To gain an understanding of Leiji Matsumoto’s workload on Series 1, consider this: after spending all day designing and supervising the look of the anime, he would struggle every night to meet his monthly deadline to render the same story in manga form. Naturally, it was very different from what was seen on TV.
Leiji Matsumoto’s manga version of the story was substantially shorter, but had many fascinating additions and alterations that would have made for a different experience had they been included in the anime. Let’s take a look at them one by one.
A complete reproduction of an illustrated version of Yamato, written by Keisuke Fujikawa and drawn by Leiji Matsumoto during the production of the first TV series. Serialized over six issues of a monthly children’s magazine, it retold a highly-condensed version of the story in just 29 pages and was never seen again.
Just about a year after most people thought they’d seen the last of Yamato, Leiji Matsumoto wrote and drew this completely new Gaiden (side-story) that fit somewhere into the first series. See it exactly as it appeared for the first time in Japan, straight out of the rough pink pages of Playcomic magazine.
Akira Hio’s adaptation of Series 1 is easily the most off-center version of the story with script writer Keisuke Fujikawa re-interpreting and re-ordering many of the ideas. Some were rescued from rejected TV scripts, but others changed the plotline to such a degree that they became entirely new. Examine the many differences here.
What are the two sweetest moments for a collector? 1: finding something on your wish list after years of searching. 2: finding something completely unexpected that blows your mind. For Yamato collectors, both of those moments are embodied in the “lost” manga by Yuki Hijiri, presented here in full.
Part 7: Fresh Faces
After its huge wave of reissues in 1980, Bandai focused entirely on all-new kits to tie in with Yamato III in 1981. But when the network prematurely ended the program it meant Bandai’s next wave would hit after the series was over. Nevertheless, the high standard was well-maintained.
Part 6: Into Eternity
When Be Forever premiered, it had been almost six years since the debut of the saga; enough time for a second generation of fans to join the fold. Bandai welcomed them in with its now-classic model kits and added some brand new ones to keep veterans happy.
Here we present the little-known story of Yamato III‘s creation from the assembly of an all-star dream team in the summer of 1980 to the division of labor between multiple studios to the revolutionary concept of giving each episode its own individual style.
The story continues with new art and mecha design, the first contributions to the saga by Yutaka Izubuchi (later the director of Yamato 2199), and the rigors of voice acting without any animation to go by. We conclude with the making of the compilation movie and a look back at the casting for Series 1.
This archive covers three months of magazine articles (September to November 1980) that focus on the beginning of the TV series, which made its debut in October. It presents the full flush of excitement for the most ambitious Yamato story of them all.
A who’s who of the men who made Yamato. Office Academy Studio was an academy for the entire anime industry. In the anime boom that followed, practically every high-profile production had a Yamato veteran in it somewhere, so it’s time to make more of their names known to the English-speaking world.
Yamato III was pretty light in terms of products that actually had a Yamato III label on them, but its sponsors were at the top of their game. Popy (a division of the mighty Bandai), and Ezaki Glico were on board again to turn out another colorful campaign.
Licensors for Farewell to Yamato had seen the feeding frenzy and knew what to plan for in the next round. Just as the movie improved upon its predecessor, the products also went to the next level. Here is a substantial sampling of what Yamato fans had to choose from in the wake of the biggest anime ever [3 pages].
The merchandising campaign for the movie was absolutely enormous and pasted Yamato onto everyday objects that had likely never before been linked to anime. Products were designed with teens and young adults in mind, and this collection should leave no doubt that a vast new territory was being opened up. [2 pages]
When one considers the gameplay possibilities Yamato offers, typing doesn’t immediately spring to mind, which makes these games worth investigating. This one followed the major events of the Yamato 2, with original animation clips and CG cutscenes that were state of the art at the time of release.
In February 2009, this pachinko game exploded on the scene in Japan, tricked out with all sorts of gimmicks. Twists and turns could take you into the Farewell to Yamato continuity, and the new CG animation was some of the best ever seen in the saga, setting a high bar for all the productions to follow.
The depth of Bandai’s involvement in Yamato goes farther than is immediately apparent, due in most part to their pantheon of sub-groups that have names and specialties of their own. During the golden age of the Yamato production years, the most visible of these was Popy. This article covers their output as a sponsor of Yamato III.
In 1981 and ’83, Bandai released two Yamato games unlike any that had come before. Between them, both games gave players the opportunity to recreate all the saga’s major space battles using cardboard chips, a space backdrop, a set of rules, and a pair of dice. See these games in all their boxed-up glory here.
Compared to Popy’s hyper-complex Be Forever Yamato board game, this one was (literally) child’s play, a simple set-up and knock-down exercise with frighteningly huge plastic missiles against helpless rubber enemies. Here’s a detailed look…
It’s an unfortunate truth that Yamato III has gotten less attention than the other parts of the saga, so it’s refreshing to occasionally see proof that it hasn’t been forgotten. When this game arrived in 2010, its stunning CG sequences gave us a taste of what should have been.
Turn the roulette to move out into space, and your trip begins! Breathtaking thrills are reproduced in this board game! Who will prevent the extinction of Earth?
So reads the blurb on the box, and it just barely hints at what awaits inside.
Pachinko Slot (Pachislo) is the tricked-out Japanese cousin of the Vegas-style slot machine. The first Yamato Pachislo game was a comparatively simple one released in 2000. Ten years later, Japan’s Yamasa Corporation left that one in the dust with a fully-loaded, state-of-the-art coin muncher.
Pachislo is a variation of pachinko that still uses the spinning numbers of a slot machine. The games themselves are generally impenetrable to those outside Japan, but any chance to relive the battle against the Comet Empire in a fresh way is always a welcome one.
Here we present every page of the Yamato III anime comics in English, originally published in My Anime magazine from 1981-82. Character names have been changed to match Star Blazers continuity, but the story itself is unaltered. Settle in for The Bolar Wars as you’ve never seen it before!
This archive picks up with December 1980 and follows all magazine coverage to the end in April 1981. The reduction in episodes was not yet known to magazine editors. They were entirely focused on what was to come, most especially the reunion with Dessler.
Cosmo DNA is dedicated to learning about how the saga developed and the effect it had on anime in the years that followed. That’s also the topic of this essay by producer Yoshinobu Nishizaki. It was originally published in 1983 when Yamato was just shy of 10 years old, but time has done nothing to dull its message.
by Arthur Painter
Many fans who watch Star Blazers series 3 wonder, “what happened to the original voices?” I’ll do my best to piece this together, starting with the impetus behind the creation of the original Star Blazers series.
