Portrait by Tomo (“Tommy”) Ashida
So what constitutes a standard, run-of-the-mill anime despot of the 1970s, as Dessler was described in part 1? This requires a small history lesson, since precious little 1970s Japanese animation has impacted 21st century American pop-culture consciousness. In those days, most of Yamato‘s SF contemporaries fit into a charmingly simple formula: a group of youngsters, working for some kind-hearted scientist or other, would pilot their giant robot against alien enemies lead by an evil dictator. Typically, this dictator was obsessive, highly predictable, and learned very little from week to week. There were exceptions to the rule, certainly, but the fact that there was a rule tells you much of what you need to know about the genre.
When Yamato was first conceived in 1973, Dessler fit solidly into this category. He seldom got his hands dirty, he dispatched his underlings as readily as his enemies, and demonstrated a willful ignorance about those he was fighting; a certain recipe for defeat. Finally, his blue skin cast him irrevocably in the role of an alien, disqualifying him in a sense from audience empathy.
The changeover, one of the elements that made Yamato so groundbreaking, was a shift in attitude not from Dessler, but toward him. In episode 24 (aptly titled “God, weep for the Gamilas”), Kodai takes a moment to recognize how empty all the fighting has been. “We should have showed them compassion,” he says of the Gamilas. “Victory tastes like ashes!” This particular bit of dialogue was heavily rewritten in Star Blazers, but the sentiment was paid off in the very next episode, in which Starsha described what was actually happening on Gamilas, and that Dessler was merely fighting for the survival of his people. In other words, his goal was the same as that of the Star Force. And thus was a memorable villain formed.
The next step, one that no one saw coming, was Dessler’s return in the feature film, Farewell to Yamato, which (as we know) became the basis for the next TV series Yamato 2. Producer Yoshinobu Nishizaki, when asked why he chose to revive the character, said that Dessler’s popularity had a lot to do with it, but he also wanted to explore his character further.
“In most anime programs,” Nishizaki said, “The villain is just a bad guy and nothing more. This isn’t a good way to define a character. Dessler has his own style of intelligence, his own culture, and his own understanding of power. I wanted to define him in a way that wasn’t shown in part 1.”
This creative decision lead to a major turning point for Dessler, giving him a closer look at his enemies and leading him to understand that he had much in common with them. His passion as a villain was finally balanced by a newfound compassion that gave him a wider view of the world. He gave up his ferocious vendetta against Yamato and devoted his energies instead to the future of his people. The next Yamato story, The New Voyage, depicted his first step in this new direction. But to the disappointment of his many loyal fans, Dessler was not to play a role in the followup adventure, Be Forever Yamato. Instead, he was off on a campaign of his own, as described below…
2: The Founding of the Galman-Gamilas Empire
Remnants of the Gamilas Fleet
search for a new homeworld.
After the destruction of Planet Gamilas and the subsequent battle over the fate of Iscandar (as seen in The New Voyage), Dessler and the remnants of his personal fleet returned to the borders of the Milky Way Galaxy and began the journey toward their new destiny. Now irrevocably separated from their homeworld, they went from one outpost to the next, uniting other Gamilas who had been stationed across the galaxy during the anti-Earth campaign of the late 2100’s.
In those decades, it had already been decided that since Planet Gamilas was becoming unstable, they would cleanse the Earth of its indigenous lifeforms through the use of Planet Bombs and then restore its climate for their own needs. Earth was to become their new home. To that end, a network of outposts had been built to act as bridges for the mass-migration of the race. Now, they served as useful waystations, but none was suitable as a homeworld, and Dessler’s vision for his people would not permit him to scratch out a meager existence of mere survival. The Gamilas race was once great, he insisted, and would soon be great again.
Twin Planets
A fateful discovery
One fateful day, they made a pivotal discovery: twin planets, nearly identical to the long-lost Gamilas and Iscandar. Compelled to investigate, they were attacked by the ships of a new enemy calling itself the Bolar Federation. Despite the benefits of warp-travel, the galaxy was still vast enough for powerful empires never to encounter each other. Such was the case with the Bolar Empire, until now.
It quickly became apparent that these twin planets were Bolar territory, one of their many colonies. The Gamilas, however, saw them as far more than just property, and fought with all the ferocity of a people in need of a homeland. This, in addition to Dessler’s natural cunning, brought his small but aggressive fleet quickly through the Bolar defensive zone and down to the surface of the planet resembling Gamilas. Once inside the atmosphere, they were amazed to learn that even the planet’s environment was a perfect match for their dead homeworld.
Dessler and General Talan on the bridge
The Bolar possessed modern technology and weapons, but had not spent much of it against Dessler’s fleet. Sending out a reconaissance party to investigate, he soon learned the reason. The planet had been conquered by the Bolar Federation, and the natives were groaning under Bolar tyranny. The Bolar had put so much of their energies into the supression of these people that they had almost nothing left to fight an outside force.
Enslaved Galmans
But the most dramatic discovery was about the natives themselves.They called themselves the Galmans, and they looked identical to the Gamilas. Suddenly, Dessler realized the true nature of this world: it was none other than the ancestral home of the Gamilas. It was the birthplace of warp-technology and the planet from which an ancient dynasty of explorers had set off across the galaxy, ultimately reaching the Large Magellanic Cloud and choosing Gamilas as their home because of its resemblance to this two-planet system!
Dessler’s fleet descends through
the Bolar defensive zone.
With that realization, the path was clear for Dessler’s people, they would liberate the Galmans from the Bolar occupation force and reclaim their rightful homeland. Bolar bases, unprepared and unequipped for an air war, were quickly overcome. The fleet landed and was enthusiastically welcomed by the Galmans.
“Brothers of space,” Dessler announced, “we are those originated from the Galman Race.” The Galmans, observing Dessler’s extraordinary charisma and outrage against their oppressors, quickly adopted him as their leader and undertook a worldwide effort to expel the Bolar occupation forces. The next step was to build a defense network with Dessler’s small but powerful fleet at its core. To fully identify himself with his new people, Dessler proclaimed this was now the Galman/Gamilas Empire. He preserved the memory of Iscandar by renaming the neighboring blue planet Starsha.
Gamilas fighters engage the enemy
Dessler dedicated his entire life to the welfare of the Galmans. Fueled by his vision, they swiftly colonized not only their own solar system, but also surrounding systems. Pushing through the center of the galaxy into the galactic arms of Sagittarius and Orion, the Galmans developed several industrial colonies for mineral, agriculture, and manufacturing purposes. Exploration of these regions commenced, and large ship convoys brought Galmans to new homes. Several months passed, in which the Galman Empire extended its influence to the base of the galactic spiral arm that contained the Earth. Curiously, the Bolar Federation had not responded in the entire time since Dessler had liberated the Galmans. But all that was about to change.
Bombing a Bolar garrison
The day came when a massive Bolar spacefleet was spotted approaching Galman. Dessler moved his people to action with a forceful speech. “You are no longer a weak and inferior race controlled by the Bolar Federation. You now dominate this galaxy and are capable of even more. Do not fear, we need show no mercy to anyone who stands in our way. There is no such word as surrender in the Galman/Gamilas Empire. All forces, attack!!”
Dessler addresses his new subjects
Dessler resolved to personally take up the fight, and a battle-fury ignited in him that he had not felt since his vendetta against Yamato. At that moment, he wondered what had become of his friend Susumu Kodai.
Though Desslok had no way of knowing, Kodai and his crew were engaged in their own fight against the Dark Nebula Empire. It was a struggle that threatened to take everything from them. Like Dessler, they would emerge victorious, but that was another story (Be Forever Yamato). For now, the Bolar Wars had begun, sparked by this attack. They would soon spread across the entire frontier and inexorably bring terrible danger to the distant Planet Earth.