First off, there are spoilers. Second, the disclaimer...I couldn't make it through the entire season. It was just that bad. I really, really wanted to like this. It's right in my wheelhouse as far as genres.
Let's start with the good, because there isn't a lot. The Japanese actors do a very good job and are quite believable in their roles, especially Kaieda and Fukamachi played by Takao Ohsawa and Hiroshi Tamaki respectively. Additionally, I would say that the opening scenes draw you in. The special effects are solid as well. But that's where the good ends and bad (and sometimes absurd) begins.
And the bad...where do we start? The characters of the American leadership are just awful stereotypes. How bad? They're so be that they couldn't even be called characters, they're actually charactictures. I actually had to check to see if this was intended to be a farce rather than a drama.
Second, we get to the suppositions of the maiden voyage. First, we are told the Sea Bat (the suoer submarine) was intended for the Japanese to use. Okay, maybe??? It's hard to believe that the United States would build the most technologically advance warship in existence and then give it to another country instead of using it, but I'll give that a pass.
However, we are also supposed to believe the following. 1) The Japanese crew would make the final check themselves without any American supervision; 2) The US would not even monitor this enough to know if a nuclear warhead was loaded; 3) The US would not even know if a nuclear warhead might be missing; 4) The whole US Naval hierarchy would not know the capabilities of the submarine and additionally 5) Not call in the designers or developers of the submarine and its technology to brief them once the Japanese commander's intentions are known; 6) That US cabinet meetings on the matter would be reduced to a conversation that would be below 1st grade level. Any of these would be laughable and a reason to totally dismiss the story. All of them together is just a total insult to the intelligence of the viewer.
I also found the naming of the submarine "country" the Yamato to be hilarious. So a commander who thinks he is leading the world to pacificism uses the name of a WWII battleship, the very symbol of the WWII Japanese war machine and imperialism, as the name of his "peaceful" country. Yeah, that makes a whole lot of sense. And even funnier, the American president had no idea what the significance of Yamato was in history and it had to be explained to him.
Then we have the idiotic temper-tantrum thrown by a member of the US naval hierarchy, the sanctimonious cabinet meetings by the Japanese, the ineptitude of the United States Navy...quite frankly, it made the series so bad, I couldn't stay with it to the very end.
Unfortunately, this is the kind of political agenda influenced garbage that has now become commonplace on Amazon Prime and Netflix. They place their agenda above solid entertainment, entertainment that I'm paying for with my overpriced dues. This series almost singlehandedly caused me to cancel my prime subscription. They keep jacking up the price so they can produce this dung heap.
My advice to viewers, don't.
Let's start with the good, because there isn't a lot. The Japanese actors do a very good job and are quite believable in their roles, especially Kaieda and Fukamachi played by Takao Ohsawa and Hiroshi Tamaki respectively. Additionally, I would say that the opening scenes draw you in. The special effects are solid as well. But that's where the good ends and bad (and sometimes absurd) begins.
And the bad...where do we start? The characters of the American leadership are just awful stereotypes. How bad? They're so be that they couldn't even be called characters, they're actually charactictures. I actually had to check to see if this was intended to be a farce rather than a drama.
Second, we get to the suppositions of the maiden voyage. First, we are told the Sea Bat (the suoer submarine) was intended for the Japanese to use. Okay, maybe??? It's hard to believe that the United States would build the most technologically advance warship in existence and then give it to another country instead of using it, but I'll give that a pass.
However, we are also supposed to believe the following. 1) The Japanese crew would make the final check themselves without any American supervision; 2) The US would not even monitor this enough to know if a nuclear warhead was loaded; 3) The US would not even know if a nuclear warhead might be missing; 4) The whole US Naval hierarchy would not know the capabilities of the submarine and additionally 5) Not call in the designers or developers of the submarine and its technology to brief them once the Japanese commander's intentions are known; 6) That US cabinet meetings on the matter would be reduced to a conversation that would be below 1st grade level. Any of these would be laughable and a reason to totally dismiss the story. All of them together is just a total insult to the intelligence of the viewer.
I also found the naming of the submarine "country" the Yamato to be hilarious. So a commander who thinks he is leading the world to pacificism uses the name of a WWII battleship, the very symbol of the WWII Japanese war machine and imperialism, as the name of his "peaceful" country. Yeah, that makes a whole lot of sense. And even funnier, the American president had no idea what the significance of Yamato was in history and it had to be explained to him.
Then we have the idiotic temper-tantrum thrown by a member of the US naval hierarchy, the sanctimonious cabinet meetings by the Japanese, the ineptitude of the United States Navy...quite frankly, it made the series so bad, I couldn't stay with it to the very end.
Unfortunately, this is the kind of political agenda influenced garbage that has now become commonplace on Amazon Prime and Netflix. They place their agenda above solid entertainment, entertainment that I'm paying for with my overpriced dues. This series almost singlehandedly caused me to cancel my prime subscription. They keep jacking up the price so they can produce this dung heap.
My advice to viewers, don't.