For a two-month period that didn’t actually see a large amount of activity, this was a huge moment for Yamato fans. July in particular delivered a big one-two punch with both of the feature films returning to theaters and The New Voyage premiering on TV. It was no accident that these things reinforced each other, making this the third straight summer of Yamato fever.

July 1: Roadshow, August issue

There was no specific Yamato article this time, but its presence was still felt in a rare 4-person round table discussion with some very prominent voice actors: Kei Tomiyama (Kodai), Yoko Asagami (Yuki), Isao Sasaki (singer/actor), and Masako Ikeda (Maetel from Galaxy Express 999). Since Roadshow was first and foremost a movie magazine, they talked a lot about movies; both watching them and dubbing them.

Read the interview here

July 3: Bouken Oh [Adventure King], August issue

The August 1978 Bouken Oh was memorable for a counter-intuitive reason: it was the first month Leiji Matsumoto had to SKIP a chapter of the Yamato 2 manga serial. The same would be true of the September issue. Why? Because he was busy making his first Galaxy Express feature film.

On the other hand, this was the second issue of Bouken Oh to promote The New Voyage with an interior foldout. The text reads as follows:

Broadcast scheduled for July 31st!!

What about Yamato? Where’s Kodai? Where is Yuki? And Dessler? Yamato is coming back in response to the longing of 4 million fans across the country! On July 31, Fuji TV will air the program on 24 stations nationwide!

July 9: Middle 1st Age, August issue

Since July was the last month for magazines to promote The New Voyage, Office Academy did its best to plant a story in as many as possible. This is why they almost all presented the same images, since the content came from a single source. Obunsha’s student digest for 7th graders was the first of many with a 6-page color feature. It also included the final names of the Dark Nebula officers, which had been in flux until now.

See all the pages here

July 10: Animage #14, August issue

Animage‘s last New Voyage article ran three pages with a fresh story synopsis and an interview with Animation Director Kenzo Koizumi, who talked mainly about how the character depictions had evolved for the film.

Read it here

It should not escape notice that the cover feature for this issue was closely related to Yamato; in just four more days, the Yamato Festival would open in theaters, accompanied by an hour-long compilation of Yoshinobu Nishizaki’s beloved 1972 TV series Triton of the Sea.

July 11: Middle 3rd Age, August issue

Obunsha’s student digest for 9th graders didn’t publish a New Voyage article, but it did include an odd blurb on the “Hot Line” page. Time has set this rumor to rights, but make of it what you will…

Space Battleship Yamato could possibly make it to a 6th work!

On July 31, The New Voyage will air as a two-hour feature. There is one more tidbit of information saying that Yamato will be aired on TV up to part 6. When we contacted Office Academy, they neither confirmed nor denied it. They said, “Who said that…?”

At any rate, Producer Nishizaki has mentioned that Part 3 will be made next year, and there seems to be a possibility that Part 6 will be made as well. Looks like the Yamato whirlwind is still going strong!

July 13: Yamato special on All Night Nippon

All Night Nippon became the radio home of Yamato in December 1977 when the first 4-hour dramatization was broadcast live. It was an adaptation of the Iscandar story with Kodai recording the voyage in his personal logbook, and it also gave fans their first exposure to Symphonic Suite Yamato, which was heard in the soundtrack.

Another Yamato special on this day gave them the rare chance to hear it again. Read all about it (and listen to it for yourself!) here.

July 14: Yamato Festival premieres

If you were one of the few who still hadn’t jumped onto the bandwagon, the “1979 Big Summer Roadshow” gave you a new opportunity. Starting today, participating theaters offered both Space Battleship Yamato and Farewell to Yamato in their first-ever double feature for three weeks. Depending on where you saw them, you could also watch the Triton of the Sea compilation.

It marked the first time the TV edition of Space Battleship Yamato would be seen on the big screen. As you may recall, the ’77 version had alternate footage of a hologram Starsha on Iscandar. When it was re-edited for its first TV broadcast in August ’78, the “live Starsha” storyline was re-established. It then became the standard edition for all subsequent releases.

See a collection of Yamato Festival promo materials here

July 14: Yamato Festival program book

Office Academy created a new 36-page program book for the double feature, this time in landscape format. It featured stills and art from both films, messages from staff and cast, and a new essay by Yoshinobu Nishizaki.

See this program book from cover to cover (and read the essay) here

July 14: Weekly TV Programs magazine

With just over two weeks to go, the weekly TV Guide-style magazines that covered the week of New Voyage‘s premiere appeared on newsstands everywhere.

July 15: Leiji Matsumoto World of SF

The day after the Yamato Festival began, an extended exhibition opened at the Holiday Square Sports Center in Tokyo. Centered on Leiji Matsumoto’s works, it was timed to promote both Yamato and the forthcoming Galaxy Express 999 movie. Displays from previous attractions were bolstered with film screenings and materials from other shows including Captain Harlock, Starzinger, and Danguard Ace. All that remains of it now are leftover flyers.

July 15: Koro Koro Comic, August issue

This marked Yamato‘s first known crossover with Koro Koro, the monthly manga magazine that was the launching pad for the inescapable Doraemon. The first thing readers saw when they opened the cover was an 8-page Yamato article that covered The New Voyage and took a brief look back at the stories that came before.

See the article here

July 21: The Best One, September issue

The third issue of this bimonthly entertainment magazine from Gakken included Yamato content in its Anime Channel section. As the name implies, this feature devoted its attention to anime on TV and in theaters. Three pages were devoted to The New Voyage with one more looking back at the finale of Yamato 2.

See them all here

July 25: Voice Actor & Animation Encyclopedia

By 1979, voice actors were becoming as popular as the characters they played, and this 274-page book from Tokyo Sansei Co. spent most of its pages profiling 106 of them with questionnaires and dossiers. About a quarter of the book was devoted to a study of anime production, including discussions with prominent industry personnel such as Yoshinobu Nishizaki. The New Voyage received a 4-page preview, and a Nishizaki discussion on the role of an anime producer occupied another four.

See all the pages and read the discussion here

July 27: OUT, September issue

New Voyage coverage this month was similar to the previous issue with two color pages up front (shown below) and a single black and white page (above right) in the back. This single page included a short interview with Director Takeshi Shirato.

Read it here (bottom of the page)

TEXT ON RIGHT SIDE:

The second color introduction of the telefeature version of Yamato is the mecha of the enemy Dark Nebula Empire. The super battleship Goruba is especially a must-see! Its bizarre form is ominous. Uh…is it the curse of Zordar?

July 30: Farewell to Yamato manga reissued

Akira Hio’s 3-volume adaptation came back into print all at once on this day with slightly revised cover art, but the insides were just as impressive. Read more about this manga here.

July 30: The New Voyage radio special on ANN

The night before the TV debut of The New Voyage, Exec Producer Yoshinobu Nishizaki repeated a tried-and-true method of film promotion when he hosted a 4-hour radio special on All Night Nippon to talk all about the film. It differed from the previous shows in that it was not, strictly speaking, a radio drama. Instead, Nishizaki played the finished audio mix with breaks for talk show content. He did NOT give away the entire story, ending it with the dramatic scene of Dessler demanding that Kodai fire the Wave-Motion Gun through him to destroy the enemy. Talk about a cliffhanger! Fortunately, fans had to wait less than 24 hours for the resolution.

Want to hear it for yourself? Settle in and enjoy it RIGHT NOW!

July 31: The New Voyage premiere

Typical of Yamato‘s track record, The New Voyage blazed a new path for anime with the tele-feature format (which would also be used to launch Blue Noah) and was aired on the Fuji TV network, which created a stir all by itself. Fuji was a much bigger entity than Yomiuri, the network that had run both of the TV series. This was proven in 1978 when Fuji won the bid for broadcast rights to the first Yamato movie, a victory that put them first in line for this new offering. (Read the eye-popping story of Fuji’s bid here.)

This brought a major ratings battle to Japanese television, which Yamato handily won over professional baseball and even the Moscow Olympics. Indeed, The New Voyage achieved a commanding share of 31% in its premiere, which beat even Yamato 2‘s highest rating on Yomiuri (27.7% for the final episode) and opened up other networks for anime programming.

The movie was advertised in mainstream newspapers published on or just before July 31, which also announced a quiz competition. The first to write in and correctly identify the name of the enemy commander that Yamato fought would win an original cel. Thus, participants had to watch the show to get the answer.

Years later, The New Voyage would become a pivotal entry point for fans outside Japan who had seen Star Blazers and were ready to transition into the world of Yamato.

Read a full account of the making of the film here.

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