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This weekend my wife and I watched a feature length Japanese movie on TV Japan entitled The Great War of Archimedes, a movie that has nothing to do with Archimedes, and there's actually only one -- terrific -- intense battle simulation scene in the flick. I'll do my best here to convince you FReepers that this is a great choice to watch (in English subtitles) -- and try to not give the plot away. What the Movie IS and IS NOT: It is NOT a War movie, though the first few minutes of his movie show a highly realistic and...

A fragment of a glass bowl unearthed on Okinoshima island, a UNESCO World Heritage site here, came from ancient Persia during the Sassanian dynasty (226-651), researchers announced March 1. Munakata Taisha shrine teamed up with experts and used X-ray imaging to analyze the artifact as well as small pebble-shaped "kirikodama" ornaments made of glass. They date to the late fifth century to seventh century. Okinoshima island, located off Munakata, Fukuoka Prefecture, is considered by the shrine to be so sacred that only males can visit and only if they engage in purification rituals before coming ashore. The island has yielded...

Commissioned by the Japanese in December of 1941, just over a week after their surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the Yamato was the largest, most powerful battleship that had ever existed — a title that it still holds to this day, over 75 years later. With its nine 18.1-inch guns, it could fire 3,000 pound shells up to 26 miles away — so far that it required spotter aircraft to identify targets over the horizon. In comparison, the heaviest guns on U.S. battleships were 16 inches and limited to a maximum range of 20 miles. To paraphrase President Trump, it...

Japan withdrew from the London Naval Treaty in 1936. The chief Japanese negotiator, Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, feared that concessions on the part of his negotiating team would lead directly to his assassination upon return to Japan. Japanese nationalists believed that the Washington Naval Treaty system was holding Japan back and preventing it from becoming a first-rate power. Freed from the constraints of international treaties, they believed that Japan could build a world-beating fleet that would push the Western powers out of Asia and help usher in a new era of Japanese dominance.

Sunk without trace in what some historians consider the greatest naval battle ever fought, the mightiest battleship ever built has been found off the Philippines by one of the world’s wealthiest men. Paul Allen, the multibillionaire Microsoft co-founder, on Tuesday posted photographs of the wreck of the Musashi, a second world war Japanese battleship that, with its sister-ship the Yamato, was the largest and most heavily-armed warship ever launched. “WW2 Battleship Musashi sank 1944 is FOUND,” Allen announced on Twitter, beneath a ghostly underwater photograph of the mammoth vessel’s rusting, coral-encrusted bow clearly bearing the chrysanthemum crest of the Japanese...

. The Musashi was one of a trio of vessels built by Japan during the war that, at 263 metres (863 feet) each, were its biggest battleships ever. American warplanes sank the Musashi on October 24, 1944, at the height of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, regarded as the largest naval encounter of the war in which US and Australian forces defeated the Japanese. Dozens of Japanese warships that were sunk during World War II have since been found in the Philippines, with some of them now popular dive locations. The Sibuyan Sea where the Musashi was reportedly found is...

Battleship film revives Japan's pride in wartime generation (Filed: 28/11/2005) Sixty years after the colossal battleship Yamato was sunk, the pride of Japan's wartime navy is once again an object of fascination. Almost 400,000 visitors have flocked to see a full-scale replica of the deck of the Yamato in Onomichi, western Japan. The ship was reconstructed for the shooting of a film, Men of the Yamato, which will be released next month. The £3million replica deck, made for the film Men of the Yamato, has attracted 400,000 Japanese visitors The Yamato, the largest battleship ever built, was considered indestructible by...

Microsoft's co-founder has used his own submarine to find the wreck of the Japanese Navy's biggest warship - which has lain undiscovered at the bottom of the ocean for the past 70 years. Paul Allen revealed his amazing discovery to the world on Tuesday, by posting a photo to Twitter of the World War II battleship Musashi's rusty bow, which bore the Japanese empire's Chrysanthemum seal. The Musashi - which, along with its sister ship Yamato, was the heaviest and most powerfully armed battleship ever constructed - was sunk by the U.S. Navy in 1944, taking with it more than...

Lots of news on the anime front. Seems that Japanese animation will be hitting the US movie screens in the not to distant future. Ghost in the Shell live action. Robotech live action. Starblazers live action. Yamato 2199 Season 2 See below for links.

From the Space Battleship Yamato 2199 Soundtrack...enjoy!!!

"Space Battleship Yamato," a classic sci-fi anime series of the 1970's with international fandom, movies and spin-offs, is being reintroduced with a series reboot for 2012. The reviews from the international anime crowd have been astounding. Packaged in four-episode "mini-packs," and hitting select Japanese movie screens, "Yamato 2199" is now being released on BluRay (compatible with US players). Currently, Amazon is selling select Bluray episode packages. Bandi is selling collector figurines and models for the general public. No news as of yet if Film distributor Shochiku is seeking US media distributors at this time. If sales are any indication, the...

Don't know when (or if) the movie will ever come the US (perhaps on DVD), but the music is great. Enjoy!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03cpmYYSFgA&feature=related

Any Japanese film concerning WWII is going to be closely scrutinized by Japanese and international audiences alike. Most Japanese films produced in the first few decades following the war focus on human tragedy while keeping away from anything that could be construed as glorifying combat or defending Japan’s military adventurism. To avoid possible offense, American and Allied Forces in Japanese productions have usually been faceless, instead being represented by their machines of war (as opposed to contemporary Hollywood productions that often include rather negative stereotypes of Japanese soldiers). Americans and the Allied Forces are also rarely even named, usually referred...

I hope they can release this in the American market or direct-to-video.

OH HELLS YEAH

This is the official trailer from the official website for Uchuu Senkan Yamato Fukkatsu-hen, the first Yamato feature film in 26 years! It has begun streaming a 30-second teaser trailer and a full 90-second trailer. This video is the 90" trailer. [...] The new film is set in 2220, or 21 years after the first Yamato story and 17 years after the story of the last film, "Final Yamato." A 320,000-kilometer-wide black hole threatens Earth, so 300 million people set a course for Amaaru, 27,000 light years away. The transport fleet is attacked, and the new Yamato battleship leads the...

Nearly six and a half years in the making. 22 feet from bow to stern. Measuring a meter across at its widest point. 1/40th the scale of the real thing. Nearly a quarter-million individual LEGO pieces. And the whole thing weighs 330 pounds. Behold the achievement of Jumpei Mitsui, who has faithfully rendered the World War II Japanese battleship Yamato in LEGO...

Lord, Keep our Troops forever in Your care Give them victory over the enemy... Grant them a safe and swift return... Bless those who mourn the lost. . FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer for all those serving their country at this time. ...................................................................................... ........................................... U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues Where Duty, Honor and Countryare acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated. Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel...

I used to be a tin can sailor. Great book. Like most books, it reinforces how the admirals were wrong. But that's easy to say 60 years after the fact. As Nelson DeMille said, anyone can be a military genius with the benefit of hindsight. I continue to be amazed that the Yamato and Musashi were able to shoot 3,200 lb. shells a distance of 26 miles. In my day, we did that with missiles.

Beheaded at whim and worked to death: Japan's repugnant treatment of Allied PoWs22:59pm 18th September 2007 The sheer brutality of the battle for the Far East defies imagination. And in a new book, historian Max Hastings argues that Japanese intransigence made it far worse.  Yesterday, he explained why America had to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Here, in the final part of our exclusive serialisation, he reveals how the West was stunned when it emerged how cruelly their prisoners of war had suffered...As the men of the victorious British 14th Army advanced through Burma on the road to Mandalay...