After the final episode of Yamato III aired in early April, Exec Producer Yoshinobu Nishizaki found himself in an uncommon situation. For the first time since early 1978, he had no new anime in production. As echoes of his massive success story continued to ripple outward, conversations began about where the ship would go next.
April 3: Bouken Oh [Adventure King], May issue
The Yamato III manga serial by Hiroshi Aizawa continued with Chapter 7, in which society on Earth starts to crumble and Yamato‘s crew rockets toward their first encounter with Galman Admiral Gaidel.
Read it here
April 4: Yamato III Episode 25
Yamato, shoot the sun!
In the series finale, Yamato returns home with a cannon that can restore the sun. They are interrupted by a surprise attack from Bolar. Desslok arrives and the battle is joined. Who will survive?
Read our commentary on the final episode here
The episode concluded with a text crawl that gave us Yoshinobu Nishizaki’s final message for the show:
Although Yamato III has ended, Yamato‘s battle for peace will continue. Next year, it will be ten years since Yamato was born. The last production will commemorate this. Please look forward to it in the summer of 1982. Farewell for now.
History had a slightly different story to tell, which is one of the main reasons for these Vintage Reports.
April 10: The Anime Vol. 18
The Anime published its last and biggest Yamato III article in this issue, a heartfelt 10-page farewell that looked back at what made the series unique. A double-page spread said goodbye to all the characters, and a page of interviews gave staff members a chance to offer their regrets.
Read the article here
April 10: My Anime, May issue
In a sort of passing of the torch, Akita Shoten’s My Anime magazine was just getting started with Yamato III coverage. The second issue of the magazine contained a 16-page anime comic adaptation of Episode 2.
Read it here
April 20: Yamato III Complete Works novel Vol. 2
The eleventh volume in Asahi Sonorama’s Complete Works series covered the middle section of Yamato III in 192 pages with color stills. The volume ended with Dessler sending Yamato on its quest for Planet Phantom.
April 25: Piano accompaniment, Anime Song Collection
In the latter half of 1980, Tokyo Ongaku Shoin [Tokyo Music Study] became a steady source for books of anime sheet music. Their first Yamato volume was a collection of 14 songs. This was a broader collection of 27 songs, which included three from Be Forever (Until the Day of Love, Galaxy Legend, and Pendant of Stars) and Be Forever Yamato, one of the end themes from Yamato III.
April 25: Fan club magazine #22
This issue of the club magazine said its own goodbyes to Yamato III with 12 pages, which coincided with the first official announcement of Final Yamato in a new essay by Yoshinobu Nishizaki. This was followed by the last story digest, a look back at important story points, and a brief interview with the voice actors for Kodai and Yuki.
Read the coverage here
The back cover promoted the first wave of Bandai model kits from Yamato III, starting with…
Also spotted in April
Galman/Gamilas Large Battleship
This was the first enemy ship in the entire Yamato lineup to get a specific scale, indicated on the box as 1/2400. It included removable “boomerang missiles” on the bow.
It’s ironic that the first Yamato III model kit showed up in stores the same month the series ended, but given the planning and marketing time for products like this, it’s safe to assume it was on Bandai’s calendar when it was still assumed that the TV series would last a year. If that plan had proceeded, it would now be at its halfway point.
Wave-Motion Vol. 12 doujinshi
Those playful little scamps in Yamato Fan Club Wave-Motion were still churning out their Yamato doujinshi in April 1981, and would continue for a few more years to come. The latest issue ran 24 pages with parody art and other features.
See it from cover to cover here
April context
It was a very interesting month for new TV anime with the arrival of two long-remembered series. April 8 saw the debut of Dr. Slump Arale-chan, adapting the mega-popular and super quirky comedy manga by Akira Toriyama. Positioned somewhere between Looney Tunes and The Simpsons, its staff included Yamato alumnus Toyoo Ashida. It would stay on the air for five glorious years.
On April 16, Leiji Matsumoto’s newest production got underway, Queen Millennia. Running 42 episodes, it added another dimension to Matsumoto’s growing mythos. Yamato writer Keisuke Fujikawa scripted 6 episodes, several Yamato voice actors were cast, and Kazuko Kawashima provided backing vocals to the theme song.
Anime magazines published in April
May 2: Bouken Oh [Adventure King], June issue
Pushed by a need for speed, Hiroshi Aizawa began to accelerate his Yamato III manga adaptation. In just 15 pages, he got all the way from Gaidel’s capture of Yamato to the Dessler reunion and the landing on Planet Phantom. In just two more chapters, it would all be over.
Read it here
May 10: My Anime, June issue
The third issue of My Anime covered Episodes 3 & 4 of Yamato III, getting the ship off the ground and the new crew into training mode in 16 densely-packed pages.
Read it here
May 13: Final Yamato brainstorming session 1
Yoshinobu Nishizaki and his inner circle of writers had their work cut out for them when they first started grappling with the finale of the Yamato saga. The fan club magazines featured transcripts of their first three “brainstorming” sessions, which were akin to a sculptor taking the first tentative chips off a block of stone.
Read about session 1 here
Read the story notes from session 1 here
May 15: Yamato III Cobalt novels 1 & 2
The “Cobalt Library” imprint of Shueisha publishing had been keeping pace with Yamato since 1977. Their 2-volume novelization, written by Ken Wakasaki, was published as a pair on May 15. Each softcover ran 260 pages with stills.
Promotional stickers shown at right.
May 15: Space Battleship Yamato anime comics Vol. 2
Akita Shoten concluded its anime comic edition of the 1977 movie in 160 pages, starting from the WMG shot fired at the Orion star’s solar flare. The scenes on Iscandar were taken from the re-edited TV broadcast version in which Starsha was still alive. The only Yamato anime comics to follow after this volume were those seen in the pages of Akita Shoten’s My Anime magazine.
May 28: Final Yamato brainstorming session 2
From issue 24 of the fan club magazine: One appeal of Yamato stories is the form of “evil” mecha hiding somewhere in the universe. The second session dealt with the concept of this powerful enemy. The focus of the discussion was narrowed down to two inevitable parts of Yamato‘s mission.
Read about session 2 here
Read the story notes from session 2 here
Also spotted in May
New Dessler Ship model
Bandai’s second Yamato III kit was the large version of Dessler’s new ship, indicated as 1/6000 scale.
Mecha Collection models 23-26
Right around that same time, the smaller version of the same ship arrived to signal the continuation of Bandai’s hyper-successful Mecha Collection series. Some observers may have noticed that it used the exact some box art, flipped right for left.
Kit 24 in the series was the Cosmo Hound.
Kit 25 was the small version of the Galman Large Battleship with a mini-fighter bonus model. This was another example of box art being flipped and reused.
Kit 26 was the new Galman carrier, which came with a mini bomber bonus model. Four more Mecha Collection kits were still to come.
Star Blazers Fan Club newsletter #2
The second issue of the quarterly newsletter was only three pages long, but must have felt like a lifeline to English-speaking fans with no window at all into the ongoing churn of events in Japan. It contained a summary of The New Voyage, a trading post, a short history of how the club got started, and more.
Read it here
Anime magazines published in May
Leiji Matsumoto productions get three cover stories this month in Animage, The Anime, and My Anime.
June 1: Phantom II Vol. 5 doujinshi
Phantom II was an unusual series, published by Yamato Fan Club F4 Phantom II. This group focused heavily on mecha design and analysis, but made room for some fun on the side.
See this issue from cover to cover here
Find all five volumes here
June 3: Bouken Oh [Adventure King], July issue
The penultimate chapter of Hiroshi Aizawa’s Yamato III manga opened with the discovery of Ruda on Planet Phantom (drawn as Mother Shalbart), which is interrupted by the instant arrival of Galman and Bolar forces who begin to duke it out. Yamato flees to Planet Shalbart, and they follow. A lot to cover in 13 pages!
Read it here
June 5: Final Yamato brainstorming session 3
From issue 25 of the fan club magazine: When an enemy comes, Yamato goes — this is the simplest of all Yamato stories. The third brainstorming discussion thoroughly concentrated on this pursuit.
Read about session 3 here
Read the story notes from session 3 here
June 10: Animage, Vol. 37
In observance of its third anniversary, Animage magazine looked inward for a no-holds-barred review of its performance since the 1978 kickoff. This took the form of a 15-page segment titled Animage Judgment. It opened with an examination of the period just before the magazine’s debut, which explored the pervasive influence of Yamato on early fandom.
Read that portion here
June 10: The Anime, Vol. 20
A regular feature in The Anime was “Anime Personnel,” an in-depth interview with a prominent anime creator at different levels of the industry. This issue’s subject was Director Takeshi Shirato, who discussed his involvement and even speculated on where he would take Yamato next.
Read the interview here
June 10: My Anime, July issue
The 4th installment of the Yamato III anime comics made it clear that readers could expect two episodes per issue for the foreseeable future. The adaptation of 5 & 6 got us through the battle at the edge of the solar system.
Read it here
June 10: Yamato III Complete Works novel Vol. 3
The third and final part of this novelization took us to the end of Yamato III and the end of the Complete Works series from Asahi Sonorama. This publisher would take part in Final Yamato, but under a different imprint.
June 11: Final Yamato brainstorming session 4
The fourth session continued the conversation from the first three. Along with Producer Yoshinobu Nishizaki (far left), the participants were Eiichi Yamamoto and Aritsune Toyota, both of whom went all the way back to story development on Series 1. Yamamoto had also served as the series director for Yamato III. The fourth member of the team (far right) was new to Yamato: live-action screen writer Kazuo Kasahara, who brought actual naval experience to the table.
Read about session 4 here
June 11: Yamato III Drama Album
As with the Yamato 2 Drama album, this one was made feasible by the assembly of a compilation movie that had trimmed 25 episodes down to 93 minutes. The album actually predated the movie itself by two and a half years. It wouldn’t be broadcast until late 1983, and later released to home video. The LP set was released as a double album with a 10-page color storybook.
The image above right was a limited-edition poster from Nippon Columbia, given away with purchase in stores.
June 25: Yamato III novels from Shueisha
The month after Shueisha’s 2-volume “Cobalt Library” release, they pumped out another one. It only consisted of one volume this time, written by a different author. The edition shown above came from the “Monkey Library” imprint.
And just to make sure everyone was appropriately confused, the exact same book came out on the exact same day with a slightly different dust jacket under the “Fanfan Library” imprint. The novelization ran 160 pages with 32 pages of color stills.
June 25: Fan club magazine #23
This issue kicked off the genesis of Final Yamato with a typically candid essay from Producer Yoshinobu Nishizaki, in which he made no bones about how daunting it was going to be. He made a puzzling announcement about Star Blazers in America (saying it was new to TV when it had already been running since fall 1979) and made mention of a fan club outreach program that would end up taking another year to mount.
The bulk of issue 23 was devoted to fan contributions and retrospective articles, but the one genuinely new piece was a transcript of the first brainstorming session for Final Yamato, in which Nishizaki and three of his writers began to puzzle out how to end the saga of a lifetime.
Read both the essay and the brainstorming article here
The back cover for this issue promoted Columbia’s two Yamato III albums currently on sale (symphonic and drama).
June 25: Choral Suite sheet music collection
Yamato may have been temporarily out of the anime business, but things were booming over in the music world. Sheet music books would become a common sight over the next couple of years, starting with the Yamato Choral Suite, published by Tokyo Ongaku Shoin [Music Study]. It offered choral arrangements of six compositions to liven up music recitals everywhere.
June 30: Yamato III Roman Album
Tokuma Shoten’s fifth Yamato Roman Album (122 pages) contained a full-color episode guide, highlight scenes, original illustrations, model sheets with character names in English, and production coverage that included substantial data on the original 52-episode outline for the show. Another unique feature was a look at the new ending songs with comments from the fans who wrote them.
Also spotted in June
Galman-Gamilas Battle Carrier model
The last of the large Yamato III kits from Bandai was this one, clocking in at 1/2400 scale with a brace of flying wing-style fightercraft.
Mecha Collection models 27-30
Bandai passed a milestone with the last of the Yamato III kits and the conclusion of the Mecha Collection series. Kit 27 was the Galman-Gamilas Twin 3-Deck Carrier.
Kit 28 was the Rajendora with a bonus mini-fighter, the only Bolar ships to get a Bandai release.
Kit 29 was the Galman-Gamilas Dessler Gunship.
And finally, kit 30 was the fearsom Galman-Gamilas Planet Destroyer Missile that started the solar crisis. See contemporary Bandai advertising at the end of this page.
Anime magazines published in June
Two more covers this month for Leiji Matsumoto, including the debut issue of a new magazine.
What’s next
The third quarter of 1981 continues a slowdown trend in Yamato world as the rest of the anime industry ramps up with more new productions than ever, and a very creative fan group in Osaka becomes the Mouse That Roared. Click here for Vintage Report 35 to see where it goes next.
Bonus
Unique Yamato posters appeared in anime magazines in 1981. Left: from the May issue of My Anime (artist: Masaharu Endo). Right: from the June issue of The Anime (artist: Takeshi Shirato).
Contemporary Bandai advertising
The brave figure of Yamato speaks of eternal love and romance.
Space Battleship Yamato loved humanity and the Earth, and continued its endless journey across the galaxy in search of peace in the universe.
The wake it left behind was scattered with truth, friendship, and infinite love.
As long as there are humans, there will always be love.
And Yamato taught us through its own experiences that love is about trials, courage and battle.
Space Battleship Yamato. Now, as you try to capture that heroic figure, you can feel Yamato‘s passion and excitement.
