Photo caption: From the left, Isao Sasaki, Leiji Matsumoto, and Yoshinobu Nishizaki. “I want people to watch it and go back to their impressionable days,” said Nishizaki.
Yamato Boom Three times!
Be Forever Yamato to be released next month
The theme of “love is believing in each other” deepens
New method kept secret until the premiere
After two previous movies caused a boom among boys, the third installment of the Space Battleship Yamato series, based on the work of Leiji Matsumoto, will be released in August by Toei Distribution. The story will further deepen the theme of “love,” which has been one of the themes of the series, and will also put an effort into making the film look interesting as SF anime.
The film is currently in production, but producer Nishizaki Yoshinobu, who visited Sapporo with Matsumoto to promote it, emphasized, “There are plenty of highlights this time. I want adults to watch it and go back to their impressionable days as junior high school students.”
Yamato has been made into a theatrical film twice, Space Battleship Yamato (1977) and Farewell to Yamato (1978). Both were popular, but the second film in particular recorded an unprecedented distribution revenue of 2.1 billion yen. At the time, producer Nishizaki and the rest of the production team had intended to make the second film the final Yamato film.
In the film, the protagonist Susumu Kodai, who boarded Yamato alone, launched a suicide mission at the artificial citadel of a white comet, and vanished from space forever. But now Yamato is back for the third time!
“I feel sorry about that. More than anything, I couldn’t ignore the overwhelming requests from fans to make a new film,” said Nishizaki. In addition, the third film was also motivated by the fact that a new generation of boys and girls around 13 to 15 years old, the target audience of the series, is being born again.
According to Nishizaki, Yamato is supported by its grand scale and hopes and dreams, but the theme of “love” also permeates the whole series. It’s the same this time around.
“The first film was about love for humanity. It was a concrete story about how people should love rather than fight. The second film was about love for the universe. I put it together from the perspective of whether you can risk your life for someone else. This time, I’m constructing the story around the idea that trusting each other is the key to love.”
Meanwhile, Matsumoto, the original author and director of this film, said, “I’ve been working on this series for six years. It was my first entry into the world of anime, so it’s very dear to me. That’s why I’m trying my best to not scale down with each work.”
For example, he is tackling aspects that are often omitted in normal SF dramas and anime because they are difficult to film.
“I can’t say much because it’s the highlight of the work, but I’m aiming to create something that will surprise you, such as a detailed depiction of what happens after passing through a black hole.”
In addition, there are visual innovations such as the “Warp Dimension method” that will be kept secret until the release, as well as musical ideas, and it seems that there is a strong desire to surpass the previous two works. In this summer season of major SF films, will this one be able to once again create a “Yamato boom”? This film is sure to be one to keep an eye on.