September 2022 was pretty slow, but there’s no bad month to be a Yamato fan. Between a surprise TV appearance, new Hyuga volumes from Hachette, a spectacular hobby show, and a nice uptick in fan activity, there was always something right around the corner.

September 3: Masato Ibu on TV

Dessler’s original voice actor made a rare and welcome appearance on a TV show…about cars. The show title is Ogiyahagi’s Car Pilgrimage: No Car, No Life and guests are invited on to discuss their history of car ownership and driving. Of course, the conversation drifts to other things, and when you get Masato Ibu on camera, you don’t let him go without a Dessler story.

Below is the portion in which he discusses Yamato, as reported here.

Film actor Masato Ibu (73) also worked as a voice actor, appearing on Space Battleship Yamato. He made his TV debut at the age of 17.

“There was a time when I had to re-enter a school in Nagoya from Tokyo because of my bad behavior,” he said. “At that time, I took an audition for a drama. There was an NHK program called Diary of a Junior High School Student, and I was on it as a delinquent for three years. That was my first regular role.”

Ibu has loved movies since he was a child and wanted to become an actor.

“When I entered the Gekidan Kumo training school, I saw my favorite actor, Tsutomu Yamazaki, and many others who had left the Bungakuza Company as shining stars. [Trivia note: Tsutomu Yamazaki would later be cast as Captain Okita in the live-action Yamato movie.] I naively thought that if I joined the company, I could be one of them. During my first year in the school, I suddenly saw a poster that said, ‘everyone on this list is ordered to leave the office.’ I was fired. I behaved badly, but I was forced to read Greek tragedies and Shakespeare. I thought, ‘Where is my path as a film actor if they make me read that kind of stuff?’ I was fired because of his bad conduct.”

“So I got together with people I met at bars in Shinjuku and formed a theater troupe. We sold our own tickets, performed twice a year, and worked part-time when we weren’t performing. It was during this time that I heard that I had a good voice. The leader of the troupe said to me, ‘You have a good voice, but…’ So I had a complex about my voice. I didn’t think of my voice was as a weapon, as people said.”

“In the midst of that situation, I was hired to play the role of Dessler in 1974, at the age of 25. I had never done animation before. They didn’t have all the footage done, so they projected blue lines on a screen and I had to speak until I saw a red marker. So when I said, ‘Hello, crew of Yamato, it’s nice to see you again,’ they would still say, ‘it’s already over.’ But if you don’t take pauses, you lose the flavor. Then the producer said, ‘I’ll extend the line, so you can do whatever you want.’ That made it easy.”

“I was also in a theater company at the time. Dessler was very popular. I got a lot of chocolate on Valentine’s Day.”

For anyone who doesn’t understand the “blue line” reference, it was a technique used for voice acting when animation footage wasn’t available. A strip of blank film was used; someone estimated the time it would take to say a specific line and drew a blue line on the blank film to match that length. The film was projected for the voice actor and they would use the blue line as a visual reference for starting and stopping. Any time a production had to rely on the “blue line” technique, it was a sure sign that they were in big trouble. Yamato Series 1 used it a LOT.

September 4: Age of Yamato TV premiere

Capping off a weekly run of Yamato films that started on August 21, Channel BS12 in Japan concluded the “trilogy” with the broadcast premiere of Age of Yamato.

Read all about the film here.

September 7: 1/350 Diecast Gimmick Model Vol. 181

Hachette’s 11th volume of the 1/350 Hyuga contained the parts needed to assemble the ventral intake structure. It turned out to also contain the electrical connector for the base that will eventually support the ship. On both Yamato and Andromeda, this socket didn’t appear until later, positioned closer to the stern.

See Hachette’s instruction video here

See an unboxing video here

See a modeler’s blog here

September 10: Music news

Today it was announced that Akira Miyagawa and the Osaka Shion Wind Orchestra will revive the incredible Yamato & Villains concert originally performed in the summer of 2021. If you happen to be in Japan on January 2023, you can see it for yourself in Kyoto on the 14th and Osaka on the 15th. (Details in Japanese here.)

If, like most people in the world, you can’t see it in person, Youtube has the next best thing.

See the entire concert here

See the first half with subtitled comments here

September 14: 1/350 Diecast Gimmick Model Vol. 182

More parts for the ventral intake arrived in this volume, an intricate collection of nozzles, lights, and electronics that allowed builders to complete the structure, attach it to the hull, and plug its fibers into a lighting bus.

See Hachette’s instruction video here

See an unboxing video here

See a modeler’s blog here

September 17 & 18: Doro Off Exhibition X: The Final

Since 2011, this annual hobby show has brought some of the most skilled and imaginative modelers together to reveal their dazzling creations. As of now, apparently, there will be no more under this name. Lucky for us, fans crowded in to capture it in photos and posted them on Twitter right away.

See a gallery of Yamato models here

See more photos on Twitter here and here, and on Facebook here.

You can find previous Doro Off galleries by entering “Doro Off” in the search bar at the top of this page.

September 18: PC game revival

Home computing was a thing back in the late 70s and early 80s, but it was strictly the realm of hobbyists, toiling away to create apps and games with very limited parameters. The very first Space Battleship Yamato games appeared at this time, examined in specialty magazines like ASCII and I/O.

The Fujitsu company published such a game, which was covered in the February 1980 issue of ASCII, shown above right. Today, it lives again thanks to a Twitter user named “Kushikatsu” who ported the data into a modern platform and translated it into English. It may be available online at some point in the future.

Meanwhile, view a short demo here.

September 19: The Lost Journey, print version

If you haven’t yet indulged in the splendor that is Dasha KO’s webcomic, click here to correct that oversight right now.

If reading comics on a screen isn’t your thing, or if you’d just like to have a paper version on your shelf (who wouldn’t?) Dasha has you covered! A limited number of printed books is now available! Drop her a line here to enquire about price and availability!

September 21: 1/350 Diecast Gimmick Model Vol. 183

For some reason or other, the parts in this volume jumped back to Hyuga‘s aft section, a portion of the ship that hasn’t begun contstruction yet. They consisted of the ventral fuel tanks (?) and the bulge structures mounted between them. After assembly, they’ll go into storage until there’s a hull section to accomodate them.

See Hachette’s instruction video here

See an unboxing video here

See a modeler’s blog here

September 28: 1/350 Diecast Gimmick Model Vol. 184

The last volume of the month also pertained to the aft section. This week, the parts came together to form a keel-like structure mounted underneath at the center of the ship. Only time will tell how soon it gets attached. Just 51 volumes to go!

See an unboxing video here

See a modeler’s blog here

Also spotted in September

Fan art

It was another excellent month for fan art in both categories with some interesting takes as you’ll see here:
Character gallery | Mecha gallery

Fan models

A deluge of models was posted in September with something from just about every category (and maybe some new ones). See them all here: Gallery A | Gallery B | Gallery C

Designer watches

Twitter user utdesign took fan art in a whole new direction, applying evocative color schemes to imaginary wristwatches.

Just one color change makes quite an impression, like the Queen of Iscandar herself.

And wherever you find Iscandar, its evil twin will not be far away.

See more experiments in watch design at utdesign’s website here.

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