With the approach of Yamato 2202 and the explosion of new design work that will accompany it, we revisit the original designs from 1978 for comparison. This collection reviews the mecha of Gatlantis, the Comet Empire.
Manga Shonen was one of the first Japanese magazines to chart the growth of anime on TV and in theaters. This collection brings together their Yamato coverage for the pivotal year of 1978, when everything leveled up.
The purpose of the many Time Machine collections here is to chart the evolution of both Yamato and anime journalism. Manga Shonen was an early source for both, a hugely popular magazine that was there to chart Yamato‘s rise to greatness just as the word “anime” entered the pop culture lexicon for the first time.
The first – and so far, only – English translation of a Space Battleship Yamato novelization originally written and published in Japan. This story was first published during the premiere broadcast of Series 1 and takes familiar elements into territory never explored in anime form. You’ll have to read it to believe it!
Your guide to everything seen in Final Yamato on the Yamato and Dengil sides, originally released as bonus features on the Voyager Entertainment Final Yamato DVD.
Your guide to everything seen in Be Forever on the Yamato, Earth Defense Forces, and Dark Nebula sides, originally released as bonus features on the Voyager Entertainment Be Forever Yamato DVD.
Your guide to everything seen in The New Voyage on the Yamato, Gamilas, and Dark Nebula sides, originally released as bonus features on the Voyager Entertainment New Voyage DVD.
This index lists the music cues used in each episode of Space Battleship Yamato Series 1, and can be used to create your own episode-by-episode playlists.
A complete overview of Series 3 via the galleries created as bonus features for the Comet Empire DVD series released by Voyager Entertainment in 2003. All the characters, ships, weapons, locations, maps, and more!
Akira Hio is the record-holder for drawing Yamato manga, but interviews with him were practically nonexistent until another manga artist, Keiichi Tanaka, published this extensive conversation that covers Hio’s long and storied career working alongside some of the best mangaka history has to offer. [2 pages]
A complete overview of Series 2 via the galleries created as bonus features for the Comet Empire DVD series released by Voyager Entertainment in 2002. All the characters, ships, weapons, locations, maps, and more!
When the first Star Blazers series came to DVD in 2001, they came with extensive galleries as bonus features that catalogued every aspect of the story: characters, ships, mecha, weapons, history, and more. Here you can examine each of those galleries in full and maybe even find something new.
After assisting Leiji Matsumoto on the Farewell to Yamato manga, artist Hiroshi Aizawa brought his steady hand to Yamato III. It was serialized in Adventure King, but destined never to be reprinted. Here, for the first time since its initial publication, Hiroshi Aizawa’s “lost” manga lives again!
The end of the long road comes with the 70mm encore release of the film, followed by the ultimate Final Yamato book to rule them all. When the clock ticks over to 1984, Producer Yoshinobu Nishizaki takes Final Yamato to the international stage and lays out a new future for the fans. See it all here.
From December 2012 to July 2015, the making of Final Yamato was examined in detail through a series of articles that followed every stage of the film and its unprecedented media coverage. This index provides a broad overview with links to each article, from early preproduction in 1981 through the last echoes in 1984.
To casual viewers, the Yamato saga was over when Final Yamato closed in theaters. but for the fans there was still the forthcoming 70mm upgrade which turned their summer into a waiting game. Fortunately, there were plenty of things to make the wait easier.
Some serious book publishing began just after Final Yamato closed in theaters, which happened to coincide with the last of the monthly magazine coverage. This was the month when fans had their say about the film, and opinions ranged as widely then as they do now.
Now that the movie was released into the world, everyone had something to say about it both pro and con. The conversation was just beginning as this month’s wave of magazine, book, and music publishing hit the stores – and the very first arrival of Yamato on home video was right behind it.
By Arthur Painter with Franco Carmona and Tim Eldred. The last story of the original Yamato saga was the biggest, most ambitious one of them all with almost ten years of gravitas. Here we review it scene by scene with observations, trivia, making-of notes, and fan perspectives on the concluding chapter. [4 pages]
March 15, 1983, was the last big day for fans before Final Yamato premiered on the 19th. “Big day” in this case refers to several things happening at once, so that’s where this Time Machine visit begins. Here we cover publications that filled the latter half of the month, including unique magazine coverage from Kinejun.
As the first official Final Yamato publication direct from the home office, this was the most comprehensive one available when the film premiered in March 1983, with slick color images, many new stills and paintings, and extended essays. See it from cover to cover with translations here.
As the wait for Final Yamato came down to the last two weeks, the anime magazines hit newsstands just over a week before the premiere, which put them in a real sweet spot. Anticipation would never be higher, and spoilers would never be thicker. It would be the last Yamato coverage for some, so they left nothing out.
With the Final Yamato trailer in theaters, this was the last full month everyone got to enjoy the anticipation of what they would see in the film – despite Yoshinobu Nishizaki’s best attempts to spoil it by revealing the biggest surprises. He always did enjoy setting traditions more than following them.
This month, the first big chunk of the Final Yamato storyline was fully revealed up to the ship’s launch, and the monthly anime magazines dug in deep. It’s unthinkable in today’s entertainment world for so much be known in advance, but Exec Producer Yoshinobu Nishizaki always played by his own rulebook.
Stories have since come out about how frantic the final months were on the Final Yamato production side, but fans knew little of this at the time. All they had to go on was what they read in the media, and January had a record-setting amount, starting with the publications covered in this installment.
This was the first month finished color designs could be released for Final Yamato, resulted in a wave of publishing that demonstrated the specific visual tone of the movie. Between the anime magazines and the first novelizations, here’s everything that got a loyal fan through the month of December…
With so many Final Yamato albums in the mix, creating a definitive track listing is a very complex task. With over 60 individual tracks to deal with, sorting them out is a major undertaking. But, with all the necessary puzzle pieces in one place, the Final Yamato music mountain can be conquered.
It’s a sure mark of a story’s universal appeal when it jumps freely from one medium to another. The journey to Iscandar and back is one such story, having appeared in every form of modern media and thrived in all of them. How many roads lead to Iscandar? Probably more than you think.
Coverage in Japan’s monthly anime magazines took an important turn when movie production reached a point where cel animation existed to generate publicity stills. Thus, after many months of nothing but design and development art, fans could finally get a preview of what would actually be projected onto the big screen.
This was was a good month for SF anime, seeing the debut of both Macross and Endless Road SSX, both of which were covered in anime magazines along with news of Final Yamato‘s mecha and music. Plus, the Yamato fan club magazine published a first-hand account of the momentous ten-year celebration party.
