During this three-month period, Final Yamato preproduction took a huge leap forward when all the story concepts were finally woven into a script, the first round of the “music assault” arrived, and media coverage went into full swing. The movie was now less than a year away, and all of that time would be used to promote it. Here’s what happened from April to June…
April 10: Animage Vol. 47
The first flag of April went up in the form of a double-page ad in Animage promoting the upcoming Prelude to the Final Chapter album. The given title was Final Yamato Prelude, Toward the End, and the text in the ad was crafted with as much thought and flourish as anything seen in the remake era…
“The drama began with a grand symphonic sound.”
A prologue to Final Yamato featuring a symphonic sound performed by an orchestra of over 50 musicians and narration.
The year is 2205.
The Space Battleship Yamato has taken off…
The Great Vulcan Empire, boasting the strongest mechanized army —
The mysterious planet Aquarius, which bestows blessings yet imposes relentless trials —
Who is the true enemy…?
If you tripped over the words “2205” and “Vulcan,” don’t worry, you’re not crazy. At the time this ad copy was written, 2205 was the year Final Yamato was meant to take place and Vulcan was still the name for Dengil. Both would be changed by the time the album came out on May 21.
April 10: The Anime Vol. 30
A color version of the ad was published on the same day, this time occupying the back cover of The Anime‘s May issue. Strangely, the title of the album was slightly different: Final Yamato Prelude I. (There would only be one.) After this, the ad would appear just once more (on the back cover of OUT magazine later in the month), then get redesigned. The text invoking 2205 and Vulcan would not be seen again.
Elsewhere in the magazine was a freewheeling 5-page interview with animator Geki Katsumata, whose career began all the way back in 1965 and expanded to include such hits as Devilman, Mazinger Z, Galaxy Express, Queen Millennia, and of course Yamato. At the time, he was still on the fence about jumping on board with Final Yamato. (Spoiler: he became the art director.)
Read the interview here
April 10: My Anime, May issue
After just over a year, the serialized anime comic adaptation of Yamato III was finally approaching its climax. The 14th installment ran 12 pages, covering all of Episode 24 and the first half of Episode 25.
Read it here
April 10: This is Animation Vol. 1, SF•Robot•Action Anime Edition
The first of this 3-volume set from Shogakukan took its title seriously. Instead of another catalog or encyclopedia, it examined in detail the art and craft of this specific genre set, interviewing some of the most popular creators in a variety of roles. One section investigated the dawn of computer animation, which was still in the vector graphics phase.
It lands in our timeline for a simple reason: Yamato figured heavily in this volume’s genre. See the relevant pages here, including an interview with an up-and-coming mecha designer named Yutaka Izubuchi.
April 15: Final Yamato preproduction
By the time April rolled around, the major story points were set in stone and conceptual design was well underway, having commenced in March. The next body of text came right from the top in the form of an outline by Executive Producer Yoshinobu Nishizaki. The purpose of this document was to summarize previous drafts and lay out the individual “beats” as a guide for the scriptwriter, Kazuo Kasahara.
Read the Nishizaki composition here
April 24: Princess Information Vol. 19
It should come as no surprise that the most popular anime voice actors in the 70s and 80s had their own fan clubs, both official and private. Princess Information was the fanzine for the unofficial Yoko Asagami Fan Club. It was published on an irregular schedule, so the date of its founding has yet to be discovered.
April 25: Fan club magazine Vol. 28
Going by the printed publishing dates on each issue of the original Yamato Fan Club magazine, one is lead to believe that subscribers could expect one to appear in the mailbox every 60 days like clockwork. But digging deep into their content occasionally tells a different story, since events are sometimes covered that took place after the magazine was supposedly published.
This issue is a good example; though the publishing date is given as April 25, 1982, it made specific reference to an event on June 12. That makes it a bit tricky to know exactly where all this content fits into the timeline, so let’s just assume the issue was assembled as the month of May gave way to the action-packed summer of 1982 when Yamato went on its first nationwide tour of Japan.
Vol. 28 featured the first public appearance of authentic story information (with the now altered date of 2203) and the first staff interviews from the early days of production.
Read the articles here
April 27: Production announcement press conference
The rubber truly hit the road on this day when Yoshinobu Nishizaki emerged from the confines of his West Cape Corporation office to conduct a press conference that officially broke the news of Final Yamato‘s production.
Armed with a large-format foldout press kit, a release date (March 19, 1983), and his usual panache, he gave the media plenty to sink their teeth into, and they kicked off what would become almost a year of non-stop Final Yamato coverage.
April context
April 17: Technovoyager
The latest SF adventure anime series made its debut and brought some Yamato veterans along for the ride; Kentaro Haneda composed the score, Noboru Ishiguro directed an episode (and wrote another), and voice actors Kei Tomiyama (Kodai) and Takeshi Aono (Sanada) were in the main cast. The series faded in Japan after 24 episodes, but went on to gain international fame under the title Thunderbirds 2086.
Wikipedia page | Anime News Network page | OP and ED on Youtube | Episode 1 on Youtube
Anime magazines published in April
The Anime carries the first cover story for the upcoming My Youth in Arcadia, to premiere in July.
My Anime promotes a new Goshogun movie as Animedia covers Godmars.
May 10: My Anime, June issue
At last, the Yamato III anime comic came to its epic conclusion. The second half of Episode 25 was presented at a comfortable pace in 12 pages, just over a year after it concluded on TV. In the end, this was a remarkable project. It wasn’t the only TV series to be published in this form, but it was one of the very few to get all the way to its last episode. The entire serial lasted 15 monthly issues with a grand total of 219 pages. It would have made for an impressively thick book, but sadly it was never reprinted.
Fortunately, you can still read all of it here
May 10: Animedia, June issue
Meanwhile, over in the pages of Animedia, results of the latest character popularity poll were shared with readers. 20 winners were announced in both male and female categories, and Susumu Kodai placed 7th with 284 votes, just above Captain Harlock. Not bad for a guy who hadn’t been seen on screen in over a year.
May 15: Hochi Shimbun Newspaper articles
Just over two weeks after the April 27 press conference, Hochi Shimbun ran a pair of articles under the headline Space Battleship Yamato Resurfaces. The basics of the story were communicated, along with news of the upcoming music album and tenth anniversary plans. Also touched upon was the revelation that Nishizaki’s rival Haruki Kadokawa would be releasing an anime film of his own to compete with Final Yamato.
Read the articles here
May 20: Final Yamato script Part A completed
Previous Yamato movies followed a well-worn writing structure in which the story was divided into four parts, each of which would follow its own production chain. The simplest way to describe it is that when part A was completed and approved, it would enter the storyboard phase, then writing would begin on Part B, and so on.
Scriptwriter Kazuo Kasahara delivered his draft of part A on May 20, at which point it was scrutinized by the rest of the writing team and a new round of analysis and revision began. Story-wise, part A ended with Yamato‘s launch to defend the solar system against Dengil invaders.
May 21: Prelude to the Final Chapter
LP & cassette
Since 1982 was to be a year without a Yamato (the first since 1977), resources were mustered to give us the next best thing: new Yamato music.
This ‘overture’ album, truly one of a kind, was the first of this wave. Released about 10 months before the film, it was an impressionistic work with a mix of music and spoken-word narration. Later, such projects would come to be called “image” albums. Several themes for Final Yamato were already written by this time, and three of the seven tracks were further developed into BGM for the film. It marks the first credited appearance of Akira Miyagawa, who arranged four tracks for orchestra under his father Hiroshi.
The next ad for the album appeared on the back cover of OUT magazine a few days later (shown above right) with the erroneous text removed.
Read more about the album here
Nippon Columbia poster given away with purchase in stores
May 24 & 26: Final Yamato preproduction
A few days after script Part A was completed, followup notes were delivered to the writing team. On the 24th, SF consultant Aritsune Toyota gave his thoughts on scientific aspects of the story and Kazuichi Tsurumi worked out proposals for onscreen battle strategies. On the 26th, Director Toshio Masuda submitted an overall breakdown of major scenes for the entire film.
Read all of this material here
Also spotted in May
Wave-Motion doujinshi Vol. 15
One of the few fan clubs still producing regular fanzines was Yamato Fan Club Wave-Motion. Their 15th issue ran 24 pages and was stuffed with parodies.
See it from cover to cover here
Star Blazers Fandom Report issue 6
This issue of the American fan club’s quarterly newsletter was the biggest one yet at 8 pages, reporting on efforts to get Star Blazers back on the air in New York, Ardith Carlton’s personal account of seeing Be Forever Yamato in a Japanese theater, a mess of fan art, and more.
Read the entire issue here
Anime magazines published in May
Godmars and the new TV series Galaxy Cyclone Braiger tie with two covers each.
June 7: Final Yamato script Part B completed
The second part of the script covered Yamato‘s defeat of the Dengil invasion of the solar system and concluded with Lugal DeZahl revealing the secret of his race’s origins. In terms of film time, it went a little past the first hour of the 2.5 hour running length.
June 10: Animage Vol. 49
Animage‘s fourth anniversary issue put an energetic young girl named Nausicaa on its cover to promote Hayao Miyazaki’s serialized manga, which had been part of the magazine for six months. The lead articles were devoted to the Ideon movies, Godmars, My Youth in Arcadia, Space Cobra, and Xabungle, along with an early announcement for Macross in October.
The magazine’s first Final Yamato article filled up 8 pages with an account of Nishizaki’s April press conference, a look back at Series 1, and a followup Nishizaki essay reprinted from the fan club magazine.
Read the article here
June 10: The Anime Vol. 32
The Anime leaned heavily on the summer movies as well, with Ideon getting the top billing. Dougram and Xabungle got their share of attention, and an exploratory article about computer animation pointed the way toward the future. The Final Yamato article was less than two pages long, but another feature would prove more relevant over the long term: a bound-in sub-magazine in the “Challenge Series” that spotlighted fledgling mecha designer Yutaka Izubuchi.
That name would come to mean a lot more to Space Battleship Yamato over time, but back in 1982 he was making his way across many different SF anime titles and had plenty to say even as a beginner.
Read the articles here
June 10: My Anime, July issue
While My Anime also gave up-front attention to the summer movies, this issue had its eye firmly on the future with a substantial bound-in booklet on Dougram and a splashy first-look at Macross. The Final Yamato article was only four pages, but proved to be the most interesting of the month with a direct Nishizaki interview and some spot-on speculation about the movie to come.
Read the article here
June 10: Animedia, July issue
Behind a cover featuring everyone’s favorite space pirate (whose feature film was coming in July) Animedia joined with its competitors to launch an ongoing series of articles on Final Yamato. Their first one consisted of just one page, but it was packed with story information and announcements of related events including…a Yamato stage musical?
Read the article here
Elsewhere in the issue, reader poll results were announced for the top ten anime villains. Char from Gundam and Bundle from Goshogun took the top spots, but right behind them at number 3 was Dessler of Gamilas. The text read as follows:
The supreme ruler of Planet Gamilas, an immortal man. A ruthless dictator who pursues Yamato. Always calm and composed, his dedication to evil seems to earn him the support of fans. A proud warrior and a man loyal to his friends. If that man were an ally — even as an enemy, he’s someone you’d want on your side, and that’s why he still has such a strong following among fans.
Masato Ibu (Dessler)
Thank you very much for this opportunity. Dessler in Yamato was my first anime role, and since I haven’t done much anime lately, when I think of anime, the character Dessler is deeply etched in my mind. I don’t think I’ll ever encounter another character as wonderful as Dessler. Long live Dessler!
June 12: Fan club meeting, Tokyo
This was the kickoff for an unprecedented series of fan gatherings that would take place throughout the summer. From the pages of fan club magazine Vol. 28:
An exchange meeting recently occurred in Tokyo on June 12 with the Space Battleship Yamato Tokyo district fan club. The creator of Yamato was there with about 100 people who represented fans in the Tokyo area. A passionate discussion lasted for two hours. Producer Nishizaki talked enthusiastically about the final chapter of Yamato, to be released next spring. He talked about the story and inadvertantly (?) revealed some secrets. (We’ll feature it in great detail next issue!!)
There were also many questions from the audience, and there were points when Producer Nishizaki cringed at questions from some sharp fans. In addition, such exchange meetings will soon be held all over the country. Along with a film concert to show past works, the events being planned are likely to make Yamato fans drool!
June 19: Final Yamato script Part C completed
The third part of the script took Yamato all the way to Planet Aquarius where they fought Lugal II for the last time and took the long dive onto City Satellite Uruk. By this time, Part A had entered the storyboard phase.
June 21: Mellow Guitar Yamato LP & cassette
For the next wave of new music, individual members of Symphony Orchestra Yamato stepped forward to make their own statements. Guitarist Yoshio Kimura, Pianist Kentaro Haneda, and Violinist Tsugio Tokunaga had played key roles throughout the production years and earned the nickname “Yamato Trio.” Kimura had been with the orchestra since the first Symphonic Suite, Haneda joined up for Farewell, and Tokunaga brought his virtuoso talent to Be Forever. All three had shone many times and were now celebrities in their own right.
Kimura was the first to get the spotlight in Mellow Guitar, but this could hardly be considered a solo album. The full orchestra was involved, covering tracks from across the Yamato music library in new arrangements that — in this case — centered around Kimura’s guitar. It was the first of three brilliant releases that would later become known as the “Rhapsody series.” Taking it a step further, the jacket design threw off the image of anime altogether, opting instead for the look of a purely classical or instrumental LP.
June 25: Fan club magazine Vol. 29
The official club magazine was still the place to go for the pure hit of Yamato news, and this issue was a lively one. It began with a partial transcript of Yoshinobu Nishizaki’s conversation at the June 12 fan gathering in Tokyo, one of the most probing Q&A sessions seen in these pages. A gallery of as-yet-unseen production art followed.
Read the article here
June 28: Final Yamato script Part D first draft completed
This portion of the script covered the entire remainder of the story, from Yamato‘s all-out battle on Uruk to the end of the film. It was so lengthy that it would later be split into “Part D” and “Part E.” And there were still many changes in store.
Anime magazines published in June
Nausicaa gets her first cover appearance in Animage. This is for the manga; the movie won’t be out until 1984.
Legendary God Giant Ideon gets three covers in June for a double feature coming to theaters in July. My Youth in Arcadia gets its second cover story in Animedia.
What’s next
Summer 1982 heats up and Yamato Fever begins its comeback in the pages of books and magazines as the script is completed and the fan club hits the road with an all-new “message film” to bring the word to the streets. Click here for Vintage Report 39, taking us through July and August 1982.