Review: Taito Super Mechanics 1/665 Space Battleship Yamato Flash Edition

By now, you probably have heard that there is a new CG Space Battleship Yamato movie on the horizon, after producer Yoshinobu Nishizaki won the court battle on legal rights over Leiji Matsumoto.

The marketing machine is picking up speed too, with Bandai has re-releasing a few sets of mini plastic kits under the Yamato banner, and is also re-releasing their Soul of Chogokin Space Battleship Yamato.

So, I thought, what better time than now to do this review.


Here is Taito's Space Battleship Yamato (Flash Edition), released in December 2008, for 1500 yen. Not a typo, it's 1500 yen.

This is made in high quality plastic, with a light bulb inside the ripple cannon bay (hence, flash version). There is also an accompanying piece to this ship, the wave motion trigger, which I will review shortly - in fact, to show what this combo can do, I am planning a video review, my first.

So basically, you get a pretty well made ship with a decent "weathered" paint job, that lights up, and made sounds if you also got the trigger.

The 3 main turrets rotate, and the cannons in the main and secondary turrets can move up and down (in unison though). The landing gate in the 3rd bridge (under the ship) can be opened.

For 1500 yen, it's a real steal. To make it more complete, I will try to source out some vehicles like the cosmo zero (still sounds like a drink to me), cosmo tiger/tiger II, or a tank...

Just a word on the paint job...it's not going to be as good as a DIY, for 1500 yen, there is a limit to expectation, but I highly recommend this even though there are slight imperfections here and there.

Unlike the Soul of Chogokin version, the mini turrets do not rotate or move.

You'll noticed I also got extra weathering on this side of the ship.

The overall shape and sculpt is very decent, very sharp. This also comes with a display stand.

It begs the question, why didn't the 4500 yen Robot Damahii Nirvash Spec 2 come with a stand.

I got mine from Anime-Export.com, they may still have stock.