February: Terebi Manga Action Deluxe LP
If you’d missed out on previous chances to get the OP and ED themes, Columbia offered another one, and it marked the second time they were issued on LP.
This time they shared a record with themes from Great Mazinger, Hurricane Polymer, Robocon (live action), Kamen Rider Amazon (live action), and The Song of Tentomushi. And for those who missed THIS one, many more of these collections were coming.
April: Columbia song collections
Two more LPs rolled out in the month of April, both of which added the Yamato themes to a wide variety of contemporaries. This one was titled Terebi Manga Action Deluxe…
…and this one was Terebi Manga Golden Album. The term “Terebi Manga” [TV comics] would hold sway for another two years until the Yamato movie arrived in 1977 and a more expansive term was adopted from industry jargon: anime.
Another such release from 1975 (exact month unknown) was Terebi Manga Matsuri from Homeros Records. “Matsuri” is the word for festival, and the term was often used for movie theater marathons of anime programs for kids. Here, the Yamato theme was in familiar company with Brave Raideen, Robocon, Getta Robo, Heidi, and many other contemporaries that would fade away to be replaced by others over the next few years. Yamato outlasted all of them.
Here’s one more (exact month also unknown) from a label called “Micro Records,” titled Terebi Manga Big Hit March. It was a 16-track LP with all manner of anime and tokusatsu titles with the Yamato theme at the start of side 1. As an indicator of how fresh the series still was, the track title was written in traditional kanji characters with 大和 instead of ヤマト. It wasn’t the only time this happened, but it wouldn’t go on for much longer.
1976
September: Isao Sasaki Sings Terebi Theme Songs
Nippon Columbia, CW-7079
Few LPs released in 1976 included a Yamato song, but this was an important one. Isao Sasaki was already famous as an actor/singer when he started recording themes for anime and tokusatsu shows in 1974, expanding his popularity with a new and younger fan base. His themes had been released as singles and included in compilation albums for two years, but this was the first dedicated collection.
You might expect the Yamato theme to be front and center on such an important release, but instead it featured The Scarlet Scarf. Either way, it was only the first of many, many albums to follow.
October: Golden Terebi Manga Double Deluxe
Nippon Columbia, CW-7085~6
This double-LP set gave the Yamato theme another home, sharing space with 27 other songs from the worlds of both anime and live-action. In less than a year, Yamato would be promoted to headliner status and become much easier to spot on album covers like this one.
Other releases
The exact release dates of these collections is unknown, but they all did their part in spreading the Yamato theme to as many ears as possible. Terebi Manga Big Operation contained 14 themes, mostly from super robot shows. It came out on Keibunsha’s “Golden Home Library” label, and they were all covers of the originals by an act calling itself “Love Child.”
“Pachimono” (knockoff) cassettes were on the rise from independent labels that also offered cover versions of favorite themes. Here we have Gather!! Battle Machine from Super Wing and Jump Out Terebi Manga from Golden.