Soreyuke! Uchuusenkan Yamamoto Yohko

—by John Yung

SOREYUKE! UCHUUSENKAN YAMAMOTO YOHKO is a curious phenomenon. Based on a series of novels about four high school girls piloting spaceships a thousand years in the future. They compete in a struggle between TERRA and NESS for ownership of planets, mining rights, etc., somehwat similar to the battles in the B-grade Scifi "Robot Jox" movie. (There the similarities end, however.) The girls were scouted by TERRA's chief engineer from Tokyo a thousand years in the past, ie. our present.
YAMAMOTO YOHKO inspired three drama CDs (compiled from the radio drama) before becoming a three-part OVA series. A second three-part OVA series followed two years later, and...that was it—until now. Was YAMAMOTO YOHKO truly popular enough to warrant a TV remake, or are TV anime producers getting really desperate? The second OAV series certainly tried to cash in on the first's popularity, using lower production values and weaker stories. The TV series, however, is far more in-depth and has a greater variety of stories.
The series starts off with the personnel of TERRA searching for the pilot of TA-29. Apparently, there was a freak temporal anomaly (yes, the kind that plagues STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION) that threw the pilot back into the past, erasing her memories of her time in the future. It's not difficult to find the pilot, for she, Yamamoto Yohko, is distinguished by her athletic prowess and exceptional videogaming skill. It's a different matter, however, to convince Yohko to return, because she believes that she has never been to the future. After a conversation with a mysterious girl named Momiji (Yohko's partner in TERRA's team who has come back the past to try to get Yohko to remember her past... err, future), Yohko becomes restless, and upon investigating what lies beyond the doors to the school gym storage room, she steps into the 30th century again. Yohko seems to take futureshock in stride by pretending that it's a videogame, right down to inserting a coin before taking off to engage in a battle. Once the battle is engaged though, Yohko starts acting stoic, causing concern among TERRA's crew. After taking a heavy beating, TA-29's holographic projectors flare to life, showing Yohko in a peaceful freefall. Like a dreamer awakening, she rallies herself and defeats her opponents even though she was outnumbered three to one.
In the following episodes, Yohko expands the TERRA team by recruiting two more girls: her best friend Ayano, and Madoka, her high school rival. With the team assembled, Yohko takes on various teams from NESS and other factions in a conflict where wars have turned into wargames. But she discovers that there is some mysterious group at work behind the scenes though, a group that even Yohko may not be able to defeat...
Comparisons between the TV series and the OVA series is inevitable. There are some things that the OVAs do better than the TV version, and vice versa. An important fact to note is that the cast and most of the key production crew are the same between the OVA and TV series. Like other series that made the transition from OVA to TV, YAMAMOTO YOHKO takes place in a continuity different from the original OVA universe. Both versions are consistent with the novels they are based on, however. The difference exists so that fans of the previous version won’t be bored while newer fans won’t be alienated.
Action is still a large part of the story in YAMAMOTO YOHKO since much of the conflicts, like in the OVAs, are resolved by starship battles. The playful aspects of the wargames are gone however, so no more obstacle course races through asteroid belts and around stars, no more starship paintball matches and no more planetary 9-ball pool games. The series still has surreal touches; using the school gym storage as a portal to a time warp is just one of them. When a little girl resembling a younger Yohko is introduced to the plot, reality sneaks a few trips out the back door, and we get episodes where our heroines find themselves suddenly underwater instead of in outer space, or where a planet blasts out of orbit and travels through a space warp.
With a title that is a play on UCHUU SENKAN YAMATO, humor, especially otaku humor, plays a large part in the series. Rarely a chance is passed up for Yohko poking fun at Madoka's shiny forehead, and there's a GETTER ROBO parody that takes shots at the CHANGE! SHIN GETTER ROBO OVA series. But YAMAMOTO YOHKO also has its serious moments. With more episodes in the TV format, more time is devoted to fleshing out the characters and finding out what they do besides battle in starships. The girls spend most of their free time in the 20th century, including still attending school. Starship pilot is really just "Arubaito" (part-time job) for them.
The most pleasant surprise is the fact that almost all the OVA voice actors reprise their roles for the TV version after a hiatus of three years. The characterization have slightly altered, partially because the actors have more experience and partially because the TV series follows a different direction and it has more time to give the characters depth. Takayama Minami's Yohko is still cocky on TV, but she's more introspective. Miyamura Yuko's Ayano is still the proper Japanese girl from a famous martial arts family, but the TV version is softer voiced as a foil to Yohko's cockiness. Hayashibara Megumi's Madoka is still brash and high-strung, the stereotypical manga and SF otaku, but the TV Madoka is all-out over-the-top. Sadly Niiyama Shiho was unable to reprise her role for the TV series as she was battling leukemia (a battle she sadly lost earlier this year). The TV Momiji (voiced by Yukino Satsuki), as a result, has the most change in character between the OVA and TV, from a generic Sporty Spice role to an independent tomboy. Her osaka-ben accent isn't quite as pronounced as Niiyama's was, something that is sorely missed.
Okui Masami provides the vocals for the opening and ending songs, "Tenshi no Kyuusoku" and "Lu lu lu." Okui shows a good range of singing ability between the two songs which compliment the OVA's "Shake it." The rest of the soundtrack fits the series' tone; the music takes itself seriously with a hint of tongue-in-cheek. An example of this is the stock scene of the girls boarding their ships with a march tune playing in the background; there's this feeling that the musical arranger is hamming it up for the audience.
The most striking parts of YAMAMOTO YOHKO are the visuals. While the TV mecha designs are faithful to the OVA designs, the character designs are not. As a matter of taste, the TV character designs are better because they seem more consistent with the personalities, although the OVA Yohko's smirk is sorely missed. The animation's color palette and graphic direction are very distinct; lots of subdued colors are used, and there is also a strong, striking usage of shadows. Like most anime shows with limited budgets, YAMAMOTO YOHKO features sequences of limited animation where keen observers can tell a lot of corners were cut in the production, but it is done quite creatively in this series.
Unfortunately, this is not a show for everybody. SOREYUKE! UCHUUSENKAN YAMAMOTO YOHKO falls into the category of a show that has "gone otaku" (as per Scott Frazier's Beyond TV Safety column from last issue). A lot of jokes are very otaku-oriented, and there is an emphasis on the voice talent, and there are sequences where the number of drawings have been reduced in the animation. Above all else, it is a story of four girls growing up, NOT a show about space battles. Screenings at various anime clubs has shown that a less hardcore audience will have trouble getting to grips with the show, while screenings in small groups of otaku have caused very positive responses. The TV version of YAMAMOTO YOHKO may fail to attract new fans because the overall story doesn't really pick up until the middle of the series. Viewers may lack the patience to watch the first nine episodes which do a nice job of introducing us to all the important characters but don't hint at the plot twists that await in the rest of the series. Again, this is rather unfortunate, because YAMAMOTO YOHKO is a show of unusual calibre.

Released by King Records
Mission-1, 50 minutes
VHS: KIVA-436 / LD: KILA-436 / DVD: KIBA-96
¥3800
Available now in Japan
Where to buy