Throughout its long history, Yamato has been the subject of repeated analysis with one textbook after another examining the phenomenon. They are all tempting targets for translation, but this one stands out for the depth of its exploration. Chapter 8 added March 2023
In February the pace picked up slightly thanks to online activity and a long-awaited concert, but of course the biggest Yamato news of the month was also the saddest with the passing of the great Leiji Matsumoto himself. Nevertheless, Yamato world continued to spin…
Countless black spears pierce Garmillas, accelerating the melting of the planet’s core. Soon the planet begins to collapse, the ground cracks open, and the remaining people are swallowed up by magma. Dessler’s determination to save as many as possible is in vain, and now Garmillas faces its final hour!
As 1978 approached its midpoint, Yamato fever was heating up. The publicity campaign was just starting to ramp up, but production was running at full speed as the premiere date loomed ever closer. Here’s everything that brought us to the end of June, a period that included major announcements and the birth of anime journalism.
Writer/Researcher Rikao Yanagita has been publishing books and delivering lectures for decades, bringing a scientific perspective to what we see in anime and manga. Presented here are various essays that shine a scientific spotlight on what we see in Space Battleship Yamato.
Few people give us gifts we can carry for the rest of our lives, even fewer from across oceans on the other side of a language barrier. Leiji Matsumoto was indisputably one of them. Collected here are memories and news stories that exploded across Japanese media (and elsewhere) upon the news of his loss.
On the day Yamato sets sail, it is learned that Domon used illegal means to board the ship. At the hands of its new crew, Yamato begins to move forward with Domon at the helm. Susumu Kodai, who has become captain, challenges his resolve by entrusting the ship to him.
Activity held steady as one of our annual digits changed again, and the world inched closer to the year 3199. Despite continued silence from the home office, music resounded, fans kept on doing what fans do and we all got another memorable month. Here’s what happened in January…
What was it like to build the largest commercially-available model ever made for the Yamato saga? A 20-pound behemoth measuring over 50 inches long when completed? Go step by step through all 60 volumes and see it come together one piece at a time.
What happened with the classic Yamato saga during the year 2205 reached its finale and 3199 quietly went into production? Here’s where we round it all up for look back at how we looked back. [5 pages]
SF writer Haruka Takachiho is a founding member of the famous Studio Nue. In 2022, he took to Twitter to relate a previously-unknown account of his stint as negotiator for the design work of Farewell to Yamato in 1978. His opponent? Producer Yoshinobu Nishizaki. And it’s definitely a tale for the ages.
From Como le va magazine: Toei Pictures Chairman Noriyuki Tada shares his memories of the 1977 Yamato movie. As a young staff member of Toei at the time, he got hooked on the TV series before the movie came along, and his account fills in some interesting details in the Yamato success story.
In the year 2205, Dessler searches for a planet for the Garmillas people to emigrate to, and finds Galman. On Earth, the 65th escort squadron is born with Yamato as its flagship. Among the young crew members training before launch is Ryusuke Domon, a young man with his sharp glare trained on Yamato.
The final month of 2022 ticked up a bit with a flurry of live events and the triumphant return of Michio Murakawa’s Yamato 2199 manga, both online and on paper. Here’s a roundup of everything Yamato fans tuned into as they counted down to 2023.
The new year brought new products, the birth of the official fan club, continued media attention, and a trickle of news about Yamato Part 2 that only vaguely hinted at the rush of preproduction activity behind the scenes. Here is an extensive record for the busy first quarter of 1978.
In December 2022, Michio Murakawa’s Yamato 2199 manga resumed after a 5-year hiatus. In this informative interview, we learn what caused the hiatus, see some of his contributions to the anime series, and find out how Murakawa himself became the accidental founder of all the Yamato remakes.
Yamato world stayed just about as busy in November as the previous few months, always a good sign when there’s no new anime to supercharge things. News announcements, music performances, and online activity kept the heart beating as we got another month closer to 3199. Here’s how it played out…
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 arrived to firmly plant Yamato‘s flag into the soil of the future.
When the Yamato movie hit pop culture like a tidal wave, it earned so much attention that the term “Yamato Boom” spontaneously emerged in newspapers and magazines. To get the full force of that boom from a media perspective, here is a chronological index of all the magazine coverage (found so far) from this breakout year.
In February 2020 a new story was announced with the working title of Space Battleship Yamato Next: Star Blazers Lambda. It launched as a manga series and ran for just over two years. Here, we round up everything attached to the project including the entire story, author interviews, design documents, and more.
October 2022 was one of the busier Yamato months we’ve had since the premiere of 2205 Chapter 2, especially at the end when it started to heat up with a quick succession of events and a VERY welcome announcement. Here’s how it all came about…
The explosion of diverse media coverage continued well after the August premiere of the Yamato movie as the boom expanded and brought anime into Japan’s mainstream entertainment culture. Soon, seemingly everyone had something to say about it.
Shinya Asanuma wanted to participate in the world of Yamato since his boyhood, and as you will see from his account of selling himself to the production company, he is passionate about his work. The rich and powerful mecha depictions in Yamato 2205 are the result of his efforts.
September 2022 was pretty slow, but there’s no bad month to be a Yamato fan. Between a surprise TV appearance, new Hyuga volumes from Hachette, a spectacular hobby show, and a nice uptick in fan activity, there was always something right around the corner.
“Edakio” has been working on Yamato as a “professional fan” since the remake era began. His position is not a glamorous one, but provides an essential layer to the foundation: prop design, backgrounds, and layout. In this interview, he talks in detail about his contributions and thought process on Yamato 2205.
As summer gave way to fall, Yamato‘s fortunes just kept on climbing in an unprecedented increase in demand. Media attention widened and deepened as it became increasingly obvious that Yamato had evolved from fad to phenom and was here to stay.
Doujinshi publishing in the early years laid the groundwork for Yamato‘s explosive comeback in 1977, which in turn laid the groundwork for an entire industry. It all began with the ‘zines in this archive, which can be seen from cover to cover. New entries added October 2022
August 2022 was about average in terms of activity, but there’s never a dull month in Yamato world. The first full-scale book arrived and Star Blazers Lambda reached its dramatic conclusion all at once! Here’s the rundown of all of that and more…
From issue 14 of the Star Blazers/Yamato Premium Fan Club magazine: Tomohiro Yoshida discusses the process of creating the sound world of Yamato 2205, the nuances of inheriting a generational legacy, and a small taste of what we have to listen for in the future.
The whole world changed for the better in August 1977, and that is not an exaggeration. With the August 8 premiere of Space Battleship Yamato, the entire anime industry in Japan experienced a seismic shift that still gives us aftershocks today. In this report we’ll go through that pivotal month one step at a time and see how the future began.
