Uchuu Senkan Yamato
Space Battleship Yamato

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Before I even get into the review, I have to mention the other reviews, because they're wrong; this series is a manga adaptation of the anime, not the other way around. So, because this series is a drawn version of the anime, the pacing is weird, the story is scattered, and the ending is just a random spot where the publisher (or artist, I'm not entirely sure), decided to stop the manga and call it a day.

My 6 rating is because the story of yamato is fantastic, and the art in this is passable enough to make it readable. However, I would not recommend ... buying this novel set because the art is a bit blurry, and it feels like, as a whole, the the manga is not of a high quality (which goes back to it being a physical adaptation of an animated series).

I wouldn't recommend reading it online either. Your best course of action, if you're interested in the series, is to simply watch the anime.

Space Battleship Yamato, a classic that shaped Japanese military sci-fi fiction, a work that would later me remade and reimagined many times, her is where it began. Question is, how well did it age?

Among the first things that one could notice is that the original manga has only 3 volumes, while the first adaptation has 26 episodes. While I haven’t seen the anime yet, I can say that the manga does feel a bit bare-bone, like a draft for future works. There is a feel of absence of “fillers”, something to add between the start of the journey and its end. The plot is too ... streamlined, and in this case some extra material would be welcomed.

The world-building also lacks, as the reader is told only very little details when being thrown into a story, which feels like a part of larger franchise instead of an isolated story. Well, to be fair it later became a larger franchise, but chronologically speaking when released, it lacked. The end too feels abrupt and non-concluding, which is the main reason I have given it only 6 out of 10.

That said, it certainly wasn’t a bad read and I was entertained by it, it’s just that this title should be seen as more of a prototype. Which is even a reason to read it, its historical significance as a point of origin. The art also isn't bad in any way, it's simple yet effective.

This classic, unfortunately didn't age very well, it has some of the times mannerisms (some characters are much archetypes than real human beings and the comedic moments dont pay off), and, for me, the worst part is that it seems that important chunks of the story were missing (for example: a major conflict in the first volume ending was completely cut, showing just his end result), it feel like watching one of the Zeta Gundam movies, where big part of the story were cut in order to fit in a movie format, and, as a consequence the narrative was compromised. I still think that the ... manga is worth reading for historical purposes, but I wouldn't it will be a very pleasant reading.

I think this is a fun manga to read if you go into it with appropriate caveats. Without any spoilers, these are as follows:

- It is hard science fiction with dated humor (this doesn't mean it doesn't work though). You have to accept what is happening and going on at face value.

- The story is not complete. Probably due to how it was serialized and its release alongside the show version, the three parts are not themselves complete nor does it conclude in an overall story arch. Story 1 kind of "wraps up" but is missing quite a bit at the end - it gives ... you a conclusion as an "after the event" situation - but you have to just accept that all those events got wrapped up. Story 2 and 3 are connected, with a better pacing but an even worse "ending" - as in there is none. The last two chapters have continuity issues and it just kind of ends. Some people are much more unhappy with the open ended/uncompleted story aspect of certain manga - and if so you will not find this to be a 7/10.

With those caveats aside, if you are willing to accept them it is a fun manga with great art. The story is engaging enough, and the characters are fun. It is still a 70/80s manga, which means it isn't a deep story masterpiece like a lot of manga are shooting for today. It is more along the lines of a fun scifi comic run. The art really appealed to me, and the characters/humor worked for me. About as much as I can cover without any spoilers! If the story was more overarching completed and didn't do some scene jumping, it would be a firm 8/10.

People who enjoy vintage sci-fi will enjoy this. I'm not saying this is the greatest or even the most entertaining manga ever, but it is one that feels quintessential of the time period. One of those things where reading it almost transports you back to the 70s. I can hear Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Aerosmith, AC/DC and The Rolling Stones in these pages. I can imagine being a child reading this and going in line to see Star Wars. As it is about 50 years old, there are some things that don't necessarily age well in that it has a simple good guys vs. bad ... guys with nothing really complex about it. I was also caught a bit off guard when this manga also felt more like a pilot for the mega franchise it spawned in particularly in its non-ending. The pacing doesn't give the audience any room to breathe and kind of jumps around. Nonetheless I enjoy the characters. They are mostly archetypes of 70s sci fi characters and some don't quite standout but the main cast is iconic. The best aspect is the art. Where Leiji Matsumoto feels limited in his writing, he more than makes up in his art. Some battles a little difficult to make heads or tails of, but he knows how to make the universe seem big. He draws space as more than just a black background. He also presents interesting concepts of space travel such as warping which puts the ship through portals to weave through showcasing more world building. People who only follow the trendy manga like Chainsaw Man and My Hero Academia may not find much of value here, but the ones who like studying the history of manga and reading the foundationals such as Astro Boy, Golgo 13 or Lupin III will also enjoy checking this out.

Besides being obviously outdated, which can't be helped, it feels weak even accounting for that.
It could be nice for an easily impressed kid that loves space exploration, but then the manga format and the length doesn't help much on it being lively for anyone younger than your grandpa.

Manga is well-illustrated and printed in excellent paper (newpop prime PT-BR), and can be a window to the past regarding art style and what people of that time expected for the future. So it could actually be used in art studies/references in some very specific cases.
"Battles" feels off and dead, it doesn't capture the movements too well.
Character ... proportions are off-putting and not constant, to say the least. Sometimes they're ok, in other's a captain has a head-to-body proportion of a young child. I'm not sure if in a particular scene it was on purpose or not, but I imagine it makes more sense just being a mistake.
Plot is weak, which is understandable since the original was a tv show and it focused on action and speech, which weren't properly made impactful in the manga.
Translation was ok, but feels like source material was weak.
Immersion is broken by mixing different units, authors not knowing that in a tridimensional space you need two angles and one distance, extremely generic names for places and technologies (which is a residual from an tv show, understandable).

So not recommended, unless it's a gift for someone that already watched on TV and you want to gift it out of their nostalgia...

Review based on newpop prime's version in Brazilian-portuguese.