- The very first moment of awesome comes in the first episode with this exchange.Radio operator of the Kirishima: "The Gamilan fleet is demanding our surrender. What do I tell them?"
Okita: "Nuts
."
Radio operator of the Kirishima: "What?"Okita: "Tell them: nuts!"- Which gets even more awesome in the Funimation dub by one simple thing... It's translated almost verbatim, as the Historical In-Joke it's meant to be.
- Mamoru Kodai's Heroic Sacrifice, especially if compared to the original version. In the original he did it out of Honor Before Reason, and only fired a couple missiles before being blown out of the sky. In this version, he not only did it to cover Okita's retreatnote , but he charged at full speed at the Gamilas fleet firing like a madman, causing the Gamilas ships to hit each other and get out of position to chase Okita before a lucky shot got his ship. Also, he and his crew were singing a cheerful song about reaching Alpha Centauri all the time.
- And right before his sacrifice, Mamoru gets one by bushwhacking a destroyer making a run at Okita's ship, scoring the only confirmed onscreen kill for the humans of the entire battle.
- And that lucky shot? They got him only because he had slowed down to turn and make another passage.
- The Gamilans being sore losers, they one-up him in episode 11, when Domel's fleet perform a very similar manouver with an entire naval division of destroyers, heavy cruisers, high speed cruisers and at least one battlecruiser. Needless to say, the poor enemy, a fleet of the White Comet Empire, gets annihilated.
- And to rub salt in the wound further; the White Comet Empires' own theme was playing as they were being destroyed.
- The Yamato gets jumped by Domel's whole fleet and has to fight its way out. On their route lies Domel's Dreadnought Flagship. Already damaged and low on power, they can't penetrate its armor on normal ranges. They then proceed to ram it, scrape alongside its length, blasting all the while point black with one of the main gun towers. From the look in his face, even Domel considered this as awesome.
- Also, Domel being there at all. First, he had his men torment the Yamato for a while until she reached a certain place, then forced them to go at warp and, knowing that the Yamato could emerge only in one of five places due a pulsar, he guarded all of them, and as soon as she was in one of five places he had the rest of his ships move in for the kill. Had he been dealing with a lesser enemy, he would have won then and there, and with ease. Even then, he was still about winning (after admitting that the Yamato is a Worthy Opponent, even before the ramming attack), but he was recalled just as he prepared to unleash the coup de grace.
- The Yamato surviving episode 8. Before them lies a star, behind them, courtesy of Deslar, there's a gaseous thing that will absorb the Yamato if it touches her and Shultz with his battleship (both to deliver Deslar's gift and to make sure the Yamato can't escape), and everywhere else there's an artificial sunstorm that will destroy the ship if they go anywhere else. How do they survive? Easy: flying near the star, to the point of grazing the corona. Thus, the star absorbs the gaseous thing and kills Shultz when he tries to finish the Yamato, and they survive the star's corona by shooting at it with the Wave-Motion Gun, thus opening a path in the same plasma tendril that destroyed Shultz's ship. By surviving all of that (and a trap organized by Deslar himself), the Yamato got promoted from "plaything" (in fact Deslar was treating Shultz's transmission as an entertainment) to Worthy Opponent. And got Domel sicked on them.
- Also, the death of Shultz and his subordinates. After the gaseous thing got destroyed, their direct superior Goer was berating them when Ganz, Shultz's second in command, cuts the transmission and smile, after which they charge at the Yamato aiming to either destroy her with gunfire, throwing her in the star or ramming it (survival was not important, only taking down the Yamato), and when they saw that the Yamato had escaped and they were about to be hit by the plasma tendril they simply wished long life to their home planet, facing the plasma until it hit them. Not only did Dessler honour them by giving them a posthumous promotion of two ranks (thus putting Shultz above Goer), naming their families as honorary citizens (of higher social status than pureblooded Gamilas citizens) and cutting off Goer's transmission when he tried to blame them for the failure, but this drove home that Shultz, Ganz and their subordinates are not the jokes they were in the original series.
- In his first appearance on screen, Domel is seen annihilating a fleet of the Comet Empire. The Casual Danger Dialogue between him and his immediate subordinates implies it's not the first time. You can see it here in all its glory.
- And the BGM? Its title is "White Comet (Disco)". That's right: Domel is so awesome he can use the enemy theme song as his own Theme Music Power-Up.
- Add to fact that he's facing against the guys who constitute as the series' Space Mongols. Yes, the most feared race in the universe gets their asses kicked thoroughly.
- At the end of episode 16, Yuki, Kodai, Shima and Hoshina are fighting the mutinied security, but even with Itou disarmed and Niimi unwilling to go over the Moral Event Horizon they're outnumbered and outgunned. Things look bleak... Then Okita shows up and calls Itou an idiot, and the mutiny ends that very moment.
- Itou knew it would have happened, so he had two of his men keeping Okita, Sato and Makoto confined in Okita's room. We don't know how it happened, but Sato and Makoto overpowered the larger and armed guards.
- Episode 19 has not been released yet as this is written, but the next episode trailer for it shows that Domel and the Yamato crew will still have their ultimate Moment of Awesome the attack of the teleporting starfighters that nearly destroys the Yamato, and the crew not only surviving but annihilating his carriers.
- Episode 19 confirms it, showing the preparations of Domel's task force composed by his flagship fitted with the teleporters and four carriers crewed by young recruits and recalled veterans, plus a group of volunteers from Zalts with a special task: board the Yamato with Frakken's help and kidnap Yurisha.
- In the same episode, the Yamato has to choose between passing through the navigational hazards of the Rainbow Cluster or travel around it. Okita decides to pass through it to spare time, reasoning the enemy wouldn't expect something that crazy and keeping the ship at full alert in case the enemy actually ambushes them there (what he expects to happen if the Gamilas commander of the ambush near the neutron star managed to get back). Domel goes there to wait for him, because Okita is the kind of man he thinks he is, and is the Gamilas commander of that ambush.
- Episode 20 finally has the Battle of the Rainbow Cluster. The awesomeness defies words, so we'll just say the result: after the toughest battle in the series, the Yamato destroys the carrier and survives Domel's final Suicide Attack, but the commandos have kidnapped Yuki (who they believed being Yurisha) and delivered her to Wolf Frakken, who escapes with the prize. That, and one single moment: one of the old veterans, discharged due old age before being recalled, muzzled the Wave-Motion Gun and nearly destroyed the ship with a repurposed drill for asteroid mining, only for Niimi and Analyzer to commandeer it and use it to destroy two carriers, including the one that had launched the bomber that fired the drill. The only reason this is not spoilered is that it comes straight from the original series, so you should already know of it...
- The muzzling of the Wave-Motion Gun is such an epic moment that, in spite of the many changes, the movie had it too.
- Some more awesomeness for the staff, for making the awesome moment of the original series even more awesome.
- Episode 19 confirms it, showing the preparations of Domel's task force composed by his flagship fitted with the teleporters and four carriers crewed by young recruits and recalled veterans, plus a group of volunteers from Zalts with a special task: board the Yamato with Frakken's help and kidnap Yurisha.
- Episode 17 has an Heroic Sacrifice for Sanada: to activate the portal that will allow the Yamato to skip 30,000 light years, he needs to stay in a control room that will be saturated with neutrons, killing him... And he does just that. More awesomeness ensues when Sanada subverts it: there was a pool in the room, and, knowing that neutrons have poor penetration in water, dove into it before the room was saturated.
- Episode 25 sees the return of Wolf Frakken: Coming to arrest Goer (and helping the Yamato) his ship "surfaces" and he proceeds to lecture Goer. Standing on top of the ship, in a space suit, BadassArmFold and all. Because doing it from the bridge was probably not awesome enough for him. His crew promptly comments that he must have a good time doing it.
- After which he takes on twenty-eight ships and win.
- But before that we had Goer's awesomeness, for pulling a manouver worth of Domel: he managed to sneak up on the Yamato with thirty ships. Had he been there to destroy it instead of sending her into Dessler's ambush, he would have succeeded. That, and Frakken's intervention didn't prevent him from doing his part in Dessler's plan.
- Oh and he nearly killed Frakken: his squadron had hit the subdimensional engines of the submarine, and without an emergency repair (performed by former Yamato crewmember Yabu, of all people, they would have remained exposed to the enemy fire.
- We also have Dessler's plan that cost Goer his life: lure the Yamato in the subspace portal, where radar and normal energy weapon don't work and board it with an army of robot and a detachment of his Amazon Brigade. Could have worked... Except Niimi and Sanada had long prepared a virus to deactivate Gamilas' war robots, and deployed it. Poor Dessler, wounded by Celestela in a failed attempt at Murder-Suicide to boot, found himself forced to run...
- After the boarding was repelled, Dessler tried to destroy the Yamato, but the positron weapons of the Deusura didn't work inside the portal. He thus started charging the Dessler Cannon... And the Yamato wrecked it and the ship with Type 3 shells fired by the main battery in conventional cannon mode. The Deusura exploded immediately thereafter.
- The Yamato versus Wolf Frakken's space submarine in episode 13.
- Zoellik's Humiliation Conga in episode 18 is one for everyone involved in delivering. In order, the Yamato interrupts his Rousing Speech to the ten thousand ship that he was trying to have as support for his coup, then in the battle he ruins his image before supposed The Dragon Goer and the fleet, and when the Yamato appears to have been destroyed Deslar reveals he survived his apparent assassination and reveals the culprit was Zoellik himself, at which point Goer gets fed up with him and shoots Zoellik in the back with his own gun. And finally, to ruin even the possible glory of taking down the undefeatable battleship that not even Domel had been able to destroy, the Yamato re-emerges from Balan's atmosphere (where they had hid) and wrecks the planet and the Gamilas' Portal Network with the Wave-Motion Gun.
- This is one especially for the Yamato, which has just taken on ten thousand warships and won. And left the bulk of Gamilas' fleet unable to give chase. Of course, that gets Domel sicked back on them with orders to destroy the Yamato or die trying...
- Episode 21 starts with Yuki, prisoner of the Gamilans and depressed in the belief the Yamato has been destroyed at the Rainbow Cluster, using the fact she's been mistaken for Yurisha to verbally bitchslap the governor of a prison planet who was beating and insulting Nolan for being a Zaltian who dares calling himself a Gamilan citizen and soldier. Even Wolf Frakken (who was about to punch out the bastard) was impressed.
- Melda and some of admiral Deitz's loyalists open the cells and leave a few guns around. What do the inmates (mostly Gatlantidean war prisoners, but with at least some Zaltians among them) do? Easy: overpower the garrison and take over the whole planet.
- Then Deitz (who had been imprisoned on the planet after being framed for treason, hence Melda starting the riot in the first place: it was supposed to be a distraction while she sprung him out) does his thing, and enrolls guards and rioters in his revolution against Desslar. Remember, the Gatlantideans are war prisoners who have joined the commander of the guy who defeated and captured them and killed their friends...
- Melda and some of admiral Deitz's loyalists open the cells and leave a few guns around. What do the inmates (mostly Gatlantidean war prisoners, but with at least some Zaltians among them) do? Easy: overpower the garrison and take over the whole planet.
- Episode 22 ends with the start of the Battle for Iskandar. Dessler's opening shot? The Dessler Cannon.
- Episode 23 continues the battle... And Okita's countermove is to break through the Imperial Guard's fleet and attack Dessler's palace. By ramming it and through an Imperial Guard battlecruiser. Dessler is forced to run with the Deusura II's command ship...
- After that, Dessler replies by detaching a piece of the new spaceborn capital and throwing it at the ''Yamato'' and the old capital. Okita's reaction?
Okita: "Prepare the Wave Motion Gun!"- As for Hyss... He orders the evacuation of the capital and repudiates Dessler.
- After the Colony Drop failed, Dessler tries again with the Dessler Cannon. Due to Yuki and Nolan's sabotage, it blows up on his face, with the explosion wiping out the space city and the Imperial Guard.
The movie
- "Odyssey of the Celestial Ark":
- The debut of the Magna Fire Cannon. Just that.
- The Yamato's first fight with Goran "Thunder" Dagam and his Gatlantean fleet, whose flagship Megaluda carries a Magna Fire Cannon. The Gatlantean are sure to win... And not only the conventional methods are ineffective, but the Yamato survives a shot from the Magna Fire Cannon, even if with drained shields.
- Knowing they would not survive a second shot, the Yamato goes in a nearby cave planet, only to be assaulted by energy-draining lifeforms that are immune to normal weapons. How does the Yamato survive? Warping out at low energy.
- Kodai's scout group and Berger not trying to kill each other in the face of Lorelei using her vast psychic powers to manipulate them into that. Made more notable because Berger has a personal vendetta against the crew of the Yamato and Lorelei managed to get a group of Gatlanteans from the same unit to kill each other.
- The Yamato and a Gamilas squadron fighting together against Goran's fleet. Made even more awesome because the Gamilans are survivors of the Rainbow Cluster: it's literally Domel's men fighting alongside the Yamato against Domel's great enemy.
- The Gatlantean squadron has the Magna Fire Cannon, which uses Gamilan teleporter technology to attack from beyond the range of enemy weapons. Thing is, it's the same technology that Domel used at the Rainbow Cluster... And with this, the Yamato can anticipate the incoming attack and tell everyone when to dodge.
- The duel between the Yamato and the Megaluda, with such moves as Goram throwing the wrecked Magna Fire Cannon at the enemy and Kodai using the rocket anchor on the enemy to throw off their aim.
- Berger surviving his own Heroic Sacrifice through sheer badassness. If Gamilas ever needed another Domel, this guy is on the right path to become just that.
- The titular Celestial Ark: a Planet Spaceship with a cloaking device for its whole immense mass, serving as the last refuge for the survivors of the Jirelian race.
- Note that the Yamato fought this battle without the Wave-Motion Gun, as Starsha muzzled it when she gave Earth the Cosmo Reverser. Some doubted their ability to pull it off if attacked... And yet, they were barely slowed down.
Warriors of Love
- The opening battle of Space Battleship Yamato 2202: Warriors of Love has more than a few:
- The battle is between a Gatlantis fleet and a combined force of Gamilans and Earth forces, with Earth having refitted the old ships with wave motion engines, positron cannons and better armor, while the Gamilans have large physical shields that can tank a shot from a Magna-Fire Cannon (the second will penetrate, but it takes a while).
- Kodai's attack run with the Yunagi, a refitted Kongou-class battleship, causing disproportionate damage to the Gatlanteans-and coming out unscathed.
- Shortly after the attack run, the Gatlanteans retreat to the floating continent they had launched from-and then reveal their trump card: the Gatlantov, a superdreadnought that wipes out the Gamilan vanguard in one salvo. And the vanguard included even a Zoelguut. Then it continues the barrage.
- The answer to the Gatlantean superdreadnought: twin wave motion gun scatter shot, courtesy of the Andromeda.
- One for the superdreadnought: it survived. Horribly damaged, but still good enough to fire the engines and chase the damaged Defiant and Saratoga to Earth, survive the external defensive satellite line, and launch a kamikaze attack at Earth, right on top of the capital.
- Again for the Gatlantov: when Kodai and the Yunagi warp back to Earth and ram it to make it change course, it continues on the exact same route.
- How is the Gatlantov destroyed? Shock cannons of the Yamato, fired by Sanada on Kodai's direction on the target's course. And the Yamato was in an underwater dock undergoing modernization, so to fire Sanada and its tech crew had to activate the secondary reactors in far less than six minutes (the Gatlantov would have taken 400 seconds to hit Earth from warping in, and some time had passed from then).
- Warriors of Love episode 2:
- The commander of the Gatlantov survived both the explosion of his ship and falling from 18,000 m over the sea level. The Earth scientists examining him are rightly baffled-and lucky to be far away enough when it explodes.
- The launch of the Aldebaran, the Apollo Norm, the Achilles and the Antares, four Andromeda-class battleships.
- Warriors of Love episode 4:
- When the Yamato crew decides to answer Teresa's call for help in defiance to government policies, Serizawa sends troops to seize the ship before the crew can board it... Except the ship isn't there anymore: expecting Serizawa's move, Kodai and the other officers have already moved the ship in the old underground city and hacked the surveillance system to make it seem the ship was still there.
- How most of the crew got to the Yamato: they used the old Kirishima as a sub.
- After realizing he's been played, Serizawa is sending the troops in the underground city... Then Todo calls him, and with just that word has him all but crapping in his pants.
- Warriors of Love episode 5:
- The five Andromeda-class ships and the D-type battleships showing off their non-wave motion gun firepower in an exercise.
- When the Black Tigers desert to join the Yamato, they're pursued by fighters from the Andromeda and the other new ships. Initially they're in trouble due the opponents' numerical superiority... Then a Gamilan fighter shows up and fires an EMP missile that makes radars and missiles useless. With only the guns useful, the Black Tigers quickly school their opponents and proceed to join their companions without suffering a single loss.
- Yamato versus Andromeda:
- The Andromeda intercepts the Yamato before the wave motion shield is back online. The solution? The asteroid shield from the original series, here realized thanks to material left over from Serizawa's Izumo Plan.
- The wave motion shield is brought back online just in time, but the Andromeda is still firing. Does Kodai order to fire back? No, he has his ship ram the Andromeda. And Yaminami on the Andromeda decides to just ram the Yamato back.
- The Yamato pushing the Andromeda away, just in time for the treason charge to be dropped and end the fight.
- While the Yamato crew was preparing to leave, the Gamilan embassy started to work to help them-and managed to blackmail the government into approving their mission.
- Right before moving to intercept the Yamato, Yaminami had the students of the Black Tiger transferred to his ship. He says it was to use them as hostages if necessary... But, by complete chance, now he's reinforcing the Yamato's depleted wing of eight (nine when Kato arrives) with thirty fighters and pilots trained by the EDF best, pilots who requested a transfer as soon as they learned of the situation.
- Warriors of Love episode 6:
- Every time the Space Marines take down the Gatlantean combat drones with battle rifles.
- Hearing Yamamoto and Kiman's arguments about trying to relieve the 11th Planet or not, Kodai admits that, as said by headquarters, there's too many Gatlantis ships even for the Yamato... At least in theory, because that's nothing compared to the ten thousand warships they faced at Balan.
- On the 11th Planet Space Marine sergeant Saito and two civilians, a woman and a Gamilan girl, are surrounded by Gatlantis drones. The girl asks where is the Yamato, because she knows she can defeat the enemy with ease, Saito, trying to save her feelings, says the Yamato will arrive for sure... And guess what warps in the planet's atmosphere's right on top of their heads, looking for survivors and launching fighters that quickly wipe out the enemy drones?
- The Yamato rescuing the survivors on the 11th Planet... With the wave motion engine off-line due how they warped in. Meaning they faced an enemy fleet with no shields, no FTL, no shock cannons or wave motion gun, and won.
- Shortly after the above, the Gatlantis 8th task force arrives, composed of six superdreadnoughts... That combine their weapons to form their own wave motion gun effect.
