi Kamiya as Klaus Keyman
• Masaki Terasoma as Lauren Barel
• Hideaki Tezuka as Zordar
• Sayaka Kanda as the "legendary goddess" Teresa

The anime's story is set in the year 2202, three years after the Yamato's return from the planet Iscandar. The people of Earth restored their planet with the Cosmo Reverse System, and they signed a peace treaty with Garmillas. In addition to reconstruction, Earth developed a new defense fleet that includes the state-of-the-art battleship Andromeda. The Earth goes down a path of military expansion, despite Starsha Iscandar's wishes. The Yamato helps accomplish this so-called peace, but it comes at the price of many invaluable sacrifices. The goddess Teresa, who prays for tranquility in space, calls the Yamato to a new voyage. The threat of Gatlantis is sweeping over the universe and approaching Earth.

The project is a seven-part theatrical anime project, and the first film will premiere on February 25. The film will screen in a two-week limited engagement in 15 theaters in Japan. The film's limited edition Blu-ray Disc will go on sale on the same day at the theaters that are screening the film.

The first film is also getting a simultaneous digital release on February 25 on Amazon Video, Tsutaya TV, Hikari TV, PlayStation Video, bonobo, and Rakuten Showtime for a fee. The film will then be available to rent digitally starting on March 11, and then will ship on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on March 24.

Nobuyoshi Habara (Fafner and Fafner EXODUS director, episode director and storyboard writer for Star Blazers 2199) is directing the new anime, and Harutoshi Fukui (Mobile Suit Gundam UC original novel writer, screenplay for Harlock: Space Pirate) is writing and overseeing the scripts. The late Yoshinobu Nishizaki is credited with the original work, and his son Shoji Nishizaki (Star Blazers 2199 planning, producer for Space Battleship Yamato Resurrection) is the executive producer.

Additionally, Makoto Kobayashi is serving as assistant director, and Junichiro Tamamori and Yasushi Ishizu are the mechanical designers. Nobuteru Yuki is the character designer, and Akira Miyagawa is composing the music.

The Space Battleship Yamato 2199 series is a remake of the original 1974 Space Battleship Yamato series created by Leiji Matsumoto and Yoshinobu Nishizaki. The series first premiered in Japan as a series of seven movies shown theatrically in Japan from 2012 to 2013, each containing four episodes' worth of runtime (except for the first movie, which only shows the first and second episode). The series then began airing on Japanese television in April 2013. A compilation film of the series opened in Japan in October 2014 with the title Uchū Senkan Yamato 2199: Tsuioku no Kōkai (Space Battleship Yamato 2199: Voyage of Remembrance), and a new film that continues the story opened in Japan in December 2014, with the title Uchū Senkan Yamato 2199: Hoshi-Meguru Hakobune (Space Battleship Yamato 2199: Star-Voyaging Ark).

The original Space Battleship Yamato anime was adapted for American television in 1979 as Star Blazers.