Yamato Resurrection, Report 8

Resurrection in 2010

January 1

Jusco department stores, co-sponsors of the three December Goods Fairs, picked the first day of the new year to launch their second wave of Resurrection apparel with new shirts and jackets in adult sizes along with socks, sweatpants, and a new style of wristwatch. Whereas the first wave consisted of items that could all be purchased individually, these were offered in limited-edition box sets and were only available while supplies lasted.

January 15: Spaceship Pins Collection

A new set of lapel pins was released as a co-production by Plex and Yamato Toys. Limited to 1,000 sets, it included 43 different pins with five spaceships from Yamato Resurrection.

January 25

The Seiden Company is new to Yamato merchandising, and they made their entrance into the fray with three unique items: a pair of “3D memo” note pads (bevel-cut to follow the contours of their respective spaceships) and a mini “Wave-Motion Energy” flashlight.

January was also a month for high-end products. Shown here are polystone statues of Maho Orihara, Miyuki Kodai and Miharu Sasaki, all produced by the artisans at Volks Hobby and sold by Organic Hobby, Inc. The first two were released (both painted and unpainted) on January 31. Sasaki followed in February.

Your eyes do not deceive you. This customized PC notebook was another January product. Offered exclusively through the Yamato Crew website, it came pre-loaded with Resurrection graphics and sold for over $1300 US which made it the biggest-ticket Yamato item ever produced…until the Polynesian island nation of Tuvalu decided to create commemorative Yamato currency later in the year.


Product releases slowed considerably in February and March. At left is the 1 Meter Papercraft for the remodeled Yamato, a scaled-up version of the Papercraft model published in December by Fujitsu Zero Taro Store and Office Prion. They simply doubled the size of their December edition to produce a meter-long “big brother,” which was published February 1. It isn’t the first Yamato made at that scale (Liberty Planet broke that barrier in 2006), but priced at about $100 US, this is the cheapest one money can buy.

Shown above right is Neo Universe, a full-length CD from rock group The Alfee. Released on March 10, it consists of 11 tracks which includes the ending theme from Yamato Resurrection. The album was released in three editions, two of which are shown here. The limited editions included DVDs with music videos. Read about the music from the film and The Alfee’s contribution here.

The world of Yamato apparel grew again in February when the President Company of Japan released this set of 7 t-shirts made by Ray-Ban, all of which commemorate the anniversary of Yamato Resurrection‘s start of production. A momentous occasion if ever there was one.

This set of long-sleeve shirts was released later and made use of two of the President designs. The black emblem (far right bottom) was on the back.

Bandai got back into the T-shirt game as well, issuing two new Resurrection T-shirts (A and B, above) on February 1 through their online Lalabit Market. They took this opportunity to reissue two previous T-shirt designs from 2005; a straight-up ship profile (C, above)…

…and the truly inspired crew shirt above. One of these actually made international news when this photo from the International Space Station was released on April 10. That’s JAXA astronaut and ISS Expedition 23 flight engineer Soichi Noguchi, a veteran of Discovery’s STS-114 mission (see him on YouTube here). He arrived at the ISS in December 2009 on Soyuz TMA-17, which means (A) he probably got the T-shirt in 2005 and (B) he missed the premiere of Yamato Resurrection. Where were his priorities???

Incidentally, that’s JAXA astronaut Naoko Yamazaki on the right, who was a crewmember of STS-131 Discovery and a devout Yamato/Leiji Matsumoto fan from her childhood; she cited both as her inspiration for going off to outer space–for real.

The Skill Up Japan company added another item to the history of Yamato food on March 18 with three flavors of canned bread, all sold on the Yamato Crew website. The labels are shown here.

Skill Up didn’t stop there; they released a 12″ x 36″ bath towel (above left) on March 18 and a Yamato Crew mug on April 27.

Yamato Crew teamed up with Japan’s Laundry Collaberation company on March 19 to release this lineup of six t-shirts using ship silhouettes from Yamato Resurrection. That covers food and clothing. If someone comes up with Yamato shelter, humanity’s basic needs will be met.

The Organic Hobby Company popped up again on March 25 with cartons of Yamato-themed mineral water, shown at right. Skill Up added another item to their lineup on May 12, a cotton tote bag that looks just about right for carrying water bottles around.

April 23 saw a third wave of Resurrection apparel in Jusco stores, this time a line of eight new T-shirt designs available in two colors apiece. They continued the theme of previous apparel with their customary splashy graphics. Special thanks to friend-of-the-website Gwyn Campbell for these photos!

As the June 4 release date approached for Yamato Resurrection on home video, posters like the one shown above left began to appear in stores. The plan shifted in early May when Bandai Visual decided instead to release a rental-only version on that date, and pushed the others back to July 23. Box art for the rental version is shown above right.

For the sale versions, fresh new box art was created showing Yamato under construction in the Aquarius asteroid, and the release would mark Yamato‘s debut on two new formats: BluRay Disc and UMD. The bonus features include a collection of staff interviews. The pre-order window for these discs opened June 15 at the Yamato Crew website, which offered three bonus products: the towel and cotton tote bag from Skill Up (both shown on this page) and an exclusive postcard. Click here to read a detailed product review.

Continue to Report 9

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