After reviewing one episode of “Space Battleship Yamato” 50 years after it first aired,
I was struck by the show’s relevance to the present day
By Yukimasa Murakami (Entertainment Reporter Column)
See the original post here
We covered the 50th anniversary screening of Space Battleship Yamato held on October 6th at the Piccadilly theater in Shinjuku, Tokyo. This was the same day that the first episode of Space Battleship Yamato premiered on Nippon TV in 1974. The screening showed the first episode at 7:30 PM, the same time as the original broadcast. In addition, the three-part 8mm compilation film version of the TV series was shown in theaters for the first time.
Watching the original Space Battleship Yamato for the first time in a long while, and on the big screen, I was struck by how the theme and the characters’ lines are relatable to and suggestive of the issues and problems facing modern humanity and the world, and I was once again amazed by the high quality of the work.
Remakes and other versions have been produced, and I think everyone has heard of the title at least once. On the other hand, there are probably quite a few people, especially in younger generations, who are unfamiliar with the content.
The story is set in the year 2199. Earth is attacked by the alien nation Gamilas, which is planning to invade, and the seas have evaporated. Contaminated by radiation, humanity is on the verge of extinction. The Earth Defense Force fleet, led by Captain Juzo Okita, engages in combat with the Gamilas fleet in the Pluto region, but suffers a devastating blow to all but Okita’s ship.
Meanwhile, Susumu Kodai and Daisuke Shima, who are undergoing special training at an observatory on Mars, discover a capsule carried by Sasha, who died in a crashed escape vessel. From the message they analyze, they learn that the Cosmo Cleaner, a radiation removal device, is located on the planet Iscandar, 148,000 light years away, and they also obtain blueprints for a Wave-Motion Engine.
Using these, they rebuild Yamato, a battleship that sank in World War II, into a space battleship, and set off for Iscandar with only one year left until human extinction.
In the story, Yamato crew member Yuki Mori is astonished at the devastation that follows the defeat of Gamilas, saying, “What have we done?” Kodai also regrets it, saying, “The people of Gamilas wanted to emigrate to Earth. Both Earth and Gamilas want to live happily, but we fought.” He reflects that fighting was a mistake. “We shouldn’t have fought…we should have loved each other.”
50 years have passed since the first episode of Space Battleship Yamato aired, and the destruction of the natural environment has led to increased carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, and global warming is progressing. In addition, conflicts are occurring all over the world, such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has been ongoing since February 2022, and Israel’s invasion of the autonomous Palestinian region of Gaza and its battle with the Islamic organization Hamas, which has been ongoing since October 2023.
There are many parts of the work that correspond to reality. Reality doesn’t work like the stories of manga or anime, but even if it is more complicated, the lines and stories mentioned above may give us some hints.
Art by Hideaki Anno, 1990