SPACE BATTLESHIP YAMATO: 2199 (2012) Japanese Blu-ray to Include English Subtitles!

Spectacular Blu-ray Slipcase art by the legendary Naoyuki Kato!

Anime label powerhouse, Bandai Visual, has announced that several upcoming releases, including the hotly anticipated remasters of the original MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM movie trilogy, will feature an English Subtitle option. One of the other titles to benefit from the inclusion of English Subtitles will be the highly-anticipated 26-episode series, SPACE BATTLESHIP YAMATO: 2199, streeting in Japan on May 25th (and apparently on copies sold exclusively at the theatrical screenings launching on April 7th). But, this option will only be offered on the Blu-ray (BD) release of YAMATO: 2199, and not on the DVD release. Rumor has it that the extras will also feature English Subtitles, which could not be confirmed at press time. The Subtitles for YAMATO: 2199 are being handled by US Expat, Sam Pinansky, a Translator, Producer, and Subtitle Engineer at Tezuka Productions. Studying Physics at Carnegie Mellon University and UC Santa Barbara, Pinansky joined Tezuka Productions in 2009, and has over thirty titles to his credit (including BEELZEBUB, GUIN SAGA, and COBRA: THE ANIMATION). On the Anime News Network, he divulged, "The first two episodes are amazing!"

It is not known at press time whether the following six volumes of SPACE BATTLESHIP YAMATO: 2199 will continue with the English Subtitle option, but it's safe to assume that they will (or that Bandai Visual is planning on doing so, at the very least). More good news, if you weren't aware of it already, since Japanese and North American BDs share the same Region Encoding, all you need to do is pop the Japanese disc into your BD Player and go! So, US fans should not shy away from ordering their copies directly from Amazon Japan (which has a convenient English page option): click here to order your copy of Volume 1 today!

Stay tuned to this blog and the official Star Blazers website for more news and information on SPACE BATTLESHIP YAMATO: 2199 as they develop — and soon, we'll be off to outer space, in your living room!