In the 1970s, two of Japan’s most active publishing companies were Asahi Shimbun Co. and Tokuma Shoten. “Asahi” is the Japanese word for “Morning Sun,” which was generic enough for both companies to publish weekly magazines with that word in the title.
Asahi Journal (left) was a news magazine with some entertainment content from Asahi Shimbun Co. Asahi Geino (right) was an entertainment magazine (that’s what “Geino” means) with some news content from Tokuma Shoten. These two issues, published just six days apart in October 1978, each took a snapshot of the rapidly evolving youth culture that was boosting anime to unprecedented popularity.
Space Battleship Yamato was the engine that drove these articles, giving us a revealing analysis of both the observers and the observed.
Children who cried over Space Battleship Yamato
Reporter: Seya Hajime
Asahi Journal, October 27 issue (published October 20, 1978)
“Yuji, Yuuji” – amid a hail of gunpowder and bullets flying everywhere, what is currently sweeping the Japanese archipelago is, unfortunately, not a defense debate, but an anime boom.
Defying the trend of a decline in TV viewing among the younger generation, the protagonist’s fan club is growing like mushrooms after rain, and if a theatrical film is made, there will be long lines. The commercialized children’s market is now worth billions, and it seems to be an “anime fever.” Before you think, “Oh no, am I going to be forced to buy another robot?” or “I don’t know anything about it,” first try to understand and appreciate it.
The anime boom is now at its peak with Space Battleship Yamato. In the sweltering heat of August 5th, Farewell to Yamato was released. Fans, mainly middle and high school students, began lining up outside the theaters in Tokyo even before the day of the premiere. It was summer vacation, and the theaters weren’t that large, but even if it was an organized fan club, it was still an unusual sight. To date, the film has attracted over 3 million viewers and grossed over 3 billion yen, becoming a huge hit.
Yamato was originally a 30-minute TV SF anime series broadcast from October 1974 to March 1975. At the time, it was a special effects-driven anime aimed at young children, during the heyday of robot anime. With a popular rival show, Heidi Girl of the Alps airing simultaneously, the original plan for three arcs of 39 episodes was cut short at 26 episodes.
It was then re-edited into a 2 hour and 10 minute theatrical version and released last August (1977). At the time, Star Wars was a huge hit in America. While Yamato was said to be a pioneer of Japanese SF, it was still seen as “unusual” and a “test case” in terms of box office performance. However, it turned out to be a huge hit. Even two days before the release, there were people staying up all night, and the box office revenue exceeded 900 million yen.
When Yamato previously aired on TV, it had low ratings, and people dismissed it as “just a TV SF anime” or “absurd.” What could have been so appealing about it?
For those who are unfamiliar with the story:
In the year 2199, Earth is on the brink of destruction due to radiation caused by an invasion from aliens called Gamilas. To save Earth, humans must obtain a radiation removal device located on the distant planet Iscandar.
Captain Juzo Okita and his crew, including the hero Susumu Kodai, set off on a mission to save Earth, traveling 148,000 light years into the unknown. Their ship is Yamato, a battleship from World War II that has been converted into a spaceship. Despite being severely damaged in fierce battles with the Gamilas, they eventually destroy their home planet, retrieve the radiation removal device, and set course for Earth.
Yamato‘s SF-style wave engine, warp navigation, and ultra-futuristic weapons contrast with the battleship Yamato, which seems too decrepit to be remodeled, and the patriarchal symbol of Captain Okita, who rules over the passionate young crew. After the captain’s death, the hero takes his place. Add to that a sense of tragedy reminiscent of kamikaze pilots, and you have a strange futuristic war movie.
It is common in this industry to aim for the “second generation underdog.” A sequel, Part II, was immediately planned for this summer. Let’s continue with the story.
Yamato returned in the previous film. Earth has been rebuilt and is once again walking the path of peace and prosperity in the year 2201. However, a massive Comet Empire seeking to conquer the entire universe is heading toward Earth, destroying planets along the way. The Yamato warriors are escorting a resource transport fleet when they catch a distress signal from the depths of space. They board Yamato, which had been scrapped, and once again venture into space.
The final showdown between the Comet Empire and Yamato takes place after the Empire destroys all of Earth’s military ships. The new captain, Kodai, fires Yamato‘s Wave-Motion Gun at the comet, revealing a massive city empire within. After a fierce battle, the city is destroyed, but a super-dreadnought spaceship conveniently appears before the battered Yamato.
In the midst of the battle, Yuki Mori, Kodai’s fiancée, dies protecting him. With no other options left, Kodai pilots Yamato toward the massive battleship alongside Yuki, and a single flash of light erupts.
“In the year 2201, Yamato set off on its eternal journey.”
What made them cry?
This time, the war tragedy sparked significant reactions. The previous day, on August 4 at 8 PM, the first film was broadcast for three hours on Fuji TV, further fueling anticipation. The peak viewership rating reached 36.5%, estimated to have been watched by roughly 10 million people during that time slot. The “magic of TV” lent its power, and the groundwork for the Yamato phenomenon was set in place.
Now, let’s look at the content. Part II depicted dedication, love, and self-sacrifice with the love for humanity from the previous work evolving into “love for the universe.”
In movie theaters, people began to sob and wail around the time Yuki Mori died. By the time the sentimental theme song sung by Kenji Sawada played at the end, handkerchiefs were being waved frantically. It is not often that high school students, who are usually labeled as unemotional, are moved to tears.
However, the older generation reacted differently.
A film magazine critic saw it as too Japanese, comparing it to Star Wars, which also has space war as its theme, and calling it a serious war tragedy lacking humor, a kamikaze movie permeated with the theme of “to live is to die.” Or, they said, showing the ending (which glorifies kamikazes) to children who are not yet of age, is frightening. They harshly criticized the film, asking what kind of love could be depicted in a story of destruction that ended in slaughter.
As for the original Yamato, author Mitsuru Yoshida, who wrote Requiem for Battleship Yamato, also weighed in here, describing the experience of Yamato‘s crew just after the end of the war as something sought by those who grew up on anime. He defined Space Battleship Yamato as not depicting the ugly, relentless war that humanity has repeatedly engaged in, but rather as merely a fictional science-fiction farce.
He further stated, “The hopeless suffering of humans forced to fight, the raw anger leading to the acceptance of self-sacrifice…none of that is present here. The depth of love that those heading to the battlefield must abandon, and the unbearable pain of separation, are worlds apart from the tone of the love scenes that often color the screen of this film.“
”The beating hearts and tears streaming down the cheeks of the children have nothing to do with the meaningless deaths of the kamikaze pilots; they are innocent, transparent emotions.”
(From Space Battleship Yamato in a November 1978 issue of Weekly Bunshun)
So what was it that moved the boys and girls who shed tears over the latest Yamato? What are the key elements that make up their emotions? Is it really just a hit work that takes advantage of the anime boom?
What anime fans wanted
In Nerima Ward, Tokyo, there is a studio belonging to Toei Animation. Established in 1956 as a subsidiary of Toei Pictures, when there were only three TV companies in Japan. It is the oldest and largest anime production company in the industry. In 1958, it produced Japan’s first color feature-length anime, The Legend of the White Snake, followed by Shonen Sasuke Sarutobi and Journey to the West, which were distributed overseas and won numerous awards.
At the time, Disney’s Sleeping Beauty took six years and cost 2.1 billion yen to produce, while Journey to the West was completed in seven months for 60 million yen–a significant difference in both speed and cost. To date, this studio has produced 42 theatrical films, earning revenue through distribution to overseas TV networks. Farewell to Yamato was also produced there. I met Tomoharu Katsumata, the chief director in charge of anime works.
“There are probably various factors behind the popularity of Yamato, but the main ones are that it’s set in space and it’s about protecting the Earth from danger. Is it also because the spaceships and bases are depicted in great detail? Also, as is true of the current anime boom in general, fans are immersing themselves in the works and creating their own worlds. They feel like they’re participating, and they visit the production site to get a closer look at the animators, scriptwriters, and directors.”
On the first day of Yamato‘s release, Mr. Katsumata received a bouquet from a fan in Hokkaido. There was also a fan letter. It began like this.
“Hello, Mr. Katsumata, how are you? I am…”
The stationery was designed for girls, and there were neat illustrations scattered throughout.
Since the characters in the work are not human, it is only natural that fan letters would reach the people behind the scenes. Mr. Katsumata says that this has been happening at Toei Animation since the TV anime Devilman about five years ago.
Devilman, a warrior of the demon king’s elite guard who possesses a young boy in order to invade the human world, falls in love with the boy’s classmate and forgets his mission, eventually becoming a traitor. The work depicts psychological conflicts.
Even those who grew up watching anime from an early age, and had grown tired of children’s anime, giant robot wrestling, and Kamen Rider, were drawn to this work. It was only natural.
Around the same time, another phenomenon appeared in Triton of the Sea, originally written by Osamu Tezuka. It was a children’s anime produced by the same company as Yamato, but the ratings were poor. However, enthusiastic fans flocked to the studio. Junior high school girls were thrilled to see the production site with their own eyes and formed fan clubs.
Thus, fans who watched anime religiously, not just out of admiration, but with a proactive attitude and a deep knowledge of anime, began to emerge. They would go to TV stations in groups to demand reruns. When they got information about new shows or staff members, they would form three or four fan clubs before even knowing the story.
There is a fan term called “beautiful chara.” ‘Chara’ refers to characters, or the people and animals that appear in anime. Beautiful is the literal meaning of the word. However, it can refer to a character on the side of evil.
In anime, where villains are typically portrayed as hateful or foolish psychopaths, one handsome character first appeared in the robot/romance/action series Brave Raideen (broadcast from April 1975 to March 1976), the demon prince Shurkin. This trend continued with General Garuda from Combattler V, Tony Haken from Planet Robo Danguard Ace, and Prince Heinel from Voltes V, and is now carried on by Richter in the currently airing Fighting General Daimos, captivating female middle and high school students with the aesthetics of evil.
“It’s no wonder there are no flaws” The animation production site is always running at full capacity. At Toei Animation Studio, one feature-length film for theatrical release and six TV episodes are currently in production simultaneously (in Higashi-Oizumi, Nerima Ward, Tokyo).
SIDEBAR: The tightrope walk of anime production
The history of weekly 30-minute TV anime began in 1963 with Astro Boy, created by Mushi Productions. Anime is said to be as labor-intensive as “hand-baked senbei.” It takes a lot of time and money to produce, so even major animation companies avoided it, but they managed to pull it off.
Many people in the production field believe that the reason anime has remained immature as an industry even today is because Japanese animation started with “making it quickly and cheaply.” Around the 1970s, when TV anime began to be mass-produced, quality started to decline due to cost-cutting measures. Some companies even resorted to recruiting voluntary retirees to address financial losses, leading to labor disputes.
Currently, 2,000 people are involved in production, but even with this workforce, the maximum output is 20 episodes per week. In reality, however, 29 episodes are being produced. It’s a miracle that there are no gaps in the schedule.
To compensate for staff shortages, some companies have started producing anime in South Korea. They outsourced parts of the production process, but recently inflation has caused labor costs to rise even there, leading some companies to stop outsourcing. To address this labor shortage, Toei Animation has launched a six-month training program for new animators. However, the trend of animators leaving the industry due to low wages continues.
“Four or five years ago, we had five or six stock episodes ready by the time a show aired, but now we only have one,” says an anime producer at a TV station.
This trend has even reached voice actors, with popular actors having to perform in a different episode each day. Moreover, the scripts are handed out on the day of recording, and if the animation isn’t finished in time, they have to record their lines with only rough sketches to refer to.
“Despite this, we continue this work to truly bring the characters that fans demand to life,” says Akira Kamiya (32), the voice actor for the character Satonaka in Dokaben, speaking passionately.
Anime, which is finally gaining recognition, is being supported by those who aim to establish it as a lasting cultural phenomenon, despite the precarious nature of its production.
Is he really a “good guy”?
Villains are destined to die. They either lose their fated battle against the protagonist, discover their birth secret, suffer from love, and commit suicide or die in battle. Recent stories often evoke Greek tragedies, further boosting their popularity. In the anime information magazine Animage, which debuted in May this year, handsome characters are featured in every issue.
On “the final day,” some fans sent razor blades to the staff with messages like “Why did you kill my Richter?” and others became so fanatical that they ran a fever. Is this the extreme result of the current boom? It would be hasty to assume that all of the most enthusiastic fans are the ones who sent the razor blades.
“Adults tend to make snap judgments, but I wish they’d stop. We believe that beautiful characters make us think about what evil is,” said Yuki Maho, president of the nationwide Combattler V Fan Club. Yuki also saw the first TV anime, Astro Boy, when she was in kindergarten, so she can be considered part of the true anime generation.
The TV broadcast of Yamato began when she was in the third year of junior high school, when anime fans were still a minority. She recalled being mocked as she talked about the spirit of anime fans.
“In shows like Combattler V and other robot anime, the mood when five friends unite to form one entity is what appeals to me. In the new Yamato, the protagonists see an Earth where peace and prosperity continue and wonder, ‘Will this last? Is this really the kind of Earth we want?’ Then they disobey orders and set out on Yamato–that emotional depth really moves me. Yes, I too don’t think the world will stay the same forever.”
The anime fans I met through this interview were all well aware of the constraints imposed by sponsors during TV broadcasts and the commercial mechanisms behind the success of theatrical anime. Directors who defied toy company sponsors to create stories without fighting robots are held in high regard. They also said that such a boom couldn’t last forever, and that eventually, high-quality works supported by true anime fans would emerge.
When asked about concerns over war glorification or destruction hidden behind love, they respond, “We’re well aware of that.” They are cool and detached, yet know when to get passionate. In other words, they do not stray from the current “good kid” framework.
“It’s precisely because they’re good kids that I’m concerned,” says Miyu Hayashi (35), a disc jockey for Tokyo Broadcasting System’s Pack in Music. Amidst the soft and mellow trend in late-night radio, Hayashi’s show is popular for its hard-hitting style.
When Yamato was released last year, he spoke his mind and received a flood of counterarguments. From that experience, Hayashi concluded, “It is true that today’s children, represented by anime fans, are looking for unchanging heroes. However, they cannot find them in real life. Even sports heroes can fall from their pedestals at any moment in today’s world. That’s why I think they look to anime heroes.“
When asked who they respect most, about 40% of the respondents said their parents. Hayashi sees a connection between this and the trend toward anime.
”Young people are becoming more conservative, or rather, they aren’t interested in social issues and don’t think for themselves. So they turn to the world of anime to explore their thoughts.”
So, when Yamato fans counter with, “What’s the point of thinking about it?” or “Then make an anime to replace Yamato,” that’s the bottom line, isn’t it? Indeed, children who are good at studying or sports are labeled as “good kids,” and this repeated evaluation of whether they are “good kids” or not may have given rise to the desire for self-expression and the creation of anime fans.
The concentration of criticism toward Hayashi-san can also be seen as a defense of self-expression. Even when we talk about the anime generation or fans, each individual’s preferences and aspirations are diverse and scattered in many directions. Children will retort. Is something sprouting from within them? Or will they continue to race through their own universe forever?
Exploring the “Yamato Phenomenon” as Teen Culture
Hideo Takayama
Director of the Children’s Research Institute. Born in Osaka Prefecture in 1930. Graduated from the Faculty of Economics at Yokohama National University. Worked at a publishing company editing books related to education and children’s culture, then became director of the Modern Children’s Center in 1962. Has been in his current position since 1965. Conducts research on “The Life and Consciousness of Children Today.”
Why the “Yamato phenomenon”?
Space Battleship Yamato is about a group of people who, in order to protect the Earth and live forever in space, decide to ram their ship into an enemy super-battleship (just like a kamikaze attack!). On their journey to death, the hero Susumu Kodai speaks to his lover Yuki Mori, who has fallen into an eternal sleep:
“Yuki, we’re finally together. I’m sorry for causing you so much pain” (Oh, “Love and Death in Space,” as if it were here). “You’re the most important thing to me. My love for you. Let’s be married and become stars in this eternal universe.” (“Let’s become stars,” huh? That’s a line you don’t even see in shojo manga these days).
As a member of the “Yami Ichika Ato” generation born in 1930, I was jostled by the packed audience and had a rather twisted reaction while watching the final scene of Farewell to Yamato. However, the teenage girls around me were wiping away tears with handkerchiefs, holding their breath, and completely engrossed in this “space opera” version of a double suicide.
The fact that these young people, who are supposed to be so cynical these days, were shedding tears and reacting so directly to this cheap aesthetic of self-sacrifice made me feel a sense of dissonance toward them, which became the starting point for my curiosity. At the same time, I wanted to understand the underlying nature of the Yamato phenomenon as a part of teen culture. This is because the success of Yamato was not calculated in advance by the film industry, but rather arose when middle and high school students incorporated it into their own entertainment culture.
Whenever I had the opportunity, I asked teens why and how they liked Yamato.
The “Yamato experience” as private room culture
When interviewing teenagers, it became clear that the Yamato phenomenon was not limited to movie theaters and living rooms with TVs. The spaces that supported the Yamato phenomenon as a teen culture were, first, their private rooms, and second, the spaces where they played and communicated with their peers.
Above all, teenagers are exposed to a vast amount of Yamato information while confined to their private rooms. Through magazines like Animage (an anime specialty magazine) and Roadshow (a movie magazine with a special issue on Yamato), they gather diverse information ranging from the structure of Yamato‘s combat mecha to the actual production process of the movies.
On radio DJ shows, they hear letters from peers about Yamato, movie music, and requests for theme songs, which they record on their cassette players and save. In particular, the theme music played a significant role in the Yamato phenomenon. The LP of the previous film, Yamato Part 1, sold 800,000 copies. In this way, the Yamato experience became established as private room culture among teenagers.
Waiting for the screening of Farewell to Yamato,
a long line surrounds a movie theater in Ginza, Tokyo.
Why private room culture?
Today, the daily lives of middle and high school students are surprisingly limited and impoverished. On weekdays, school hours are unusually long, and when club activities are included, they don’t return home until evening. On days when they attend cram school, they don’t get home until it’s dark. Once they step inside the front door, they rarely leave the house until the next morning.
Furthermore, the pressure of the competitive exam system weighs heavily on them. When they return home and try to build models or play the guitar, they hear their mothers say, “Stop messing around and study. The final exams are coming up soon.” They have no choice but to retreat to their private rooms, which serve as study spaces. In this way, teenagers are scattered and isolated in their rooms. Their daily living sphere is far too narrow and lonely.
But at the same time, the information environment surrounding teens is extremely rich, and the network is infinitely expanding. From this overwhelming amount of information, they must be sensitive to catch information that touches on today’s sense of the times.
Narrow living space and wide information space–teenagers must resolve this contradiction while confined to their rooms. The quickest way for them to grasp the sensibilities of the times is through manga magazines, various hobby magazines, radio, cassette recorders, and stereos.
Through these information media, the culture of private rooms is liberated in a pseudo-way toward the outside world. Teenagers who come into contact with Yamato information while in their private rooms share the “Yamato experience” as members of the same generation.
In the whirlwind of communication among peers
Teenagers’ desire to connect with the sensibilities of their era is rooted in an inner urge to communicate with their peers. They use the telephone as a means of communication.
“Hello, is that you? What are you doing right now? Today, Akira Kamiya (a voice actor who is very popular among teenagers) is going to appear on Culture Broadcasting’s Orange Street.”
“Really? I’ll listen to it. Hey, in Yamato Part II, Kamiya’s role is only a small part, isn’t it? I’m so disappointed.”
Middle school students, especially girls, engage in intense phone communication. If they are not scolded by their parents, their chatter continues endlessly. It is understandable that a private phone is always at the top of the list of things teenagers want. That’s why, among friends who get along well get together, there’s always a whirlwind of lively conversation. Information about Yamato seems to be the perfect common topic to liven up the conversation.
“I like Dessler, the president of Gamilas, the best! He’s evil, but he’s strong and impressive, and he’s wonderful!”
“You’re really into it, aren’t you? Let’s start a Dessler fan club!”
“I love Captain Okita. I wish he was my dad.”
“Hey, wasn’t Okita’s voice done by Goro Naya? He also voices Inspector Zenigata in Lupin III, right?”
“Really? Oh my, that’s messing with my image!” (Middle school girls)
And so, the aimless chatter and information exchange continues.
Incidentally, when you witness this strange conversation, you can discover the unique way teenagers interact with each other. Having grown up without experiencing any major setbacks or disappointments, they are very straightforward with their friends. Therefore, even in conversation, they don’t try to assert themselves or make the other person submit.
They tell jokes, make puns, tease each other, gently criticize each other’s preferences, and nod in agreement. Listening in, it’s like watching a comedy sketch or a stand-up routine. This is more than just conversation for the sake of enjoyment; it might be more accurately described as the “playfulness of conversation.”
The principle of enjoyment
However, this “playfulness” is not limited to their communication. It is a principle that permeates all of their cultural and leisure activities. What we see here is not so much a strong desire for self-expression among young people, but rather a “principle of enjoyment” that allows them to easily empathize with one another.
For example, late-night radio broadcasts, which were once considered a secret place of communication for students preparing for entrance exams, have now become a salon for middle school students to engage in casual conversation. The Ivy League look, which once symbolized the establishment in the eastern United States, has been stripped of its original spirit and has become fun streetwear for teenagers.
Furthermore, rock and folk music, which emerged around the 1970s as a violent “protest” against the established cultural order, have now transformed into bright, upbeat happy rock and disco sounds, exemplified by groups like the Bay City Rollers and the Bee Gees.
A high school freshman girl I met during this interview, who is the president of a Yamato fan club, said, “We’re just fans, enjoying ourselves by screaming and cheering. We don’t have any of that anime fanaticism.”
Certainly, whether it be anime fans or rock fans, it is rare to see them maniacal about something. They are simply interested because it seems interesting. They enjoy collecting information about it, and then enjoy exchanging information with their friends. When this tendency is purified, teenagers’ play loses all tension with its object, giving rise to “information catalog play,” where they simply collect information and compare it for fun, and “imagination games,” where they freely manipulate interesting materials in their imagination.
“In Yamato Part II, Yamato is supposed to have self-destructed, but Teresa, who was leading Yamato, flew away with antimatter, right? So Teresa was the one who defeated the enemy, and Yamato may have actually survived and could reappear.” This is the testimony of a seventh-grade boy.
By witnessing the “Yamato play” of those teenagers, I felt as if a question, which had been bothering me ever since I saw the expressions of a group of junior high school students in the Yamato audience, had suddenly been answered on my way home from the theater.
They had been so engrossed in Yamato, wiping away tears, but on the train home they were chatting casually about the progress of their summer vacation homework and new fashion trends, without saying a word about their emotions over the death of the “Warriors of Love.” What could that mean?
SIDEBAR: Character Merchandise
Many industries are eyeing “character merchandise” to ride the popularity of anime protagonists. Most TV anime sponsors are food, confectionery, and toy companies. Just having a character sticker on a product boosts sales. If you turn a robot into a toy, the show itself becomes advertising, so the effect is direct.
Heidi of the Alps, which surpassed Yamato during its TV broadcast, gained explosive popularity in Europe and spawned over 600 merchandise items. “In Europe, where American-style gag manga is mainstream, the detailed portrayal of Heidi’s personality was the key to its success,” is the analysis by Shigeto Takahashi, president of Mizutaka Enterprise, which holds the copyright.
However, behind this glittering facade lies the harsh reality of production companies making anime at a loss. No matter how much is spent on production, a single episode can only be sold for 4 to 5 million yen on TV. The 500,000 yen loss is an upfront investment in copyright–the foundation for merchandising.
According to industry sources, the standard royalty fee is 3% of the retail price and 5% of the wholesale price (50% of the list price).
Popy, a major toy maker, is confident of its industry-leading position, saying, “Everything is a hit. Even Ultraman, which is currently being rerun, is selling well. The industry doesn’t change much in terms of materials, even if there are mechanical changes,” says Executive Director Ren Mori.
The company’s 200 character products all sell like hotcakes. The high copyright fees are no burden here.
For Yamato, over 200 companies applied to the copyright holder, Office Academy.
“It was a pity, but we turned them all down,” said a company representative. “This is because we want to avoid childish products and focus on the image of works targeting middle and high school students, in line with our plans for the TV series Yamato 2 starting in October.”
Asahi Sonorama, which publishes novels and manga based on Yamato, sold 3 million copies of Part 1 alone. There are also rumors that a major publishing company is planning to launch a magazine targeting anime fans. The character merchandise market, which started with popular stickers on confectionery, continues to expand.
There are as many anime fan club magazines as there are
stars in the sky. They feature reports and parodies, and
the content seems to be expanding.
A lighthearted metamorphosis
I actually felt the same question a little while ago at the Bay City Rollers concert at the Budokan. After going wild for BCR, with many people fainting, the teenage girls outside the venue immediately returned to being ordinary, quiet middle school students, talking in subdued voices about their anxiety over final exams.
When a person experiences deep emotion and excitement while immersed in the darkness of a theater, isn’t the world they perceive upon exiting the theater fundamentally different from the world they knew before entering? Yet, why are they so easily able to return to the same mundane reality they knew before entering?
That’s right. They weren’t excessively passionate about Yamato or BCR. They weren’t crazy. The two hours in the theater were just the culmination of their long-standing “Yamato play” and “BCR play,” which were simply information games for them. Come to think of it, maybe they were able to enjoy the frenzy of “Sayonara Candies” [the farewell tour of a famous pop group] because they knew it was the last time. In that sense, “farewell to Yamato” was an important key to the success of the film.
With this finale, their interests will shift to new objects and they will transform themselves with ease. There will be no embarrassment or attachment in this lighthearted metamorphosis.
Young people cannot go crazy in the “now”
Today’s young people may instinctively avoid going crazy. Adults may shake their heads at the apathy of young people, but in reality, it is the adults, including parents and teachers, who have expected and forced this upon them.
For example, if a middle school student has a strong passion for soccer and wants to devote all of their youthful energy to it, their parents would likely say, “You should play soccer in moderation and study hard so you don’t fall behind in high school.” Adults are constantly forcing young people to live “today” in moderation for the sake of preparing for “tomorrow,” rather than allowing them to fully enjoy “today.”
Therefore, the fact that teenagers self-censor their passion for soccer, rock music, or movies may stem from unconsciously internalizing their parents’ expectations. In that sense, Yamato is a safe, “snack-like entertainment package” that does not inspire true madness.
However, by playing with it casually, they may have experienced a momentary sense of freedom from the exam system and the educational control of adults. The logic of this escape is clearly evident in the “Yamato phenomenon.”
Teenagers took the culture given to them by adults, adopted it in their own unique style, modified it, and arranged it to thoroughly play with it, transforming it into their own unique teen culture. The takeover of established culture!
“Life transcends death. Can you die for love?” The message imbued with the passion of Yamato producer Yoshinobu Nishizaki was lightly dismissed by the teenagers and appropriated as their plaything. However, it is also certain that Nishizaki himself had created the very framework that made Yamato susceptible to such appropriation.
Popular Program Analysis Series: Space Battleship Yamato 2
The Ultimate Anime Showdown: The Battle for “Father and Son Acquisition”
Reporter: Yoichi Matsuo
Asahi Geino, November 2 issue (published October 26, 1978)
The first episode of this program had a viewership rating of 26.7% (according to Kanto Video Research). It even crushed the rival shows airing at the same time, including the Mito Komon Clan and the Howl at the Sun! family. Yamato, you are strong–but why are you so popular? As a father raised on Norakuro, I can’t help but be curious about the fervor behind it. Looking into it, it feels both modern and reminiscent of “a path we’ve walked before.”
And so the Z flag was raised!
Let’s start with the slang that’s popular among high school students.
“Hey, everyone, the English teacher is taking a break, so let’s warp the sixth period world history class!” “Agreed!” (Applause)
“Warp” apparently means to shorten class time by moving it forward. It’s borrowed from Space Battleship Yamato, referring to the “space jump navigation” used to catch up with enemies a million light-years away. If you start thinking, “Is that possible?” or “According to Einstein…” and get all complicated, you won’t be able to sync with the young people of today.
As the saying goes, “Lightning never strikes in the same place twice,” but Farewell to Yamato has been a long-running hit since its release on August 5, and even now, with the autumn breeze blowing, it’s still doing well. During summer vacation, it’s elementary and middle school students and their parents, but lately, high school girls and office ladies are the main audience, with many repeat viewers, according to the ticket taker.
Fans shout, “Kodai-kun, you’re awesome!” and “Shima-kun, keep it up!” Last year’s Yamato part 1 drew 2.25 million viewers, grossed 2 billion yen, sold 800,000 records, and generated 700 million yen in book sales, with 200 million yen in related merchandise sales—-a massive success. This year, with Farewell, the attendance is already nearing three million. There’s no way to ignore this Yamato fever, so starting in October, Nippon TV network is airing Part 2. The real enemy isn’t Gamilas or the White Comet Empire—-it’s the rival TV networks.
At a press conference, a TV station staff member declared, “Our target viewership rating is 30%. We’ll blow the rival shows to smithereens with Yamato‘s Wave-Motion Gun” (the large cannon at the bow of the ship). Thus, the Z flag was raised. As the ace in the battle for viewership ratings among “fathers and sons” rather than “mothers and children,” Yamato set sail.
However, “Well, even Yamato can’t get 30%,” said producer Osamu Hiroka (38) of Academy Productions with a knowing smile. “If you ask children, they’ll tell you that the Wave-Motion Gun is the same as Ultraman’s solar energy, so you can’t use it recklessly…”
In a residential area near Nerima Station stands a small building. The second and third floors serve as Yamato‘s production headquarters. While this might evoke images of the command center of Yamato or the new battleship Andromeda, the reality is far from it. After all, anime production is a labor-intensive process where each of the 24 frames per second must be meticulously created, making it a small-scale, labor-intensive industry.
The prototype for Yamato 2, now airing on TV, is the movie Farewell to Yamato. However, for TV, they need to produce 26 episodes of a weekly 30-minute show. Based on the main theme of the confrontation with the White Comet Empire, they need to create a new episode every week.
“First, we hold a plot meeting with Leiji Matsumoto and his idea team to decide on the 26 episodes, then commission the scripts. At the same time, we create storyboards. Storyboards are drawings indicating scenes, captions, dialogue, sound effects, and the duration of each shot. However, the commissioned scripts often require revisions. While anime values visual aesthetics, the script ultimately determines the outcome.”
(From the previous quote by producer Hiroka)
Anime fans, especially Yamato fans, are very particular about mecha.
“At fan club meetings, questions like, ‘Why don’t the instruments in Yamato‘s control room in Part 1 appear in the second half?’ often come up, and the staff in attendance get flustered. Fans who are majoring in electronics at technical high schools are especially scary.” (Producer Hiroka, mentioned above)
The Wave-Motion Gun, which is rarely used in the film, gets used a lot on TV, but they received a letter of complaint saying, “Yamato is not the main character of a monster story. It’s a mecha with the theme of peace and love in space, so please refrain from overusing the Wave-Motion Gun.”
The challenges lie in mecha and sound effects
“However, aside from fans who focus on mecha and science fiction, there are also female fans who are drawn to the romance between the main characters, Susumu Kodai and Yuki Mori, so a fantastic love story is also required. Writers who are strong in science-fiction tend to be science and engineering majors and are weak at romance. On the other hand, writers who are good at melodrama are completely ignorant of science, which is a difficult point” (producer Hiroka again). Therefore, a mecha research project was set up to flesh out the fiction. Meanwhile, the team that received the storyboards began working on the animation.
The Yamato TV series is produced by a project team organized into seven groups. After all, a 30-minute episode takes about 50 days to produce, and making each episode one by one would be impossible. The team that completes the first episode immediately moves on to the eighth episode, and just looking at the production schedule is enough to drive one mad.
“The main characters in anime don’t get sick like popular stars, don’t complain about their pay, or turn their backs on the script if they don’t like it, so that’s nice, and there’s no need to worry about the weather at a filming location,” people say, but that’s nonsense.
Demands like, “The explosion scene isn’t intense enough” or “Add more plastic to make it look more metallic” or “Make Kodai and Yuki’s expressions more detailed” keep coming from Mr. Nishizaki (Producer Yoshinobu Nishizaki) and Mr. Matsumoto. They don’t compromise just because it’s anime. If these were real people, we wouldn’t be able to reschedule, so we’d have to settle for retakes, but with anime, we have more flexibility. After all, we can just stay up all night to get it done…”
Producer Hiroka added, “In a typical anime [episode], there are about 350 shots, but for Yamato, we’re keeping it down to about 250 to 300. That means each shot will be longer, and the characters’ movements have to be very detailed. If there are too many shots, the scenes become static and look like cheap manga. For example, even a single blink of Yuki Mori’s eye needs to convey happiness or sadness, so longer shots are definitely better. As a result, the number of cels (animation frames) becomes enormous.”
“The most challenging scenes are battle sequences and explosions. New settings like a new planet mean that previously used scenes can’t be reused. Sound effects also need to be different, like the mecha sounds for Yamato or the enemy fleet. Still, these are imaginary sounds with no reference. We add depth with electronic sounds or tape reversal effects to make them feel authentic. Even a hint of Earth-like sounds will get complaints.” (Laughs)
There are endless stories of hardship, but since anime, following Walt Disney, has evolved from moving manga to independent characters, it has become possible to express the fantastical sensibilities that cannot be depicted in feature films or TV dramas. Perhaps this is the suffering that comes with that evolution.
Yamato, Spanning Three Generations
Indeed, anime protagonists have changed significantly from the simple-minded “sports-obsessed” or monster mecha stories of the past. Characters like [manga artist] Shinji Mizushima’s Yuki Mizuhara or Yamato‘s Yuki Mori and Susumu Kodai are viewed with the same fervent admiration as idol singers by the new young generation. The character merchandise sold in movie theater lobbies bears a certain resemblance to the bromides [publicity stills] of Takarazuka stars.
For example, there is a voice actress named Yoko Asagami who performs Yuki Mori. She has been gaining popularity as Yuki Mori through radio DJ work. She is also part of the generation that grew up with Astro Boy and Iron Man 28.
“We are a generation that has had TV since we were born, so unlike adults we didn’t think of anime and manga as the same thing. We thought of it as the same as dramas and pop music shows. So when I grew up, I didn’t think of becoming a voice actor specializing in anime. In that respect, I’m different from my senior actors who do voice acting. They seem to do anime to make a living and to raise funds to do stage performances. In my case, my goal was to become an anime voice actor.”
Her calculation turned out to be spot on. She receives dozens of fan letters addressed to “Yuki Mori” every day. “When I see letters like that, I’m surprised and wonder if Yuki Mori is me or if I am Yuki Mori…” she said, a little confused.
Yoshinobu Nishizaki, the executive producer of Yamato, said at the press conference for the announcement of Part 2, “There are two major themes in Yamato. One is what challenges are faced by today’s youth. The other is what they love. The things they love are not limited to romantic love between men and women, but extend to love for all humanity on Earth.”
It sounds like a “Yamato religion,” but perhaps it is a religion for the “uncontaminated young generation.” From another perspective, perhaps it is the seed of “white fascism” in peacetime. Nishizaki continued: “After manga for small children, which are read by mothers and their children, there is a lack of manga for boys, which can be read by fathers and their sons. I wanted to fill that gap with a romance for men.”
When it comes to Yamato, perhaps we should focus on the young craftsmen who silently draw the original illustrations behind the scenes, and the older women who spend all day painting the cels, with a total of 300 people working on each episode.
More than that, I want to cling to the idea of Yamato as the Battleship Yamato, which was lost in vain in a special attack on Okinawa more than thirty years ago.
Historically speaking, the battleship Yamato was sunk and left as a corpse in the water by the wartime generation, and then, for a time after the war, it was reevaluated as part of a series on weapons in magazines such as Maru, alongside the Zero fighter and the Shiden-kai, as part of a boom in reevaluating modern Japanese science and technology (Nishizaki belongs to this generation) and the “mecha faith” generation of the Lamborghini Countache era. I believe there has been a three-generation shift in the perception of Yamato.
In Farewell to Yamato, the people of Earth, facing the invasion of the White Comet Empire, cry out, “We still have Yamato!” I’ve heard that line somewhere before. The children who were evacuated in World War II must have heard their teachers say, “We still have Yamato,” in the temple grounds. That generation is now the fathers of the children who are obsessed with Yamato today.
The battleship and the space battleship are indeed father and son. The fathers think of the Yamato of the Pacific War era, while the sons applaud the coolness of Susumu Kodai, who skillfully maneuvers the modern anime Yamato.
Toward the end of the Meiji era, a ridiculous hypothesis called the “Yoshitsune Legend” was popular among local historians, aligning with the prevailing theory of Japan’s northward expansion at the time. Yoshitsune, who is said to have committed seppuku at the castle in Ikawa, Oshu, while being pursued by Minamoto no Yoritomo’s troops, actually did not die that way.
The bizarre theory claimed that he fled from Hokkaido, crossed Sakhalin, and made his way to Siberia, where he became Genghis Khan and rampaged across the land. This was the height of the “Yoshitsune Genghis Khan theory,” a fanciful fabrication fueled by a bias toward the underdog.
Space Battleship Yamato might be the sci-fi version of this romantic yet grotesque Yoshitsune legend. After all, it’s the “warp” of modern Japanese history!