Picking up in the midst of Chapter 5’s theatrical run, March continued to be a busy time for fans as they kept pace with news, merch, interviews, events, online activity, and more. Let’s jump right into the deep end of the pool and see what kept it interesting.

March 1: Chapter 6 teaser

It was clear from the first frame why this one was held back for over a week. It picks up directly from “the last minute” of Chapter 5 and becomes a major spoiler for its entire 30 seconds. Yamato has gone through the looking glass and the story is now in uncharted territory.

If spoilers aren’t a problem for you, click here to see a full breakdown.

March 1: Official website update

In sync with the teaser, the official site added new data to its character, mecha, and story pages. This information has been woven into our ever-growing database: see the character guide here and the mecha guide here.

The new entries can also be seen on their own page here

The story section of the website gave us these summaries of the Chapter 5 episodes:

Episode 15: Total Resistance—Defend the Emigrant Fleet!

Faced with the formidable Dezarium intermediate supply base, Digablas, Yamato executes a tactical retreat to regroup and reorganize. Ram reveals the astonishing origins of the Witch of Uralia and her mysterious connection to the phase energy that is chilling the very cosmos…!?

Episode 16: Decisive Battle – Storm the Dezarium Fortress!

Under the command of Supreme Leader Dessler, Operation Digablas, a joint assault by Yamato and the Galman-Gamilas Combined Fleet, is officially launched. To strike down the fortress, which is flanked by two Goruba units, they must first neutralize its impenetrable phase field…

Episode 17: The Cosmos Reborn – Awaken, Super-Yamato!

Yamato struggles in a desperate battle against the impregnable Digablas. Meanwhile, Kodai and Alphon have reunited inside the fortress. Bound together by their shared connection to Yuki Mori, the two men bear witness to the shocking truth hidden within Dezarium.

Episode 18: Consecutive Warps! Yamato, Transcend Time!!

Yamato arrives at the spacetime nexus point. Back on Earth, the “Dezarium Supporters Club” has taken charge of public order, and Mother’s dominion has been fully established. In this new reality, even Yamato itself is branded an “enemy of Earth.”

March 2: Today’s Science Beginners, part 14

The next installment of this explainer series covered the topic of “Phase Energy and the Cooling of the Universe,” and the density of the science explanation was matched by the density of inside jokes. Fresh in “limbo,” Alphon is in a suggestible state with Isidore pulling on one side and Tokugawa pulling on the other. The gags (and homages) come fast, so you definitely want to turn on captions and auto-translate for this one.

Watch it on Youtube here

March 3: CG posts begin

Starting today and running for two weeks, the Twitter account for the Yamato Production Committee posted a daily series of rotating CG models from Chapter 5.

Intrigued? See them all here

March 4: Official tweet

At the beginning of Chapter 5, we hear three ethereal voices speaking about the current state of the universe: Starsha, Yurisha, and – for the first time anywhere – Shalbart Iscandar. The face behind that voice was revealed on this day: singer/voice actor Kotono Mitsuishi. She’s previously been heard in Evangelion, Gundam Seed, One Piece, Sailor Moon, and many more titles as you can see here.

This also marks her second time around in Yamato world; she previously provided the voice of Maki in Yamato 2520.

March 4: Yamatalk “Sound Edition”

One of the unsung heroes of Yamato production is Sound Director Tomohiro Yoshida, who has made Yamato audio his life’s work for over thirty years. He came out from behind the mixing board to talk about his craft in the first of two Yamatalk events held in March.

Read about it here

March 5: Studio Asatte on Twitter

The Chapter 5 love fest continued with an 18-second video post from one of the studios that provided character animation.

See it here

March 6: Yamato 2199 manga Chapter 58

Through all the fire and the smoke, we will never give up hope. Those words, or their Japanese equivalent, probably kept artist Michio Murakawa going as he cranked out another long-awaited chapter of his 2199 manga, which is still in the midst of the extremely demanding Rainbow Star Cluster battle. (Remember that he’s also doing production work for REBEL 3199, so his time is severely limited.)

See all the pages here, or in larger format at Kodansha’s Comic Walker website here.

Murakawa had this to say about it on Bluesky:

Although the 2199 serialization has indeed been published, I rarely receive any feedback or reactions from readers (come to think of it, even though there’s a feedback submission form included with the publication, the editorial department has never actually forwarded any comments to me). Consequently, I’m feeling a bit down, partly due to the lack of engagement, and partly over my own failing of letting too much time lapse between installments in this irregular series. I became a manga artist because I wanted to make friends, yet all that seems to happen is my sense of isolation just keeps getting deeper.

If you’d like to offer some words of encouragement, look him up at Bluesky here (and tell him Cosmo DNA sent you).

March 6: Chapter 5 week 3 handout

If any diehard fans needed incentive to get themselves back into a theater to see Chapter 5 again, it was a free “smart phone sticker” handed out by theaters as long as they lasted.

March 6: Yamato Mecha Collection model

Bandai got back into the Yamato model kit business with the 3199 version of Yamato (Mecha Collection size). It came with new markings and translucent cones for engine blasts.

Get a closer look in a photo gallery here

March 7: Fan-made video

With more technology at their fingertips by the day, fans are only too eager to construct their own expanded versions of Yamato plotlines. This one recreates a conflict seen in Yamato III using the storytelling style established in the Playstation games rather than animating full characters in CG.

This 11-minute piece was a collaboration between longtime fans in Japan going by the online names “My EDF” and “FGT2199.”

Watch the video here and read much more about the story at My EDF’s blog here (using your browser’s translate function)

March 7: Voice actor interview

The voice actors for two of 3199‘s most pivotal characters participated in a rare interview on Hobby Japan Web: Masashi Ebara (Yamanami) and Naoya Uchida (Skaldart). They discussed not only their current work, but also their past association with the world of Yamato.

Read the interview here

March 9: Today’s Science Beginners, part 15

The last of these explainer videos for Chapter 5 took a poke at some Gundam lore before losing Alphon back into “limbo” (defined here in unexpected ways), then switching over to an explanation of Yamato‘s new “supercharger” system. The captions and translation do a remarkably good job of turning this into English, so be sure to turn them both on.

Watch the video here

March 9: Soy-ya on Twitter

Soy-ya is one of the elite makers of Yamato garage kits, but you don’t hear about them in these reports because they’re very twitchy about not wanting their Twitter images reposted anywhere. This one (which didn’t come with a restriction stamp) showed the first step in creating a Deusula II model.

If you’d like to see where they go next (or see their other products), you can find their Twitter pages here and here

March 10: Yamaket news

In February, we got the happy news that Yamaket would be returning to full-up status after losing their ride with Torilozi at the start of 2025. Today they released this artwork to announce the date of the next event: Yamaket 26 will happen on April 12.

The logo image is by Michio Murakawa with key art by sou_yamato_open. Of course, we’ll live it vicariously in our next report, but meanwhile you can check in with the Yamaket Twitter page here and website here.

March 12: The Anime Business video

It’s not often that ye editor (Tim Eldred) gets to be part of Yamato news, so I’m proud to note that it sort of happened on this day when Animiego’s Youtube Channel posted an interview with me. It was conducted in 2024 for a series called The Anime Business, and was initially posted behind a paywall. As of now, it’s out in the open. So if you’d like to know more about how I came to be typing these words, you can hear it from my own mouth.

Click here and settle in for 42 minutes of fanboy blather.

March 12: Chapter 5 on Crunchyroll

Almost two weeks after the premiere of Chapter 5 in Japan, Crunchyroll finally rolled out the new episodes for the rest of the world. They did a great job of keeping it quiet, but fans who had made a daily habit of looking for them could finally spread the word. It’s possible that this was part of the spoiler crackdown in Japan, but it’s academic now.

Click here to find them; then keeping clicking on “next season” until you land on the 3199 page.

Author Neko Haramaki and Director Shinji Higuchi

March 12: Shinji Higushi interview

Director Shinji Higuchi was a member of the “Yamato generation” along with Hideaki Anno, Yutaka Izubuchi, and many of the other vets who have worked on the remakes, and he contributed to latter episodes of 2199. As a director both in anime and live-action, he’s had a lot of experience with soundtrack music, which made him an interview candidate for author Neko Haramaki, who just published a book on the subject.

Shueisha Online published their lengthy and informative conversation, and you can read it in English here.

March 13: Sabaton music video

File this under “things you didn’t expect.” Sabaton, a Swedish symphonic rock band, has a collaboration going with the online multiplayer game World of Warships. The mission is to create music videos with high-end CG animation devoted to famous battleships, and this one put the band right on the foredeck of the IJN Yamato to lend it the power of their rocking. It’s…extraordinary.

See the official video here

See a lyric video here

March 13: Chapter 5 week 4 handout

The fourth week of Chapter 5 began with the last new freebie from Japanese theaters, a clear file featuring the Shalbart-class battleship in “Imperial Defense Scheme” colors. See a larger version at the end of this page.

March 13: Youtube short by kuniQ

We’ve heard from kuniQ before…she’s the wife of Hideaki Anno, and has become known for her homemade Yamato-related CG videos. This one was inspired by the surprise ending of Chapter 5, as her description makes clear:

[True Account] The Massive, Unidentified Battleship That Appeared Off the Coast of Yokosuka

In July 2026, the seas surrounding Japan were transformed forever. What exactly was the true identity of the vessel spotted by the Japan Coast Guard…?

This is merely a flight of fancy — an “alternate history” scenario depicting Yamato. Consider it a slight extension of my musings regarding 3199 (though I created it with the assumption that the actual series would likely not take this particular route).

Note: This video is a work of fiction. It bears no relation to any actual persons or organizations. It is simply a speculative video created out of a deep love for Space Battleship Yamato.

Watch it here

March 15: Yamato 2025 Model Grand Exhibition

If you dig the model galleries that appear at the end of these reports every month, there’s more awaiting you on Youtube. In March, a dedicated modeler going by the online name ymt-0312/Yamato Channel presented huge photo galleries (with commentary) in two extended video presentations. The first was live-posted on the 15th and part 2 followed on the 22nd.

Get comfortable and watch them here: Part 1 (93 minutes) | Part 2 (80 minutes)

March 16: Classic animation interview

A blogger by the name of Yasushi Yamashita gave us all a closeup look at Yamato history when he posted an interview with Kazuyoshi Hirose, one of the staff members of the first TV series in 1974. His role was one we don’t think about often; color designer and cel painter. He had plenty to say about the demands of his work, but also the many unique personalities he worked with. This is one you definitely don’t want to miss, especially his Leiji Matsumoto story.

Read it here

March 17: Yamatalk “Cinematography Edition”

The second Yamatalk event in March introduced a new topic: the process and demands of “photographing” the shots seen on screen. The word is sort of anachronistic now that anime is assembled digitally, but the modern process was built upon techniques from the camera-and-film era and have only become more complex since then. The “Yamato trio” was joined by Director of Photography Daisuke Horino to break it all down.

Read about their discussion here

March 19: Dessler birthday goods announced

This was the canonical birthday of everyone’s favorite Garmillan, so the online A-on Store introduced a commemorative product lineup similar to those created for Sasha and Yuki. The products went up for preorder today with a delivery date of June 24.

See what they came up with here

March 20: Radio news

An annual tradition since 2018, Radio Suite Space Battleship Yamato will return to the Japanese airwaves on May 9. This 4-hour program is created by fans for fans, and includes at least one special guest from the inside; this year’s guest will be 3199 Director Naomichi Yamato.

Michio Murakawa is a regular participant, and he posted these images on Instagram to put the word out. He recommends Radio Japan Online as the web service to access the show outside Japan.

Click here and select 77.5 Lively FM prior to these start times:

European Time (CEST) May 9, 8am | US Eastern Time (EDT) May 9, 2am | US Pacific Time (PDT) May 8, 11pm

Photos posted on Twitter by the Yamato Production Committee and Koyuki21780707

March 20: Marathon screening

March 19 marked the end of Chapter 5’s four-week run in theaters, but it’s become customary for a few to go into overtime. This happened again when two Tokyo theaters and one in Osaka kicked off a fifth week.

The Shinjuku Piccadilly, which has become the epicenter for Yamato events, hosted a marathon screening for the most hardcore fans: Chapters 1-5 back to back (with 15 minutes breaks) starting at 10:20pm Friday night and ending at 5:50am Saturday morning. Everyone brave enough to walk in got a postcard featuring the “stealth spoiler” that had been posted at the beginning of the year.

You better believe the screening was sold out, and bleary-eyed survivors walked outside to take their own commemorative photos of the Piccadilly in the sunrise.

March 23: Yasuhiro Fujiwara on Twitter

We met the enthusiastic voice actor for Ghader Talan in our last report, and he had more to say in March:

I believe that for the work known as Yamato, there exists a cherished “Yamato” within the heart of every generation. Precisely for this reason, whether it is a remake or a reboot, as a fellow Yamato fan, I fully understand the myriad sentiments surrounding it.

That said, at this moment, I am living within this story as the character Ghader Talan. The only thing I can do is to live faithfully in my role within this world. Both as a fan and as a performer, I would be delighted if you would warmly watch over the future voyage of this Yamato.

See the original post here

Follow Fujiwara on Twitter here or Facebook here. Visit his official website here.

March 23: Hobby Japan Vintage Vol. 14

Hobby Japan launched this irregularly-published “mook” series in 2019. Every issue is packed with photography and articles on classic models and related products from the 70s and 80s. It was only a matter of time before they got to Yamato, and this volume finally did it.

Nearly 70 pages of Yamato features dominated the 112-page issue and made it a keepsake for the ages. Watch for translated content in future Cosmo DNA updates!

Order your copy from Amazon.co.jp here or CD Japan here

---