Events of the Legacy Years, 2011-present
Fully back in the public eye after the 2009 resurrection, Yamato achieved the status of living legend as the new films circled the globe and yet another new production loomed over the horizon. See the continuing record of public events here.
Weekly Yamato Fact File was published in encyclopedic segments from October 2009 through August 2011. And what an encyclopedia it is; 2,640 pages designed to fill 9 custom ring-binders that command 18″ of shelf space. All of it devoted to the world of Space Battleship Yamato.
Ryusuke Hikawa wrote this column to examine the subtleties of anime. His topic in the April 1999 issue was a complex one indeed: the interplay of thoughts and images as delineated by a single frame of film. It gave him an opportunity to examine various aspects using the evolution of Yamato as an example.
A conversation with three people who took part in Yamato production: Sound Effects Producer Mitsuru Kashiwabara, Sound & Music Producer Mitsuhiro Koyama, and Assistant Producer Shinji Iwamoto. Translated from the 1996 Sound Fantasia CD liner notes.
One of the most talented Yamato veterans is the virtuoso manga artist and animation director/designer Yasuhiko Yoshikazu. Here he talks about his Yamato experiences in 1983, shortly after the theatrical releases of Final Yamato and his own feature film, Crusher Joe.
Toyoo Ashida was there for the revolution that transformed anime from kid stuff to mainstream, and he not only rode the wave for great success, but also helped pushed it forward as a designer, animator, and director. What he left behind will embody the joy and energy of this amazing artform for generations to come.
Everyone who sees hand-drawn animation knows intuitively what they’re looking at. But before Kanada came along, few realized the hidden potential of that fact. His gift to the anime industry was to unlock that potential. Space Battleship Yamato was just one of many beneficiaries.
Yamato events are now long over with, but enough documentation remains to provide a substantial and entertaining record of this unprecedented phenomenon. If you were enough of a fan to follow Yamato from place to place Grateful Dead style, this is what your calendar would have looked like from 1975 to 1983.
Ever wonder what Japan thought of Star Blazers? One place to find out was the magazine of the official Space Battleship Yamato fan club. It featured unique articles on Star Blazers over four consecutive issues in 1986, providing this rare Japanese perspective on what was done with Yamato in the U.S.
Producer Yoshinobu Nishizaki fully recognized the contribution of private fan clubs to Yamato‘s smash success in 1977. Hot on the heels of his announcement that there would be a Yamato sequel, he set into motion phase two of Yamato fandom: the founding of an official fan club. Read all about its most exciting years here.
The internet bursts at the seams with Star Blazers and Space Battleship Yamato content. If you’ve backed away in terror at the sheer magnitude of it all, this page is here to highlight some of the more noteworthy artifacts that have emerged on YouTube, either directly related to Yamato or inspired by it.
The six participants in this 1993 interview discussed their experiences from the early years and their work on the forthcoming Yamato 2520, which at the time was simply referred to as New Yamato. The fact that 2520 would not work out as planned makes this a particularly interesting read.
A once-in-a-lifetime round table discussion between three luminaries: director Leiji Matsumoto, composer Hiroshi Miyagawa, and auteur Hideaki Anno. Translated from the 1998 Railway of Fantasy concert program.
Yamato Mechanical Illustrations, published in 2011, contained this discussion between Tenjin and the editor of Yamato Fact File magazine. Their conversation explores some unique philosophical ground, mapped out by the responsibilities and pitfalls of visualizing SF anime’s most iconic spaceship.
An interview with Michael Pinto and Brian Cirulnick! Their mutual love of Star Blazers and their privileged perspective put many opportunities in their path and enriched their lives in ways neither could predict. As you will see, they do far more than fit the category of superfan — they define it.
Star Blazers fan clubs in America didn’t have quite the same numbers as Space Battleship Yamato clubs in Japan, but they were absolutely equal in terms of passion, dedication, and motivation. This unique collection of documents from the early years puts all of that on full display.
OUT was a magazine by fans for fans. This article perfectly represents that approach; the transcript of a round-table discussion at a Yamato fan club meeting. At the time, Yamato 2 was just past the halfway point of its first broadcast and with each new episode enlarging the context of the saga, there was plenty to discuss.
Yamato toys exploded like shotgun pellets past the model kit revolution and peppered the Japanese “play” culture with whole new categories. This article gives a broad overview of the toys made by Popy, Nomura, Mimuko, Liberty Planet, Megahouse, and many others from 1974 to the present day.
When a Yamato sequel was announced in November 1977, Nomura decided to get involved. By the time pre-production for Yamato 2 began in May 1978, Nomura had signed on as a key sponsor, gambling on the notion that they could deliver what the fans would expect. Fortunately for all concerned, they were right.
In 1981, the new magazine My Anime included autobiographical essays. Nishizaki was the first to take up the invitation, and he wrote a very personal account of his early struggles in the anime business. It’s a great snapshot in time and an unusually candid self-expose that can’t help but inspire.
The history of Yamato cutaway art
A surprising number of interior diagrams have been published over the years, almost none of which entirely agrees with the others. Here is a comprehensive look at how Yamato has evolved from the inside out.
The Yamato saga was the result of skillful intentions and some very lucky accidents. These factors combine to make Yamato an ideal frame through which a pivotal period in anime history can be observed and measured. One way to do that is to examine the design evolution of the Yamato itself.
During the early years when Yamato seemed gone for good, fans took it upon themselves to review and expand the experience the only way they could: fanzine publishing. Carol Hutchings examines where this unique art form has flourished among today’s fans through the work of her personal favorites.
From its very beginnings right up to today, the Yamato series has had as big a presence in manga as in anime, sometimes moreso with multiple adaptations existing side by side. Then there are the Star Blazers comic books that appeared outside Japan. They are all examined in this comprehensive history.
“Anime Comics” was the term publisher Akita Shoten devised to catch the attention of Japanese fans in 1980. They were composed of stills derived from film frames, arranged on a page to retell the story of the film. They did an excellent job of making anime comics look easy to assemble, but they most certainly were not.
Any devoted anime fan with some cash to spend can easily bury themselves in all manner of publishing from to manga to magazines and more. But one form of print media is still off the radar of English-only fans: novelizations. Examining the history of Yamato novels reveals a lot about who published them.
Part 9: Crossing the Ocean
Starting in 1985, Twentieth Century Imports brought many of Bandai’s Yamato kits to America under the Star Blazers name, which resulted in the very first mass-market Star Blazers merchandising. See the entire lineup here.
Star Blazers fan fiction has been around for decades, but in the spring of 2010 it finally stepped into the next logical medium: a fan-made audio drama produced by superfan Devin Cox and Forward Momentum Productions. Season 1 | Season 2
Also produced by Yoshinobu Nishizaki, Triton had made its TV debut two years before Yamato. These programs and another named Blue Noah formed a triumvirate of action/adventure shows that made Office Academy an industry leade. Let’s examine these “brothers” of Yamato and see how they fit into the overall picture.
Immediately after 1979’s The New Voyage, two new projects demanded Yoshinobu Nishizaki’s attention: the development of Be Forever Yamato and the conversion of the first two series into Star Blazers. Despite the insane workload, he added a third project to the mix: the TV series Space Carrier Blue Noah.
