The Legacy Years

What makes these issues of the fan club magazine so valuable today is that they remain the only source of inside information about post-Yamato activities in the halls of West Cape Corporation. Yoshinobu Nishizaki kept himself plenty busy during these years with new projects and new business interests such as the video and film distribution company JAVN (Japan Audio Visual Network).

His desire to become a one-man production and distribution juggernaut lead him to make the now-notorious Odin: Photon Space Sailor Starlight and a little-known live action film, a coming-of-age drama titled A Passenger. Coverage of these was sparse elsewhere, but the fan club magazine followed them every step of the way. These issues also provide the only known documentation of bi-annual fan club meetings and perennial trips to the Cannes Film Festival. Mail-order products continued to be offered, though stocks obviously dwindled as time went on. On the other hand, it was the one reliable source for a quick spate of Odin merchandise in 1985.

With no new Yamato productions to cover, the editorial staff outdid themselves with retrospective articles and game features. The Fan Plaza never slowed down, even taking over entire issues near the end of the run. Naturally, the intimacy that was fostered during this time lead to a very heartfelt farewell issue when the club closed its doors in the summer of 1991.

The rollout schedule became decidedly more erratic, with issues showing up long after the official publication dates. This is proven by many articles about events that occurred well after the date of the very magazine in which they were reported. Double-numbered issues were occasionally deployed to get things back on track, but it wasn’t long before they slipped off again.

Regardless, issues 36-83 offer a rare window into the legacy years of Yamato and will continuously serve as valuable reference for articles on this website.