REBEL 3199 Chapter 1 program book



Introduction by Harutoshi Fukui (Read it at the bottom of this page)



Major staff profiles



Series background



Chapter 1 synopsis



Character guide



Saturn recovery operation (led by Ginga)




Earth mecha



Dezarium mecha



Film credits



Painting by the great Naoyuki Katoh



Director interview



Solar system in 2207



Cast comments (Kodai & Yuki), video info



Chapter 1 products




2205 mobile game update, 1/350 Hachette Patrol ship model



Model kits, promo for Chapter 2: Burning Sun Sortie



The year is 2207.
Yamato, the last hope of the Earth, is alive!

The shape of a family, the shape of a world of sorrow

Introduction by Harutoshi Fukui, General Director/Series Composition

The Yamato remake series, which began with 2199, is now in its fourth installment. Be Forever Yamato REBEL 3199 is finally starting, a long journey of seven chapters. Please stay with us until the end.

As the title suggests, 3199 is based on the theatrical film Be Forever Yamato, released in 1980. How old were you at the time, what were you doing, and what did you think of it? There are as many answers to this question as there are people. The first image that comes to my mind is not the film itself, but the LP drama record that was released after the film’s premiere.

The three-disc record contains almost the entire two-and-a-half-hour main story, making it an exceptional item for the time. The price was over 5,000 yen, and it was not something I could easily afford as an elementary school student, but I wanted it no matter what. Yamato drama recordings had been released before that time, and I listened to them at my friends’ houses, but they were just digests that connected famous scenes, and I didn’t feel like I was getting the work itself.

But the drama version of Be Forever was different. If I bought it, I would get the movie and the world of Be Forever. I negotiated with my parents as if I was being possessed, and secured the purchase funds with a disastrous finance plan of borrowing my birthday, Christmas, and New Year’s money in advance. The day I finally got it, I remember walking very carefully on my way home from the record store, thinking that if I got hit by a car there, I wouldn’t even die. It was a fun, luxurious movie that gave me an extraordinary experience.

Even as a child, I felt that it lacked the passion and message of the first film and Farewell, but the animation was so wonderful with one thing after another that the excitement outweighed my dissatisfaction. The joy of being able to own that fun just through the sound — the joy of collecting films through packaged media that would later evolve into video, laserdisc, and DVD — may have started with Be Forever.

It was fate that I ended up working on a remake of it. But the Yamato remake series is not a case of just remaking it because you like it so much. Of course, there are changes to the concepts and characters in the remake series, but the storyline has to be reconstructed in accordance with the theme that runs through the series. As I have written several times before, the remake series after 2202 is built on the themes and social aspects derived from the 1974 Space Battleship Yamato TV series (“original Yamato“). From that perspective, Be Forever seems to be quite far removed from the earnestness of “original Yamato,” and without significant changes, it will deviate from the flow of the remake series.

What should be changed and what should be retained to make the best remake? Finding the balance was more difficult than the previous work, The New Voyage, which was structured as a simple family drama.

In general, the nature of the family has changed a lot over the past 40 years. In the original work, Kodai and Yuki are not as old as in the remake, and are positioned as a young man and woman torn apart by a cruel fate. They do not yet have the weight of seeing each other as their one and only family, and the way they see their marriage, which they are looking forward to, seems quite different from how they see each other in the current Reiwa era.

Even though Yuki fought bravely against the invaders and turned her back on Alphon’s words to become a partisan, she was fundamentally a “woman who waits.” She could fight because she believed Kodai would come for her someday, and this feeling could be felt in every line. The most obvious example was the line where she looked up at the night sky and muttered, “Kodai-kun, where are you?”

I’d like you to compare the lines in the original and 3199. In the original, the nuance was “Hurry up and help me. I’m trying my best, but I’m so anxious.” In contrast, in 3199 the nuance is “Where are you? I’m here.” They are clearly depicted as equal partners who try to support and help each other even in the midst of anxiety. This was not something we asked of Houko Kuwashima, who plays Yuki, but it came naturally from her. She has been playing the same role for over ten years, and she has a strong sense of the way couples and families have changed, which is why she was able to perform with such ease.

The role model of a husband who works hard at a company where lifetime employment is the norm, and a wife who takes care of the home and raises children, has long since disappeared with the collapse of the bubble economy. Nowadays, it is common for both spouses to work, and if we were to use a trendy term, Kodai and Yuki are truly a power couple. So if we were to trace over the original work as it was, it would be unnatural.

In the scene where the two are reunited in a city on fire, it’s not just the nuance of the acting, but the scene itself has been changed. In the original, the two embraced tightly with burning flames in the background, while in 3199 they only hold each other’s hands and they only feel each other’s body temperature for a moment. Then they have a short conversation like a business contact, and their time together ends quickly. It’s like words exchanged in a text during dinner, where a busy working couple eats separately. The love condensed in those words is appropriate for Kodai and Yuki today.

But there is another issue involved in this change. The words “war” and “battlefield” feel different to us now than they did then. Even though there was the apocalyptic fear of a nuclear war between the US and the Soviet Union, there was almost no sense of danger that modern cities would become battlefields. Compared to the 1980s, when war was as unrealistic as fantasy, especially for Japanese people, we now live in an age where we hear ominous news almost every day, including the situations in Ukraine and Gaza.

Portraying the burning flames of war as a metaphor for the feelings of men and women has been done many times in previous works such as Gone with the Wind, and Be Forever is not outside of that context, but I just couldn’t bring myself to recreate it now. If I’m going to depict a war-torn city, I think it’s important for the remake series, which is trying to take over from “original Yamato,” to convey at least a glimpse of that fear and pain.

It’s a challenging time. The passage of more than 40 years has worked to negate the generous fun of the original. However, there are also words that especially resonate now. There is Megumi Kanzaki’s line, “If someone has a reason to live, the only ones who can teach them what it is are their family.” Depending on how you interpret that, it could sound like a denial of diversity, but the family she is talking about is not based on the premise of marriage.

Parents, siblings, friends, even pets, all other living things that are closely related to you; even if they have already passed away, they continue to show us a guide that lives “forever in our memories.” In these turbulent times, when we don’t know what will be lost or when, we don’t want to lose sight of that. We don’t want to give up on our ideals and our pursuit of happiness.

The revelation and miracle that appears before Kanzaki at the climax of this chapter is probably guided by that strong will. It is like a miracle that requires a sacrifice to work in reality. In any case, the world has changed. And the existence of the family that forms the basis of it has also changed. Should we change even more, or should we resist change and remain steadfast? The borderline is different for each person, and story of facing the unknown called Dezarium is about to begin.

This story will pierce our hearts more deeply and mercilessly than any previous series, and we hope that this first chapter will reach as many people as possible. We hope that we can all shoulder and accomplish the 50th year of “rebel.”


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