Brainstorming Sessions, May-July 1981
For the first time in anime history, the conception of a film was made part of the public record while it was still in progress. We begin with this segment, which reproduces the major talking points of all six Final Yamato brainstorming sessions.
Story Drafts, May-August 1981
Here we track which ideas planted the seeds for the final product and which were blown away on the wind. Some would have lead to a variant of the film while others would have created different stories altogether.
July 1981 Story Draft
After all the brainstorming sessions concluded, Eiichi Yamamoto was assigned with the task of weaving the strongest concepts into a single narrative to establish story structure before further work was suspended until the beginning of 1982…
Story Notes, January 1982
As the engine warmed up again, a three-day story summit with the entire preproduction team was set for the end of January, and materials had to be refreshed beforehand. Writer Aritsune Toyota took the lead with the text shown here.
Compared with the other villains in the saga, Desslok and the Gamilons weren’t the most powerful or even the best organized. But they endured all the way to the end and their merchandising outstrips that of all others. Here is a complete roundup. [3 pages]
When the TV series began in October 1980, Akira Hio was hard at work on his Be Forever adaptation. With his time already spoken for, publisher Asahi Sonorama had to look elsewhere and awarded the Yamato III manga assignment to one of Hio’s contemporaries, Takayuki Masuo. Here we examine the odd results.
Writer’s Summit Day 2
The story of Final Yamato was definitely taking shape, but was still far from script-ready. The presence of writer Aritsune Toyota on day 2 brought an extra dimension to the proceedings, thanks to his extensive knowledge of both science and science-fiction.
Writer’s Summit Day 3
On this day, the writers talked through the entire story to see if it held together. Though it differed in a few key points from the movie that would eventually emerge from their efforts, the outline was essentially in place.
