The Farewell to Yamato movie was one of those rising tides you hear about that lifted all boats when it hit Japanese cinemas in August 1978. No boat was lifted higher than that of Yamato 2, which premiered on TV two months later and was essentially a 26-episode expansion of the story. Thus, many of the products already on the market became supportive of both.
The number of products actually labeled for Yamato 2 was quite small, as seen below. But the overall quantity increased during its broadcast thanks to the involvement of two dedicated sponsors: Nomura Toy Company and Ezaki Glico, Japan’s biggest confectioner. Nomura’s lineup can be seen here, and Glico’s can be found further down this page. First we’ll attend to the stuff that actually said Yamato 2 on it…
The Sanko Toki [Three Happiness] Ceramics Co. had made children’s dishware way back in 1974 to tie in the original TV series (see it here), and returned to the fold with this Yamato 2 set.
Keeping little feet dry during the winter months would have been no problem with these luxuriously-embossed Yamato 2 boots. The tooling on these is amazingly good for a children’s product, and it must have been bracing to know Zordar was raging at the weather on your behalf.
Yamato 2 was a big enough deal to get the attention of Japan’s mainstream entertainment media in the wake of Farewell to Yamato‘s boffo box office in 1978. As a case in point, here’s an article from the fall ’78 issue of Talk of TV Magazine, which included a free iron-on (at right).
The Yomiuri TV network released a Yamato 2 poster to promote the broadcast of the show, and Office Academy turned it into the digital wall clock shown here. It measured about 20″ x 14″ and was released in September 1978, just a few days before the premiere.
Another Yomiuri promotional item was this do-it-yourself pencil cup with a calendar on one side.
Its means of distribution is unknown, but it was probably a bonus item in a magazine like Talk of TV.
Fans in search of bigger Yamato 2 calendars had a couple of options. The first (above left) borrowed the movie poster art from Farewell to Yamato and only covered the month of December 1978, but it was a start (the source for this item is unclear; it could have been part of a larger Yomiuri TV calendar). The following year, a 1980 calendar could be purchased that contained some new artwork from the series, all of which can be viewed in our Series 2 gallery.
The Amada Printing Co. was still going great guns with their various products during Yamato 2, and released another wave of their mini-cards in February 1979. This set devoted another 120 cards to the TV series, which fit the standard Amada pocket book holders. (Back up to this page to see previous sets.)
Jumping ahead for a moment, we have Amada’s “Collection Card” set 4, devoted to The New Voyage. Once again, they were stickers rather than cards, and came with their own display book (below). The numbering picked up from the three Farewell sets and added another 100 images, bringing the total to 460.
You might be asking why this isn’t being shown on a page devoted to New Voyage collectibles, and the simple answer is that there isn’t one. Believe it or not, this is the one and only piece of collectible merchandising (other than books and records) for that entire film. Why? Probably because store shelves were still teetering under the weight of the Farewell to Yamato campaign. Sometimes it takes a long time to say farewell.