Bottom left: character popularity ranking (via reader questionnaire)
1: Kodai / 2: Captain Okita / 3: Starsha / 4: Dessler / 5: Dr Sado / 6: Shima / 7: Yuki / 8: Mamoru Kodai / 9: Domel / 10: Analyzer
Space Battleship Yamato A la Carte
Packed with behind the scenes stories and anecdotes that every Yamato fan should know!
• After careful consideration
The production of Yamato took two years, but the image in the initial project proposal was quite different from the actual finished product. First, regarding Yamato itself, its initial size was ridiculously huge: 2000m long, 1000m wide, and 500m high. Moreover, it was supposed to be shaped like a scallop, with a continent-like rock formation attached to it, allowing it to fly.
The same was true for the characters. The only names that remained until the end were Analyzer and Yoshikazu Aihara, while Susumu Kodai was named Shinobu Kotake, and Juzo Okita was named Izumi Katsuhiko.
Through a long production period, the staff repeatedly reconsidered and refined the design, resulting in the creation of that captivating Yamato.
• They used over 120 colors of paint
Space Battleship Yamato is a work created with the utmost energy by anime fanatics. You can see that from the numbers. The production cost was ¥200 million, the total number of staff members was 890, the number of animation cells used was 52,000, and the number of colors of paint was over 120, all of which are 30 to 50% more than a typical theatrical anime film.
Even the color of Yamato itself was specially ordered. Since the metallic Yamato floats in the dark expanse of space, using standard paints would cause it to blend into the background. After repeated test shoots with dozens of different colors, that unique “Yamato color” was finally created.
Even the movements – how to depict an explosion in zero gravity, something no one has ever seen before, how to handle the smoke and debris flying endlessly, how to create the sound – were all decided after at least triple the time and effort required for other anime productions.
• Lots of Yamato products
Reflecting the Space Battleship Yamato, boom among young people, products featuring designs of popular characters, such as Yamato, Kodai, and Starsha became popular.