Producer Yoshinobu Nishizaki’s passionate thoughts about the characters, talked about for the first time
Yamato and First Love
Peace: You must fight and win to get Love…
Captain Okita, who died once, is “revived” in The Final Chapter – some fans will react with surprise and resistance to this news. Though this was to be expected, why did Mr. Nishizaki daringly decide to revive Okita? We ask about his true intention and also his feelings for each character.
Juuzo Okita
“This revival was not done for business or box office performance.”
Animage: First, I want to hear about the big news of “Okita’s resurrection.” Why was it necessary to bring him back?
Nishizaki: I think I can answer that from various angles, but I’ll start with the premise for The Final Chapter. Therefore, I’d like to present the concept of Kodai and Yuki leaving Yamato and combining their power to live on together. Whether they stay with Yamato or leave Yamato, they both have to combine their strength to fight and live on. That is how to gain happiness.
For Kodai and Yuki, and all the Yamato fans, the basic message of the work is that the fight goes on in the reality of society. In specific terms, I want to show the process of becoming a full-fledged member of society through the expression of Susumu Kodai as “the son that surpasses the father.” A father figure for Kodai is necessary for this, but Kodai lost his parents at the time of the first work. When he boarded Yamato, he grew up under Captain Okita. In other words, Okita was a substitute father for Kodai.
Animage: However, Okita also died in the first work.
The artwork in this spread is reproduced larger at the end of this page; the lower portion is an index of production credits
Nishizaki: That’s right. It is known that Leiji Matsumoto lamented this, and killing Okita gave us some problems. For example, “we need an alternative Captain to Okita,” and because we weren’t able to recreate him we had to make Kodai the captain. As a result, it became impossible to express the qualities of youth through Kodai. The role of a captain is to occasionally be cold-hearted and leave someone behind, and that didn’t suit Kodai’s character. It was a mistake to make Kodai the captain. The Yamato series became routine, and I think that was the cause.
In other words, since the captain of Yamato is a father figure to Kodai, it was decided that the presence of Okita was indispensible, and that’s why Okita is revived in The Final Chapter.
Animage: I think a backlash from fans was to be expected.
Nishizaki: Yeah. Therefore, if this was not The Final Chapter, there could be no revival of Okita. Given the connection back to the Yamato series from 1974, I don’t think this work could be completed without Okita. I think he’s a great character.
Animage: By the way, what kind of explanation will be given for his revival?
Nishizaki: I can’t talk about that, but there were countless ideas for it. A mock-Frankenstein plan was also proposed (laughs), but I chose the most natural way, you’ll see.
Dessler
“The German Empire was the model for the Gamilas Empire.
But I didn’t want Dessler to be Hitler.
Animage: By the way, does Dessler appear in The Final Chapter?
Nishizaki: There was talk about whether or not to do that, but he will appear, because it’s the conclusion, after all. It’s merely a “guest appearance” in the end, in a form where he continues to protect his friendship with the hero, Kodai.
Animage: As for Dessler, fans have noticed that his personality gradually changed over the series.
Nishizaki: That goes without saying. At the sight of Kodai and Yuki in Farewell, he spit out the line, “Is this what’s called love?” From that moment, Dessler has clearly changed. In fact, I directed that scene and wrote that line myself.
Yuki protects Kodai and is shot when her body twists. Hands tremble and tears flow. Whether or not you believe that I always belabor the point with such direction, I certainly changed Dessler here. That wasn’t necessarily opportunism. Surely he was reformed here. Although it was said amongst the staff that Dsessler’s charm was lost, his fundamental nature was not changed.
Animage: And that’s good?
Nishizaki: In other words, he still has his pride as the leader of Galman-Gamilas, and he continues to have his essential thirst for conquest, and there is his love for his own people, too. However, at the sight of Kodai and Yuki, he came to know what’s called interpersonal love for the first time. His friendship with Kodai arose from there, too.
Animage: The behavior of Dessler changed after Farewell.
Nishizaki: And when Dessler looked back as an individual, he noticed the existence of Starsha. “I might possibly have liked that person.” The planning for The New Voyage was made in consideration of that premise for Dessler.
Animage: According to what I’ve heard, Dessler seems to be your favorite character.
Nishizaki: No, rather than liking him, that character is easy to empathize with. I think he and I are alike in many ways as individuals. Sometimes his lines and actions will come out automatically. (Laughs) Therefore, since Eiichi Yamamoto and Leiji Matsumoto did not participate [in later productions], it became something that I made as a hobby. (Laughs) It’s the “Yamato: Dessler Edition,” so to speak.
For example, imagine Zordar saying to Dessler “I will give you a fleet.” An ordinary scriptwriter would simply write “thank you” as a response. But I would write that line as, “You have my highest gratitude.” It would be really affected. (Laughs) I come up with lines like that effortlessly.
Animage: It is said that the German Empire was the model for the Gamilas Empire in the first work. Then, was Hitler the model for Dessler?
Nishizaki: The Gamilas were certainly based on the Germans, but Dessler is far more refined and charming than Hitler. Like Okita, he’s a character who could never be duplicated. Though he’s a man who’s easy to misunderstand, if you think about it from your gut, he has a bushido [warrior’s way]. I can sympathize very much. His image from the first work as a dictator has certainly changed, because we can’t sympathize with someone who threw planet bombs at Earth. (Laughs)
If I’m not mistaken, when the character designs were done for the first work, Toyoo Ashida did the model. Therefore, I surely seemed like a dictator at the time. Like me, Dessler doesn’t shout, he says things more calmly. (Laughs) So during the recordings, I was the only one who could stand in for [Dessler’s voice actor] Masato Ibu.
Yuki Mori
“The person who was my first love.
Her image is projected onto Yuki.”
Animage: What I’d like to ask in closing is, will Kodai and Yuki finally be married in The Final Chapter?
Nishizaki: As I said at the beginning, loving someone else is also part of the struggle. I’d like to depict the image of two people who leave Yamato and combine their power to live on into the future. However, there isn’t a scene of them specifically doing this. One of the lines Okita leaves them with is, “You haven’t made a child yet, so you haven’t played the role of a full-fledged human being.”
Animage: In your view, has there been a change in the image of Yuki Mori over the last ten years?
Nishizaki: Well, that’s a tough one. As for the character called Yuki Mori, for me she is expressed through Kodai as the hero. We follow the life of Kodai, and he has the image of complete trust in women.
Animage: About what time did Yuki begin to love Kodai?
Nishizaki: I think around the end of the first TV series and at the beginning of Farewell. When Yamato said goodbye to the solar system in Episode 10 of the first series, Kodai had no one to say goodbye to. Yuki was quickly attracted to Kodai from there. I guess it was a woman’s mothering instinct. In Episode 24 that love was expressed clearly. Then in Episode 25 or 26, Kodai says, “You told me ‘I love you,’ why didn’t I say it too?” and he cries. Alternatively, at the end of Farewell, Kodai tells her, “I’m sorry for making you lonely for so long. At last, it’s just we two.” The content is the same in both instances. I allowed the image of Yuki Mori to emerge through Kodai’s words.
Animage: Is Yuki your own personal image of women?
Nishizaki: I think this origin of this feeling is something like sadness rather than a dream. Because my first love as a teenager ended without bearing fruit, the woman called Yuki Mori comes out of my state of mind at that time. Therefore, her lines come out comparatively smoothly. If my first love had worked out, I wouldn’t have gone that way after all, and the work called Yamato might not have been created.
Looking back 27 years later at my experience as an 18-year old, I have the feeling of really good memories. That’s what lead me to make Yamato. In fact, through Yamato, I was able to meet the woman of my first love again.
Animage: At a movie theater, by accident…
Nishizaki: No. We met at a meeting for a TV program. She was just as she had been in the good old days. Her son and daughter were junior high students. It seems they went with their mother to see Farewell and bought a program book, and she was surprised to see my picture in it.
In the program book for the first movie, the character for “Peace” is written by hand under my photo. In fact, it is from her name, Kazuko. [Translator’s note: the first of the two kanji characters that form the name “Kazuko” can be translated as “Peace” or “Harmony.” That single character appears prominently on the first page of this interview.]
When I graduated from high school, I said I wanted her to marry her. But the gruff response (from her father) was, “I’m not giving my daughter to a common beggar.”
I decided to study literature. I took her to Shakujii Park and we talked for about two hours. I don’t remember this, but according to her, she said to me, “You’re sure to become famous, so come back and see me then.” Well, quite a story, isn’t it?
So lines like, “Why didn’t I say I love you too” and, “I’m sorry for making you lonely for so long” resulted from such sad feelings.
Animage: That line also…
Nishizaki: I wrote it myself. To tell the truth, until the day of the recording, it was left blank.
The End
Note: this was the second time Nishizaki had spoken of his first love, Kazuko. The first was in a 1978 issue of the Yamato Fan Club Magazine, seen here.
Return to the Final Yamato Time Machine
