With Final Yamato development on hold, attention turned to methods for keeping Yamato in the public eye rather than letting it go dormant. While these plans were being made, a slow but steady patter of new products closed out the year. Here’s what the conclusion of 1981 looked like…
October 1: Terebi Manga Best Collection EPs
It would have been pretty wild if Nippon Columbia released over 20 singles all on the same day, but all that is known for certain is that Volume 7 and Volume 21 both came out together, pairing Yamato with some well-known contemporaries.
Volume 7 put the Yamato theme and The Scarlet Scarf on one side, and the opening and closing themes for Triton of the Sea on the other.
It was the second time for such a pairing; this was essentially a reissue of a Yamato/Triton combo previously released by Columbia in January 1977.
Volume 21 put the two end songs from Yamato III on one side and two from Lupin III (opening and love theme) on the other.
The Lupin songs were derived from the second TV series, which had a non-stop 3-year tenure from October 1977 to October 1980, not to mention two feature films in that same time frame.
October 10: The Anime, November issue
This issue carried the second in a series of columns on model building, each of which included an interview with a special guest who shared this hobby. The guest this time was Leiji Matsumoto, who talked about his passion for “solid model” building, and the host went on to describe how to modify a Yamato kit.
See the article here.
Yamato also figured into a mini “SF Encyclopedia” bound into the center of the magazine that examined tropes in SF anime all the way back to the days of Astro Boy.
October 10: My Anime, November issue
The eighth installment of the Yamato III anime comic serialization continued with Episodes 12 and 13 covered in 15 pages.
Read it here
October 25: Space Battleship Yamato BGM Collection 2
Nine months after fans’ demands were finally met with the Series 1 BGM [BackGround Music] collection, Nippon Columbia answered their calls for more of the same. Though Yamato 2 inherited a large volume of music from the first series and the Farewell soundtrack, many new tracks were recorded that eventually found a home here.
As with the first BGM album, the performance was credited to the Yamato Studio Orchestra, rather than Symphonic Orchestra Yamato. Again, since television music was generally more minimalist than a film score, it’s probable that not as many musicians were needed to record it – hence the name change.
Read liner notes from this album here
October 25: Anime Best Hit albums
Two of the top voices in anime theme songs in 1981 were Mitsuko Horie and Isao Sasaki. Both were primed to land high-profile singing careers in the 70s and rode the wave ever higher from there (and both are still doing it as of this writing). Nippon Columbia released “Best Hit” albums for them on the same day, and both included Yamato songs.
Mitsuko Horie’s album included her ending song from Yamato III, Face in the Stars (an image song from Be Forever), and her cover of Galaxy Legend. Isao Sasaki’s album included his ending song from Yamato III, his covers of From Yamato With Love and Until the Day of Love, and Pendant of Stars from Be Forever.
October 25: Fan club magazine #25
This was an unusual issue, mostly taken up with fan-made contributions that had been solicited months earlier. It served to showcase the immense creativity Yamato could inspire in multiple categories; art, design, modeling, writing, poetry, and music composition were all represented with comments from staff luminaries such as Eiichi Yamamoto, Hiroshi Miyagawa, Leiji Matsumoto, and others.
Also included was the third and final transcript of the writers’ brainstorming session for Final Yamato. Read it here.
Also spotted in October
1982 Yamato calendar
The calendar for 1982 (published by West Cape Corporation) was a real beauty with original paintings and recreated stills from across the saga. The flipsides of each page contained black and white art, and if you could bring yourself to pull them apart you could line up a 6-foot long diagram of the ship.
See the entire calendar here
October context
October was a banger month for new anime on TV with four series that were destined to be remembered as classics. Six God Combination Godmars debuted on October 2, Galaxy Cyclone Braiger on the 6th, slapstick comedy Urusei Yatsura on the 14th and the mecha war drama Fang of the Sun Dougram on the 23rd. This was one of the waves that set the tone for a true anime gold rush in the early 80s.
Anime magazines published in October
Three covers for the new TV series Urusei Yatsura and two for the new series Fang of the Sun Dougram.
November 1: Terebi Manga Best Collection EP #22
After previously combining Yamato songs with other shows, Columbia finally decided to combine Yamato with Yamato for this round.
Once side contained the two songs from The New Voyage: Sasaki’s Yamato!! The New Voyage and the ending song Sasha My Love.
On the other side could be found Isao Sasaki’s image songs from Farewell to Yamato: The Rival and Teresa Forever (which became the end theme for Yamato 2).
November 10: My Anime
Part 9 of the Yamato III anime comic serialization covered Episodes 14 and 15 in 15 pages, ending with Dessler’s invitation to visit Galman.
Read it here
Also spotted in November
Introduction to Anime Singers: How to Sing Hit Theme Songs LP
If you ever dreamed of performing anime theme songs, Nippon Columbia made this album for you. It contained introductory singing lessons with samples from four of the top performers: Isao Sasaki, Mitsuko Horie, Ichiro Mizuki, and Kaori Kumiko.
Sasaki’s contribution was Pendant of Stars from Be Forever, both with vocals and without for you to practice your newly-earned knowledge.
Find out more about this album here
Star Blazers Fan Club News Line, issue 4
This was the longest issue of the quarterly newsletter so far, offering 5 pages of news you could use. Read it here.
Anime magazines published in November
One cover apiece for Gundam and Urusei Yatsura, two for new series Goshogun.
December 10: Animedia, January issue
A nice end-of-year present was coming up for fans; Farewell to Yamato would get its next TV broadcast on December 30. Animedia responded with this 2-page article in its “Anime Hot Line” section describing the top five scenes in the film. With no apparent spoiler warnings.
December 10: My Anime, January issue
Two and a half episodes of the Yamato III anime comic serialization appeared in this issue. Episodes 16, 17, and half of 18 were covered in 14 pages.
Read it here
December 10: Animation Plastic Model Manual Roman Album
Roman Albums didn’t have to just be about anime! Tokuma Shoten had been publishing them since 1977 (see the first six years’ worth here and here), and this offshoot was the first to jump on the model-building bandwagon Yamato helped to ignite.
The only Yamato content was a back cover ad for Bandai, but it was enough to remind everyone what got them here. It also alerted everyone to the upcoming December 30 broadcast of Farewell.
December 13: Space Battleship Yamato Game for Adult
Yamato games finally reached out for adult players – and said so – with this wargame set from Bandai, a sophisticated approach that took its cues from numerous strategy simulator games. (Bandai competed with Takara and Tsukuda Hobbies to produce a wave of anime-based simulator games like these throughout the early 80s.) Using dice, cardboard chips, battleground boards, and detailed rules of engagement, players could recreate their favorite space battles from the first series all the way up to Yamato III. The language barrier makes it a challenge to play, but the rulebooks were full of original illustrations
Learn more about this game and see the interiors here
December 25: Yamato Part 2 Drama Album
What made this album feasible was the assembly of a compilation movie that had trimmed 26 episodes down to 96 minutes. It was first broadcast as a TV special a year after Yamato 2 first aired, and later released to home video. Its length was ideal for a double album, which made it a no-brainer for Nippon Columbia.
In addition to ten pages of color stills and dialogue scripts for key scenes, the album’s sound mix included some unreleased BGM and an intriguing “orphan” track that only appears in this production. Also, some of the Yamato 2 music was swapped out for tracks from The New Voyage, a shifting of context that gave them an interesting new complexion.
December 25: Fan club magazine #26
The last issue for 1981 summed up how far the staff had come since Final Yamato development began in May. Nishizaki’s new year essay was much more ebullient than his last one, as good an indicator as any for the positive progress that had been made. At this point it was still assumed that Final Yamato would be released in 1982, but there was a hint that it might be delayed. (Which it certainly was.)
As indicated by the cover, “Towards Final Yamato” was the overall theme of the issue. It was broken up into three sections under the subheading “Birth of a New Space Legend.” Section 1 was a summary of the saga so far, Section 2 was an analysis of the brainstorming sessions with speculation on where the story would go, and Section 3 contained comments from staff members who had been brought on for pre-production.
Read these articles here
December 30: Farewell to Yamato on TV
In the age of 24/7 VOD, it’s hard to understand what a major event it was for a film like Farewell to appear on TV. This was only the second time (following January 1980) you could watch it for free at home, which would have made it appointment viewing for every fan who knew about it and everyone else who wanted to see what all the fuss was about.
Also spotted in December
Yamato III Sonosheet book 1
Asahi Sonorama, purveyor of the “Sonosheet” flexidisc for kids, went one more round with Yamato III, publishing a 16-page “board book” that relived the first episode. It was accompanied by a “Sonosheet” of the Yamato theme to give you some background music. On the other hand, the use of the number 1 on the cover set up everyone for disappointment since there was never a followup.
See it from cover to cover here
Wave-Motion doujinshi Vol. 14
The sillyheads at Yamato Fan Club Wave-Motion turned out another 24-page variety collection of art and articles to close out the year.
See it from cover to cover here
Anime magazines published in December
Fanroad gets an English logo and expands its page count from just under 100 to just under 150. Animage publishes the first cover story for Godmars.
Baldios gets three cover stories for a movie released in December.
Also spotted in 1981
Bandai promotion
Early in the year, Bandai distributed this foldout leaflet in stores and model boxes to promote the entire Yamato catalog.
The Mecha Collection series wasn’t complete at the time this promo went out, but kits up to number 28 were on the map.
Westchester Films flyers
This interesting artifact from the Star Blazers side of the world inadvertently captured a hiccup in the timeline. Shown here is a foldout flyer created by Westchester Films, for broadcaster trade shows and other public events, promoting an expanded package of episodes.
The number given at this stage was 102, which would have been the existing 52 episode package plus 50 more episodes from Yamato III. From this we can determine that the flyer must have gone to press in late 1980, before the cutdown.
Here we see the exact same flyer with one important difference; the “102 Episode” lines have been pasted over with labels revising the number down to 77. Everything else about the flyer is the same, but the change was obviously made after the cutdown, allowing accurate information to be disseminated throughout 1981.
We know in retrospect that the extra 25 episodes weren’t aired on American TV until 1985, which probably means they weren’t actually produced until a few years after this flyer circulated. In other words, syndication deals were needed to fund the localization and they didn’t materialize until at least 1984.
1981 Music releases
In addition to the various spinoff albums shown through the 1981 reports, here are a few more that didn’t have specific calendar dates…
Space Guitar Suite in Animation, Nippon Columbia
A collection of original medleys featuring music from Yamato, Galaxy Express 999, Captain Harlock, and Cyborg 009. Mainly duets between guitar and synthesizer.
SF, Animation and Spectacle Super Library, Nippon Columbia
Various high-profile movie and TV themes on 2 discs, performed by The Movieland Orchestra. Includes the Yamato theme and Yamato!! The New Voyage. Read more about the album here.
Terebi Manga Best Collection Deluxe Vol. 6, Nippon Columbia
The 6th collection in this series contained two songs each from eight different shows. Yamato dominated as three of the eight; two songs each came from Farewell, The New Voyage, and Yamato III.
82 SF & Spectacle Themes, Seven Seas
A double album of covers by various performers. The Yamato theme was covered by the Larry Nelson Orchestra. Read more about the album here.
What’s Next
We cover the first quarter of 1982, in which Final Yamato goes back in the oven and the music side of Yamato world ramps up to help keep the fires lit during the long wait to the next launch. Meanwhile, various odds and ends appear to surprise and engage. See it all in Vintage Report 37!