If we were to name this specific stretch of Yamato history, the appropriate word would probably be “Afterglow.” The feature film was still burning up the box office after three months, media coverage was still very active, and important new things were just about to arrive that would firmly plant Yamato‘s flag into the soil of the future.

Without further ado, here’s everything that maintained this afterglow all the way to the end of Yamato‘s biggest year (so far).

November 1: Asahi 8mm Library films

Publisher Asahi Sonorama became the very first source for Yamato anime-on-demand when they released three 8mm film reels. Each included sound and color with a running time of 10-12 minutes. This was probably the most expensive way to see Yamato, given that each reel originally cost 12,500 yen. That comes to about $10 per minute in today’s dollars.

Reel 1, titled Goodbye Earth was a compilation of scenes from Episodes 1-10, concluding with the crew’s sad farewells to their families.

Reel 2, God, weep for the Gamilas, went all the way up to the end of Episode 24, which shares the same title.

Reel 3, imaginatively titled Living and Dying for Love, was a bit more generous, spending all its time on the final two episodes. The title elegantly refers to the choices made by Starsha and Yuki.

Production credits indicate that the films were manufactured by Herald Enterprise.

Color flyer, front side

Color flyer, back side

November 1: Roadshow magazine, December issue

The love affair between Roadshow and Yamato continued not with an article, but the movie’s first #1 ranking in a reader poll to decide the favorite films playing from August 21 to September 30 (they used the month of October to tally the results).

The top ten for this month were:

1. Space Battleship Yamato
2. The Deep
3. Damnation Alley
4. Voyage of the Wanderer
5. Rocky
6. A Bridge Too Far
7. Exorcist 2
8. The Eagle Has Landed
9. Sibyl’s Room (France)
10. New York, New York

November 1: Terebi Magazine, December issue

Out of the blue, this issue of Terebi Magazine opened with a foldout poster and a five-page pictorial with original art that was memorable of magazine coverage for the TV series in 1974/75.

Get a look at the complete article here.

November 1: Kappa [Gem] Monthly magazine

What makes the ’77 Yamato boom so interesting is the wide range of media coverage it received as a fresh social phenomenon. The most insightful analysis was to be found in magazines like this one, a monthly digest of journalism for women. The November issue contained an outstanding 8-page article that was among the first to observe Yamato as media unto itself with many independent branches.

“It is not a single original work that has branched out. Rather, each of them is independent and at the same time, the totality of such mediums is also “a work of art.” Yamato exists as integrated multiple art forms. This is how we should understand it…It was conceived as an epic poem, and it would be unacceptable to call it a mere children’s manga film.”

Read the article here.

November 1: Modern Film magazine, November issue

It’s no secret that diehard fans of the TV series did not uniformly praise the movie version. Very occasionally, professional writers stepped out of the shadows to put themselves in that category. That was the case with a columnist for Modern Film, who had this to say:

“It is a busy compilation of a very long story. The story is so rough and jumpy that I never really got into it. It would be better to create a completely new episode for the big screen and then put a whole story together around it, or to concentrate on a few episodes from the TV version and rework them for the big screen. I think that’s the form it should have taken.”

Read the article here.

November 10: GORO magazine No. 22

The best thing about publicity is that it makes your story known to the world.
The worst thing about publicity is that it makes your story known to the world.

Today, friction between the primary creators of Yamato (Yoshinobu Nishizaki and Leiji Matsumoto) is a well-known part of the legacy. The first account of that friction might just be the “bi-weekly for adults” entertainment magazine GORO. (The cover is dated November 24, but it indicated the date of the next issue.)

A 1-page article in this issue’s Young Street column revealed previously unreported grievances by Matsumoto and others against Nishizaki. With an important announcement soon to take place, it was harsh timing. As with all such reports, the information is not 100% reliable, but it is a singular point in franchise history that belongs in the record books.

Read the article here.

November 15: Yamato Part 2 is announced

The Yamato movie had pulled in over 2.25 million viewers by this time and made over two billion yen at the box office. The English version, Space Cruiser Yamato, was enjoying its own brief world tour in Europe and America. A celebration was held at Tokyo’s Imperial Hotel on November 15, which Producer Yoshinobu Nishizaki opened with these remarks:

“On the basis of this success, I want to start production on a sequel that will depict the end of Yamato.”

Rumors had been floating around about the planning of a second film, and now they were officially revealed. Toei Pictures had already signed on as the production partner for Yamato Part 2, and a very intense production period would soon kick off, leading to an August 1978 premiere.

November 15: Panel clock

Yamato products were still steadily rolling out as the movie continued playing in theaters and expanding across Japan. This was the largest anyone had seen so far, a 17″ x 23″ movie poster repurposed into a clock. It was created and released by Yoshinobu Nishizaki’s Academy Co. and would soon become one of the first products marketed through the official fan club.

November 16: Space Cruiser Yamato premiere

It’s hard to find reliable data for a detailed production timeline of the dubbed Yamato movie, but a website named Anime Bargain Bin places its premiere in Europe and the UK on this day in 1977. (See the article here.) The scant media coverage we’ve seen all comes after this date, so until other information turns up, this is where the flag will be planted.

Read all about the film here.

November 17: Weekly Action magazine

This issue of Weekly Action, the manga magazine that serialized Lupin III and other mature titles, offered a 1978 calendar to its readers that included images from several properties with Yamato in the prime position.

November 25: Yoshinobu Nishizaki’s Part 2 proposal

On this day, Nishizaki gathered his main staff at the Hotel New Japan in Akasaka, Tokyo, to begin conceptualizing Yamato Part 2. This group included Leiji Matsumoto, director Toshio Masuda, and others. Their starting point was a 12-point document written by Nishizaki titled “Proposal for a Yamato Sequel.” It summarized his personal opinions about where the story should go and offered a premise upon which many plot ideas could be built. Its two main areas of focus were reflections on the original series and constructing a new theme of “universal love.”

Read it here.

November 25: Space Cruiser Yamato drama album

It had been four months since the last release, the Japanese drama album that preceded the movie by about two weeks. Fans loved it, but it only made them hungrier for a genuine soundtrack. That made this one an odd choice: an English-language drama album derived from the American dub of the movie.

Perhaps to make up for this, it came in an unusually deluxe package: a keepsake box containing a poster of the “Studio Nue Yamato,” an LP with the English-dubbed soundtrack cut down to 54 minutes, and a bilingual script book with which Japanese listeners could read along. (A portion of this script had been published in English Today magazine, as seen in Vintage Report 7.)

Side 1 of the LP got Yamato off the ground and ended with a very wooden goodbye to Earth. Side 2 picked up in the middle of the battle with Domel’s fleet and lurched its way to the end. It was strangely disconnected from its source material, which had been reduced down to the bare minimum of music and sound effects.

The next album release was now one month away, and it would turn out to be the one everyone was waiting for.

November 28: Weekly Heibon Punch, 12/5 issue

Digging into Yamato history can take you down some very interesting side roads. Everyone involved with it had their own story to tell, and few tell a more colorful story than singer Isao Sasaki. He had a significant history in both acting and pop music before his rendition of the Yamato theme brought him a whole different kind of fame.

He described that heady time to a reporter for Heibon Punch, and you can read it all here.

Late November: Deform Display Model

Almost three years had passed since Bandai released a Yamato-related model kit, and based on the timing for this one, the movie must have taken them by surprise, too. Three months after the premiere, this was the only new model they had to offer. But an unusual style choice made it a memorable one. Deciding that the poster image was the most universal, they matched it in 3D with a forced-perspective design that tapered off in the back. All you had to do was view it from the front and you had the illusion of something much bigger.

It would be almost another year before fans got the authentic Yamato model they were hoping for, but this was a welcome stop along the way. It would also have the benefit of keeping Bandai afloat at a time when its competitors were still far ahead.

December: Official fan club established

The specific launch date is unknown; an official Yamato fan club already existed before the start of December, but this was the month it “went live,” so to speak, with registration open to any fan who wanted to sign up. The “welcome kit” consisted of a 14-page booklet and a greeting card with the following message from Chairman Yoshinobu Nishizaki:

We would like to express our sincere appreciation for your enthusiastic support of Space Battleship Yamato.

The way of life of the human beings who valiantly fight to save the Earth, with hope for all possibilities, represents the common theme of all mankind: “love, dreams, adventure — and romance.” Along with the young people who are about to embark on their lives, I intend to pursue this theme myself.

By the way, I have received many letters from fans all over the country, not only during the TV program but also after the screening of the movie. The TV stations and publishers have also been inundated with inquiries about Yamato, which has been a source of great joy.

For this reason, we have established a “fan club headquarters” to provide accurate peripheral information on Space Battleship Yamato and to promote mutual friendship among fans. We sincerely hope that our activities will be of service to you.

The agenda was to give fans what they’d been hungriest for since the start: access to exclusive products, a roster of live events, and an official news source in the form of a bimonthly magazine that would begin publication in February 1978. The hundreds of private clubs and dozens of doujinshi publishers would still operate, but now there would be a direct connection into the home office and it would change everything for the better.

Read much more about the fan club here.

See the “Fun Club Book” from cover to cover here.

December: Symphonic Suite promotional single

Music history would be made later in the month, and this was its herald: a 33.3rpm single that wasn’t available to the general public, but was probably distributed to radio stations for advance airplay. It contained only the first album cut (titled Overture), but the full track listing was provided on the back of the sleeve. The album release was indicated as December 25.

At right is a contemporary magazine ad on the inside back cover of OUT magazine.

Something else that made the upcoming album special was an actual press conference to announce it. The date of this event (certainly the first of its kind) is unknown, but the attendees were no less than Yoshinobu Nishizaki and Hiroshi Miyagawa, flanked in the photo by executives from Columbia records.

December 1: Roadshow, January issue

It was time for another check-in with Roadshow readers to vote on their favorite movies, this time with a theater window of September 21 to October 20. For the second month in a row, Yamato took the top score.

1. Space Battleship Yamato
2. Proof of Humanity (Japan)
3. Voyage of the Damned (Japan)
4. Damnation Alley
5. Rocky
6. Sibyl’s Room
7. The Longest Day
8. Village of Eight Graves (Japan)
9. Bilitis (France)
10. The Deep

Roadshow also launched a new feature in this issue, a monthly “Reader Page” to share fan art. Right from the beginning, Yamato featured prominently. See an enlargement here.

December 1: Manga Shonen December issue

Manga Shonen didn’t include any Yamato coverage in this issue, but it did carry a unique ad for the 3-volume set of 8mm films pictured at the beginning of this report.

December 1: The World of TV Anime

By their own nature, these Vintage Reports are hyper-focused on Space Battleship Yamato activity, but it’s important not to lose the greater context; TV anime had been around for over a decade by this time. The greatest impact of Yamato‘s unprecedented success was to bring greater visibility to all of it. And until an earlier candidate can be found, The World of TV Anime appears to be the first book dedicated to the subject.

Published by Asahi Sonorama, it was a “special issue” spinoff of Manga Shonen. Clocking in at a generous 214 pages, it shed long overdue light on the breadth of anime made for TV with several specific and general features. It opened with a 16-page color photostory of Yamato Episode 25, which fans could only dream about back in the dark days when they had to point their cameras at their TV screens to get any images at all. (See all the pages here.) Episode 81 of Gatchaman was given the same treatment.

Other features included an almanac of 14 years of TV anime (that’s all there was at the time), a script for Cyborg 009 Episode 2 with synopses of the whole first series, a manga comparing the careers of a manga artist and an animator, a script from Rainbow Soldier Robin, photo tours of production studios, an animation glossary, an index of all 215 TV anime shows that existed at this point, and more. Every anime historian should make an effort to get this book on their shelves.

Lastly, there was also a 1-page interview with Yoshinobu Nishizaki. Read it here.

December 1: Space Battleship Yamato TV Mook (Akita Shoten)

This was only the second book dedicated to the TV series, following Tokuma Shoten’s famed Roman Album. In many ways, it was actually a step up in quality. It also bore two names that were a first in Yamato history: it was a special edition from Movie Terebi Magazine, which came from a different publisher than Terebi Magazine. It was also christened a “Mook,” a contraction of “Magazine” and “Book.” This may have been the first publication anywhere to use that term, which later went into general use.

At 80 pages, It was an excellent full-color guidebook to the TV series, organized by subject with half the page count devoted to Yamato and Earth, roughly a quarter going to Gamilas and Iscandar, and the balance devoted to a retelling of the story via Captain Okita’s logbook. In deference to the movie, there was no episodic breakdown of the series. For hardcore fans, the real highlight was a foldout of the first bridge, newly rendered with unprecedented clarity.

December 1: Neo Negal #3 doujinshi

Doujinshis were still alive and well with a new lease on life thanks to the broadening of fandom. This 24-page issue from Space Battleship Yamato Fan Club II was a fun grab-bag of TV coverage with three pages devoted to Nishizaki’s earlier series, Triton of the Sea.

See it from cover to cover here.

December 2: Radio drama, All Night Nippon

Despite being one of the biggest Yamato moments of 1977, second only to the movie premiere by some metrics, there is almost no official documentation of the first radio drama. Fortunately, as always, fans came to the rescue in subsequent years by not only chronicling the event but also unearthing the program itself, something that really should have been done for commercial release by now. The 2008 doujinshi shown below is the single best resource, a transcript with documentation of the entire program.

The general overview was as follows: All Night Nippon was a popular late-night radio show originating in Tokyo. At 1am on December 2, Space Battleship Yamato took it over for its entire four hours with an adaptation of the Iscandar story featuring the original cast reprising their roles. The narrative was reframed with Kodai writing about the voyage in a journal dedicated to his deceased parents.

Each hour of the show was split between drama and intermission, during which the hosts conducted live interviews with Yoshinobu Nishizaki, Leiji Matsumoto, and various voice actors. Those who could stay awake all the way to 5am had an experience that must have been just as fulfilling as seeing the anime for the first time.

In fact, find out for yourself; the drama portions have been spliced together into a single program that can be heard on Youtube here.

Beyond this was an altogether new and unexpected dimension: a re-arranged musical score that was heard for the first time. Later in the month, it was going to change the world of anime music forever.

Media headlines, before and after:

Space Battleship Yamato makes inroads into radio!
Tokyo Chunichi Sports, November 9

Late-night launch on radio! The universe that could not be depicted on TV is infinitely expanded as an image on radio. This will be fun. It’s great that it’s done live.
Sankei Sports, November 9

Live drama for 4 hours, focusing on romance and love for mankind.
Sankei Radio Special, November 19

Space Battleship Yamato to be broadcast, taking advantage of the fantasy of radio drama.
Akahata, November 25

The program depicts the surrounding situation and the movement of the crowd as seen through Kodai’s eyes. Space Battleship Yamato is a radio drama that emphasizes Kodai’s growth.
Mainichi Junior High Newspaper, December 1

Another young world, late night radio drama Space Battleship Yamato flooded with calls!
Asahi Shimbun, December 3

Adults also enjoyed Space Battleship Yamato
Yomiuri Shimbun, Radio Weekly Review, December 6

The four-hour radio drama was a moving experience.
Yomiuri Shimbun, December 7

As a fan, I was very satisfied with the Yamato radio drama.
Tokyo Shimbun, Echoes, December 14

December 3: Yamato Part 2 preproduction

In November, the primary goals were for Yoshinobu Nishizaki to choose the writing team and present his initial proposal. The first writer to take the plunge was the same one who began the journey in 1973: Aritsune Toyota.

On December 3, he presented his first story draft based on the points in the proposal. It began with the notion that since the Yamato crew returned to Earth, they have begun to feel alienated and no one seems to have any respect for the ship that saved humanity. Under this sorry atmosphere, a new threat emerges to life on Earth.

In this draft, that threat was not alien invasion. But it was still something fans will certainly recognize in hindsight.

Read the story draft here.

For the next several days, the staff conducted story meetings to expand and evolve the concepts. It was agreed that an enemy would invade Earth with an artificial, mechanized planet, and the new characters would include a big tough rival for Kodai, a powerful witch-like character on the enemy side, and a mysterious girl as her opposite number on the Yamato side. Obviously, there was a lot more to come.

December 17-29: Toei movie festival

Multi-feature movie festivals were a staple of Japanese life for kids in the 70s, and Toei Pictures was at the top of the heap with a huge catalog of theatrical features new and old. For the first half of December, they offered a double-feature with a baseball theme including a live action documentary and the premiere of New Star of the Giants. From there, they picked up with a renewal screening of Space Battleship Yamato and the revival of a Cyborg 009 film from all the way back in 1967. Talk about a win-win!

December 20: Yamato Part 2 preproduction

On this day, veteran writer Keisuke Fujikawa delivered the second story draft, which incorporated new ideas that evolved from the Toyota version. The opening is now very recognizable; Earth is rebuilding, Yamato is considered a relic, and the crew lives on as best they can. Hero’s Hill has been established.

Refugees arrive from space, speaking of an aggressive, nomadic race being led by Dessler in an attempt to reform his empire. The people of Earth refuse to help, and Yamato‘s crew is tasked with taking the refugees somewhere else. This brings them face to face with the enemy, whose master plan is to divert Halley’s Comet onto a collision course with Earth!

Read the story draft here.

December 21: International movie review

Thanks to the efforts of writer/researcher Samantha Ferreira, we have a date for the earliest known review of the English-dubbed Yamato movie, filed at the London office of Variety magazine. And it is most assuredly not an endorsement:

Space Cruiser Yamato (Japan – animated – color)

Reviewed at Century Preview Theater, London, Dec. 13 1977

The poster for Star Wars is more exciting than this less-than-animated Japanese cartoon. Space Cruiser Yamato is, with a few exceptions, strictly Saturday morning TV fare. The Yoshinobu Nishizaki production should bore adults silly and, owing to jargon-saturated dialogue, confuse the 6-to-12-year-old audience that might have appreciated it.

The year is 2199. The Earth, engaged in battle with the evil planet Gorgon, has only one year left to neutralize the radioactive fallout killing its people. Space Cruiser Yamato, the planet’s only hope, is sent to fetch the antidote. After numerous clashes, Gorgon is destroyed and Earth is saved.

There is, however, one disturbing catch in this otherwise stock narrative: Yamato is a Jap battleship, sunk during World War II, and now resurrected as a space vehicle. The analogy is plain to anyone but the film’s intended audience. The cartoon is a Japanese expiation of guilt for their role in the war. A one time foe (Yamato) now serves as a universal redeemer.

Technically, the pic is nearly the lowest common denominator of TV animation. Flat, static, often poorly-synched, and divided into segments for easy commercial insertion. On an initial holiday release, the film may attract an audience, but word of mouth should bury it soon after. -Coli

December 22: Yamato Part 2 preproduction

Following the completion of Fujikawa’s story draft, everyone gathered in a brainstorming meeting to continue pushing the ball down the field. A couple other drafts were considered but declined, and steps were taken to flesh out the new enemy. Specifically, their space fortress would be combined with a comet into a single, powerful image.

A significant new participant in this session was artist Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, who had been engaged to storyboard the entire film. He contributed another idea that would prove to be pivotal: since the biggest driving force in the first story was the quest for Iscandar, he thought that should be repeated with a quest for another planet.

More meetings followed this one, and another writer would consolidate all the new concepts into a third draft for early January. Can’t wait for the next report? Click here to see where it went next.

December 25: Symphonic Suite Yamato

It was first heard on December 2 in the radio drama on All Night Nippon. Fans who had dissected every minute of music they’d heard already must have been transfixed. Out of the blue, here were completely new versions of their favorite tracks, exquisitely rearranged to take full advantage of the world-class “Symphonic Orchestra Yamato.” This orchestra included some heavy hitters from the ranks of Japan’s best musicians such as violinist Shigeru Toyama and guitarist Yoshio Kimura, all of whom brought their ‘A’ game to the task.

A Yamato devotee couldn’t have asked for a better Christmas present when the album arrived on December 25th. Even now, over 30 years later, it towers over all competition. It begins with the majestic Overture featuring the famous vocal scat by Kazuko Kawashima, then explodes into the finest rendition of the Yamato Theme (titled Birth) that has ever been recorded. The third track, titled Sasha, was originally recorded with a longer prelude which was omitted to aid the flow of the album. Another highlight starts side 2 of the LP, a fast-paced samba arrangement of The Scarlet Scarf that instantly demonstrated the potential for fresh interpretation.

These arrangements would become the basis for many live performances in the coming years and set a standard not only for future Yamato productions but the entire artform of anime music. After this, there was no doubt that we all lived in a Yamato world that was going to keep getting bigger and better.

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