When the new year began, all the strategizing for this phase of Yamato history was in full effect. While new music was being written, the story draft for Final Yamato was dusted off and returned to development. In this report, we examine the first three months of 1982.
January 10: The Anime Vol. 27
Yoshinobu Nishizaki himself came out swinging in the first article (outside the fan club magazine) that announced his plans for the coming year. Accompanied by illustrations from the latest Yamato calendar (which was offered as a prize to readers), he wistfully described his motivation for making one more movie, his hopes for what it would achieve, and his plans for future music releases.
Read the article here
A few pages away, readers could find a “Grand Prix Quiz” in which anime characters in different categories (heroes, heroines, villains, etc.) asked you questions about their respective stories. Among characters from the latest TV shows and films, Kodai, Yuki, and Dessler all put your knowledge to the test.
Read their segments here
January 10: My Anime, February issue
The Yamato III anime comic serial was still going strong in My Anime. This month’s installment covered the second half of Episode 18 and continued through 19 and 20 in 15 pages.
Read it here
January 10: Animedia, February issue
“Best 20” was the lead article this month, presenting survey results from over 38,000 readers in multiple categories. Yamato placed prominently in “best moments” and “best lines.”
Read the Yamato entries here
January: Final Yamato preproduction
The rest of the month was taken up with story development that picked up where it had left off in August 1981. Aritsune Toyota took the lead, writing a fresh set of story notes on January 16 and an overall assessment of the story on the 19th.
Read his material here
This work was done in preparation for a three-day writer’s summit. Nishizaki and his 6-member core group gathered at a hot springs resort from the 28th to the 30th to hammer out the story once and for all. No topic was off-limits, every detail was subject to debate, and numerous paths were explored in this loosely-structured conversation. They emerged with an outline that differed in a few key areas, but was essentially the story that would end up on the screen.
Complete transcripts of the entire summit were later published in the deluxe Final Yamato hardcover book. Read them here.
Anime magazines published in January
Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind manga debuts in Animage.
Gundam racks up two more covers for the third movie coming in March. Urusei Yatsura gets one more.
February 1: Choral Suite New Voyage/Brave Raideen LP
This was the second album of its kind, a choral and piano performance with Yamato music from The New Voyage arranged by Jo Hisaishi, who would go on to international fame with Studio Ghibli. Brave Raideen was a “Super Robot” anime series from 1974. Its music was arranged by composer Shoetsu Kawasaki to fill side B. Everything was performed by the Kanma Corps Chorus with accompaniment from pianist Akiko Shima.
Read the liner notes here
February: Final Yamato preproduction
In the wake of the January writer’s summit, there was an enormous amount of story information to be processed. The next step was to wrangle and streamline all the ideas into a single narrative with all the dots connected. Once refined, that narrative would become the basis for a script.
Read the notes and memos from February here
February 10: My Anime, March issue
The 12th installment in the Yamato III anime comics serial finally brought us to Planet Phantom. Episodes 21 and 22 were covered in 15 pages.
Read them here
February 10: Animedia, March issue
Leiji Matsumoto’s Queen Millennia movie was on the horizon (to open in March), earning it cover stories on both My Anime and Animedia. The Animedia article stood out for the inclusion of a Matsumoto “family tree” that depicted the interconnections of his many characters. Longtime Matsumoto fans know to take these things with a grain of salt, but since this particular chart was endorsed by Matsumoto himself, it’s worth a deeper look
See a translated version here
February 25: Fan club magazine #27
Final Yamato story progress was the hot topic for this issue, starting with an essay from Nishizaki, who confirmed that the next music release, titled Prelude to the Final Chapter, was coming in May. It was also announced that a series of fan gatherings would be held in the summer, giving club members across the country a chance to participate.
In a set of reader predictions for what would happen in Final Yamato, one contributor opined that if Captain Okita was actually revived (a concept already announced), “criticism of Yamato will increase even more, and the aversion to Yamato will continue.”
Read it all here
Also spotted in February
Star Blazers Fandom Report issue 5
A name change filled the header for this issue, which ran 6 pages and shared the latest news that was known at the time, including a description of Star Blazers merchandising in Italy.
Read it here
Starlog No. 57
It was announced in the Fandom Report that members had contributed enough money to fund a second classified ad in Starlog, and it appeared as promised. The issue also contained a 6-page listing of SF fan clubs across America, and although the Star Blazers fan club was not listed, it did include information on several chapters of the C/FO (Cartoon/Fantasy Organization), one of the first known fan clubs that championed anime from Japan.
Special thanks to Roger Proctor
February context
February 6: Combat Mecha Xabungle premieres
Yoshiyuki’s third “real robot” anime following Gundam and Ideon blasted onto TV screens with wild west overtones and one of the catchiest opening titles of all time.
Find series data at Anime News Network here
See the opening here
Anime magazines published in February
One new cover apiece for Urusei Yatsura, Godmars, and Dougram.
Two more covers for Leiji Matsumoto; his Queen Millennia movie was coming in March.
March: Final Yamato story development
The next step in the writing process was to expand the story outline into a detailed manuscript. This was not yet a screenplay, but was instead a story treatment with suggestions for dialogue and action to work out the mechanics of each sequence.
Four drafts of the manuscript were written throughout the month: the first draft on March 2, the second on March 9, the third on March 12, and the fourth on March 17. The individual drafts were never published, but the changes from one to the next were fully documented.
Read them here
March 10: The Anime Vol. 29
Gundam fever was at an all-time high as the third feature film was about to debut. Behind one of the strangest Gundam covers ever, The Anime offered a little bit of Yamato content as an antidote. It came in the form of a 5-page interview with Mecha Designer Katsumi Itabashi, who was hard at work on the next Matsumoto film, My Youth in Arcadia.
Read it here
March 10: My Anime, April issue
Gundam III got another cover on My Anime, and the antidote offered here was part 13 of the Yamato III anime comics serial, covering Episodes 23 and 24 in 12 pages.
Read it here
March 10-14: Prelude to Final Yamato recording
Musicians reported to the studio to perform what would later be known as an Image Album, a collection of music “inspired” by the anime it represented. It gave Hiroshi Miyagawa a chance to work out some theme melodies for Final Yamato, and gave his son Akira a chance to arrange scores for the orchestra to play (another step on his path to taking up the baton in later years). The album would be released on May 21.
March 30: Leiji Matsumoto’s Selected Masterpieces
Asahi Sonorama published this 282-page hardcover compendium of favorite chapters from Matsumoto’s best-known manga titles including Sexaroid, Galaxy Express, Battlefield, Gun Frontier, Otoko Oidon, and more. Yamato was represented by the spinoff tale Eternal Story of Jura (read it here). This book is highly recommended for its outstanding print quality.
March context
It was a busy month for SF anime with the TV premiere of Armored Fleet Dairugger XV on the 3rd (later to be known internationally as Voltron), and a movie battle on the 13th with two highly-anticipated features opening on the same day: Mobile Suit Gundam III Encounters in Space and Leiji Matsumoto’s Queen Millennia.
Anime magazines published in March
Gundam III dominates the month with four covers; Dougram new TV series Xabungle take the others. That’s five cover stories for Yoshiyuki Tomino productions in one month (a new record).
What’s Next
Final Yamato finally makes it to script form, the music engine starts running, and media publicity gets off the launch pad. Head on back for Vintage Report 38 in which we cover the second quarter of 1982.
Newly-discovered backlog
Boarding card
There’s no date or publishing context for this item, but it was probably part of the 1977 merch wave, a card that you could customize to proclaim yourself a member of the crew. However, you still had to meet certain expectations according to the text on the back:
[Check before boarding Yamato]*Can do more than 10 push-ups.
*Can hold your breath for more than 30 seconds.
*Can run 100m at full speed.
*Can do more than 5 sit-ups.
December 1977: Starburst Vol. 1 No. 1
The first issue of this bimonthly British SF/fantasy magazine enters the record books as one of the first English-language publications to mention Yamato. (Starlog issue 9 beat it by three months, and a negative review appeared in Weekly Variety on December 21, 1977.)
The exact street date of Starburst No. 1 is not clear, but it was dated for January 1978 which means it was published in December. And fortunately, their first impression of Yamato was a good one:
Pride of Tokyo in recent months, burying every other film in its wake (barring 007) is a home-made animated answer to Star Wars – or to Savage Planet, at least. This is Toei’s box-office champion called Uchu Senkan Yamato – or Space Cruiser Yamato. About which more, much more, next issue. Suffice to say for now that Yamato is being released in Britain by John Hogarth’s Enterprise Films. And it should NOT be missed. Obviously, as it is an animation work, its birth goes back three years or more to about the same time George Lucas was making his plans. And it’s certainly put Japan in the SF mood. First film to topple Yamato as No. 1 over there was Hollywood’s Survival Run, a tame SF exploitation piece. But it still brought the queues out – and all this a full year before Star Wars is unveiled in Tokyo.
They weren’t kidding when they said more was coming in the next issue. See it here.
Read Starburst No. 1 from cover to cover here.
Special thanks to August Ragone
October 1978: Columbia music flyer 78>79
“Power Lineup” was the appropriate name for this foldout flyer from Columbia to promote its late 1978/early 1979 album releases to the exploding anime market. A Yamato album was only one drop in the biggest wave seen so far.
See the entire flyer here
December 10, 1978: SF Future War Account: All Warships Launch!
This SF anthology from Tokuma Shoten may seem a bit out of place here, but it has an interesting connection to Final Yamato. It was illustrated by members of Yamato‘s original design house, Studio Nue – and the cover was painted by mecha master Kazutaka Miyatake.
In a Yamatalk event with Miyatake held in September 2013 (reported here), Yamato 2199 director Yutaka Izubuchi revealed that during his time as a mecha designer on Final Yamato, he showed this cover art to Yoshinobu Nishizaki. His intention was to sell Nishizaki on this approach for the ship designs, but the producer instead zeroed in on the space-as-ocean symbolism. It is believed that this had a strong influence on the look of Final Yamato‘s climax.
Click here to see Studio Nue’s illustrations for this book.
January 1979: Ultraman manga
This one takes some ‘splainin. In January 1979, Shogakukan’s monthly manga magazine Korokoro serialized a manga titled Ultra Brothers Story by Kataoka Tetsuji. Set in a time before Ultraman came to Earth, it told the story of the four Ultra brothers fighting a war to protect their homeland. The series lasted through March 1981 and went into reprints afterward. Three different editions of the second volume are shown above, and you probably already noticed a familiar looking spaceship on the largest one.
It is unknown why Dezarium’s Pleiades (sporting twin Andromeda bridge towers) is looming over the Ultras. The manga premiered six months before The New Voyage was aired, so the ship is probably not in the story itself…but the fact that it shows up on a cover bears investigation. Anyone who can shed light on this is welcome to comment.
March 19, 1979: Weekly Shonen Champion
Akita Shoten’s weekly manga magazine had an ad on the inside back cover that broke with Bandai’s tradition of always featuring the hero ship. This was the first and only time enemy ships took top billing, starting with the newly-released Goland Missile Ship.
August 7, 1980: Voice Actor Festival in Niigata
Another of the many live events tied into Be Forever was a far-flung variety show featuring voice actors Kei Tomiyama (Kodai) and Yoko Asagami (Yuki) in the coastal city of Niigata, which is due north of Tokyo. Until an actual account of the event emerges from history, we’ll have to be content with this ticket stub posted on Facebook by Shuji Matsuda (see the post here).
December 10, 1981: 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.