About Space Battleship Yamato
Motomu Nakagomi, Ichikawa City, Chiba Prefecture
(19 years old, student)
I think what was said in the December issue has some merit. It’s true that Yamato hasn’t been featured in OUT lately, and when it is, it’s mostly parodies and critiques. No one can deny that the early Yamato laid the foundations for modern anime, and it’s true that many of us were excited by and engrossed in the early Yamato. But…what about Yamato up to the present day? If you think about it, I think you can see that the current situation is natural.
I was also obsessed with the early Yamato series. Many of my friends watched it, and it was probably far more popular than Gundam or Ideon. I think it’s no exaggeration to say that this popularity, which “laid the foundations for anime,” dug its own grave. It’s been said many times before, but the commercial sequels, made one after another, ignored the enormous contradiction that it could be interpreted simply as, “It’s popular, so let’s make a sequel to it!”
I’d like to think it was only natural that we became annoyed by the cheap sales pitch of love and emotion, and distanced ourselves from Yamato. Of course, I’m not involved, so I don’t know the truth, but that’s what everyone who sees it feels like.
OUT was originally a minor magazine, and they seem to be proud of that, so I think they are not making the assumption that it will always sell no matter what, but rather are making a distinction between “good things” and “not good things.” (Is this too much of a stretch?) In that respect, I was happy that the inferior Yamato works were not covered.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that the current attitude toward Yamato has developed into a cold, negative one, and this is a natural consequence? Is it also true of the creators of Yamato themselves?