The enormous momentum that built up in July burst wide open on the first two days of August with the hotly-anticipated premiere of Be Forever Yamato. Familiar patterns reappeared as fans emerged to make themselves part of the spectacle and merch poured out to welcome them. Here’s the full rundown of this amazing month.
Promotional pin from Victor Music shown at right
August 1: Galaxy Legend single
Galaxy Legend, featuring some of Yu Aku’s best-loved lyrics, was used as a postlude to Be Forever, played in theaters after the end credit roll and preserved on subsequent home video releases. It was sung by newcomer Hiromi Iwasaki, who also performed Life of Love for the B-side. Overheard while Kodai contemplates the loss of Yuki, its feminine viewpoint was undoubtedly well-received by Yamato‘s majority contingent of female fans. It was the second of two songs written by Yoko Yamaguchi, who had this to say about the experience:
Over and over, I think Yamato embodies the magic of “first love” which people have always dreamed about. While writing this song, I was irritated with the fact that love could not be expressed in words. Fortunately, Ms. Iwasaki is a capable singer despite her youth who could capture and express the feeling between the lines, and it was an unexpected pleasure for her to sing my words.
Read the lyrics for both songs in English here
Galaxy Legend was the most-recorded song from Be Forever, covered by both Akira Fuse for King Records and Mitsuko Horie for Nippon Columbia. The original was revived in 2024 as the end title for REBEL 3199 Chapter 1
August 1: Tokyo Sports article
The same day the single was released, Tokyo Sports newspaper took a look at all the new songs that had been recorded for Be Forever, teasing a rivalry between the performers and examining how each of them was brought on board.
Read the article here
August 1: The vigil
The night before the release of Be Forever Yamato, eager fans surrounded theaters all over Tokyo. At 8PM, around 500 gathered at the Toei Palace theater in the Marunouchi Ward. At 9PM, another 500 were at the Tokyu theater in the Ikebukuro Ward. The first person to sign the guest book had been in line for a solid week.
At 9:30, an estimated 600 were at the Toei Palace theater in Shinjuku. First in line was a group of four who had arrived two days earlier, at 7AM. By 10PM, a record 1,000 people had lined up at the Tokyu Rex theater in Shibuya.
The desire to be among the first to see the movie was the main draw, but what brought out the true believers was the cel giveaway; certain theaters had prepackaged cels from both The New Voyage and Be Forever as rewards for the first people in line (exact numbers are unknown). These were presumably handed out as moviegoers entered the theater the next morning.
As in previous years, newspapers were quick to jump on the story; read a collection of articles from August 1-3 here.
Fans talked with fondness of the many hours spent with their fellow fans in the overnight lines. For those who had taken the time to visit bookstores that day, there was a wealth of new reading material to buy and pass around, as seen below…
August 1: Complete Works novels
For starters, the first seven volumes in this new series of novelizations from Asahi Sonorama arrived all at once. Volumes 1-3 were a reprint of the 1977 hardcover trilogy that listed Yoshinobu Nishizaki as the writer (though it was likely ghostwritten by someone else). The format this time was 192 pages per volume with color stills.
Volumes 4-7 presented the first-ever novelization of Yamato 2 and a reprint of the 1979 edition of Asahi Sonorama’s The New Voyage. Here too, Nishizaki was the author of record and all books contained color stills.
August 1: Kinejun issue no. 791
Kinejun (a contraction of Kinema Junpo, which roughly means Biweekly Cinema) is a long-running magazine specializing in live-action film that started all the way back in the 1950s and continues to this day. Farewell to Yamato was the first anime film to get a cover story, and lightning struck again two years later with Be Forever.
Opening with 7 pages of stills, the magazine contained three articles that investigated the thoughts of key staff members to a degree found nowhere else. Scriptwriter Keisuke Fujikawa wrote a personal essay that took an unabashed look at both the positive and negative aspects of Yamato production. Directors Tomoharu Katsumata and Toshio Masuda provided separate interviews that explored their careers and reflected on the emergence of live-action sensibilities in the world of anime.
The screenplay for Be Forever was also presented, up to the point where Yamato pierces the Dark Nebula. The rest was published three issues later so as not to spoil the ending.
See the pages and read the text here:
Essay by Scriptwriter Keisuke Fujikawa
Interview with Chief Director Tomoharu Katsumata
Interview with Director Toshio Masuda
August 1: Weekly Bunshun, August 7 issue
Bunshun is a contraction of Bungei Shunju, which translates as “Literary Spring and Autumn.” The “summer deluxe” issue of this literary and culture magazine (which is still published today) brought us some unique content indeed – a four-page photo feature on the “Adventure Roman” sea cruise that took place July 20-22. Since the magazine’s primary readership is adults, the brief writeup took a distinctly parental outlook.
Read the article here
August 1: Weekly Sankei, August 7 issue
This weekly gossip magazine chased down two Yamato celebrities in the same issue: singer Akira Fuse and Exec Producer Yoshinobu Nishizaki. The Nishizaki interview was unique and personal, conducted by lyricist Yoko Yamaguchi, who had known him for 20 years at that point and wrote two of the songs for Be Forever.
Read both articles here
August 1: Terebi Kun, September issue
Shogakukan’s monthly TV-based manga magazine did their part to support Yamato in the early years, and were still there to carry the torch in 1980. The September issue had yet another Be Forever article to whet the appetite.
August 1: Terebi Land, September issue
This manga magazine from Tokuma Shoten had been a Yamato ally from the earliest days of series 1. They proved their allegiance again with a Be Forever “film book” as a bonus item in this issue, a long and thin landscape-format booklet with all the highlights.
August 1: The New Voyage rebroadcast
“Go TV Party” was the headline on this ad from Fuji Television, placed in the July 19 edition of the Mainichi Shimbun [newspaper]. It promoted the biggest movies to be aired over the next month, and sharp-eyed viewers zeroed right in on The New Voyage (lower left). On the night before the premiere of Be Forever, it would be broadcast again for the first time since it debuted in July 1979. This was, perhaps, one good reason NOT to spend the night lined up at a theater.
Saturday, August 2: Premiere day
At sunrise, Be Forever Yamato went from “Coming Soon” to “Now Playing.” At last, the waiting was over. Everyone could see for themselves the highlights promoted in this newspaper ad and find out what “Warp Dimension” was supposed to be.
“Yamato-Go [Tokyu Railway] Hasshin!”
To get the day started, Leiji Matsumoto served as the executive conductor on the Toyoko line of the Tokyu train system. This train was renamed “Yamato-Go” for that morning only, running between Yokohama and Kikuna, and from Tokyo station to Shibuya station.
The “crew” consisted of 600 Yamato fans (elementary and middle school age) who had won a lottery held in front of Shibuya Tokyu Hall on July 28th. High school age and above were not eligible.
As the silver-colored Tokyu 8000 series stainless steel train “Yamato-Go” departed Kikuna Station, Conductor Matsumoto introduced the film and hosted a Yamato quiz over the intercom.
Fifty minutes later, the train arrived at Shibuya Station, welcomed by a brass band. Next stop (by foot) was the Tokyu Pantheon theater.
If your timing and train knowledge were sufficient, you had a chance for another star sighting if you managed to get yourself over to another Tokyo theater, the Toei Palace in Marunouchi.
At 9:50AM, Toei President Shigeru Okada, Producer Yoshinobu Nishizaki, and Director Toshio Masuda could be seen out front, mingling with fans before the doors opened. It represented double duty for Toshio Masuda, since his epic movie Hill 203 (about the Russo-Japanese war) opened the same day as Be Forever.
After the fans disappeared into the theater, the men made their way to Toei headquarters for an opening day press conference. The content of that meeting hasn’t been widely reported, but we know exactly what was happening inside theaters at the time.
The movie kept fans riveted for over two hours, and the Warp Dimension effect was finally revealed when the story arrived at a pivotal moment and the picture expanded to a full widescreen aspect ratio. At the same time, the sound went from monaural to 4-channel stereo and blew every mind in the room.
Movie program book
The 32-page Be Forever program was as slick as they came in 1980. It was originally sold at movie theaters starting on the premiere day. Eight theaters in Tokyo, Kawasaki, and Yokohama had first edition pamphlets with the name of each theater printed on the cover.
See the program book from cover to cover here
Read the text here:
Producer’s message, comment, mission map
Picture pages
Mecha powerup, production notes
Staff messages
“Yamato Corner” merch banner, displayed in stores
Merchandising
The movie’s premiere opened the floodgates for the next big wave of Yamato merch, the first round of which was sold at theaters. Soon, you could find it in stores that sold anime goods. Most of the products this time were manufactured by Office Academy, sold through the official fan club and elsewhere. Other items were licensed by companies such as Amada and Popy.
See all the Academy products here
See everything else here
August 2: Bouken Oh [Adventure King] September issue
One more item you could pick up on premiere day, perhaps on your way home from the theater with a starry look in your eye, was the latest issue of Bouken Oh. There was no Yamato manga inside, but you could find a “Susumu & Yuki” postcard just inside the cover…
…and, as promised in the previous issue, a Yamato sun visor and poster calendar as bonus items. It’s doubtful any of them still survive today, but the radar is always on.
August 3: Festival in Budokan broadcast
How do you properly end a weekend with a Yamato movie premiere? How about with the first and only TV broadcast of the Festival in Budokan concert, which took place just ten days earlier? It appeared on the locally-based Tokyo 12 channel, which was a large supporter of anime programming.
What this means in legacy terms is that, at least at one point in history, the Festival in Budokan existed on film and/or video tape. The only commercial release has been audio-only, but the road goes ever on and on.
August 5: Weekly Playboy No. 33
What’s more surprising here, a mention of Yamato in Playboy, or the fact that this was not the first mention of Yamato in Playboy? It seems someone got themselves on board the Voyage of Adventure Roman and brought some of that “Roman” back to shore.
We took a picture of “Yuki Mori” in a swimsuit on the Yamato in the Pacific Ocean!!
A journey on the Space Battleship Yamato Adventure Roman from Kawasaki Port in Kanagawa to Hyuga Port in Miyazaki; the two-day ferry trip was a promotional campaign for the third film, Be Forever Yamato, which was released on August 2nd. The one we attacked at sea was Yoko Asagami, who voiced hero Susumu Kodai’s girlfriend, Yuki Mori. The swimsuit is on special display!
August 9: Novel Junior, September issue
After the warmup in the previous issue, Shueisha presented a “junior novelization” of the movie in this one, adapted by author Ken Wakasaki (watch for that name farther down the page). It is notable less for its content than its length; a generous 32 pages illustrated with stills that went all the way to the finish line.
See the pages here
August 9: Middle First Age, September issue
Obunsha’s student digest for 7th graders didn’t carry a Be Forever article this month, instead devoting two pages to a prize drawing for new products made by Office Academy. Five winners would get a sports bag, and ten would get each of the other prizes being offered.
August 9: Middle 2nd Year Course, September issue
Meanwhile, Gakken’s student digest for 8th graders offered a foldout calendar that started the day after publishing and went up to the date for the next issue.
August 10: Animage Vol. 27, September issue
Animage‘s first post-premiere issue lead with an 8-page article on Be Forever that could finally go all-out with info that had been kept under wraps during the buildup. This was presented through previously unpublished stills, five brief staff essays that went into the technical points of the movie, and a short account of the voice recording. There was also an exclusive account of a “secret” scene that wasn’t in the script, but got made anyway.
See the pages here
Read the text here
August 10: The Anime Vol. 10, September issue
The Anime took its final pass at Be Forever with a splashy 11-page article that reviewed the whole story, provided another view of the voice recording, and reported on one of the earlier summer events. The next issues of both Animage and The Anime would feature inaugural articles about the new TV series, Space Battleship Yamato III.
See the pages here
Read the text here
Advertising in the monthly anime magazines added other dimensions to the ongoing story. A store called Yoyogi Animation promoted its backstock of Yamato products from previous years while Columbia Records announced the next round of LPs: Be Forever Music Collection Part 2 and a 2-disc Drama Collection were both on the way.
August 10: Sunday Mainichi, August 17 issue
A brief interview in this weekly news and gossip magazine added some new dimensions to the backstory of Yoshinobu Nishizaki that really needed more than two pages of exploration. But we’ll take what we can get.
Read the interview here
August 15: Be Forever Yamato novelization
The first of three Be Forever novelizations, all written by different authors, was a 252-page paperback in Shueisha’s Cobalt Library series. It was the fourth Yamato “Cobalt novel,” each of which was written by author Ken Wakasaki and included four color pages. This was what positioned Wakasaki to write the “junior novel” for (ahem) Novel Junior.
August 20: International attention
Space Battleship Yamato now had an international audience thanks to Star Blazers being on the air in English-speaking countries, and as it turns out it also had the attention of entertainment media. On the left is a flyer from Westchester Films making use of Variety news clippings that touted Yamato‘s success from 1977 through this day in 1980. (The flyer was obviously released sometime afterward.)
At right is something even more unexpected, a page out of Movie/TV Marketing magazine, an English-language trade journal for the international market. The exact publication date is unknown, but the article covers both the pre-release campaign and opening weekend for Be Forever.
Get a better look at both pages here
August 20: OUT, October issue
There was only glancing coverage in this one; a mini-report on the Festival in Budokan and a short, tepid review of Be Forever. But it’s all part of the record, so click here to read it.
August 21: Roadshow, October issue
There was no big, colorful spread for Be Forever this month, which was an odd choice since the magazine did contain a full-page ad for a Be Forever Roadshow special that would be published in a month.
August 21: Screen, October issue
Screen followed suit with a full-page ad for their own Be Forever special, which would arrive in early October. But they scored over Roadshow with four pages presenting an “Encore Preview” for the film. (Talk about an oxymoron…)
Headline: A fierce battle between Yamato and the Dark Nebula Empire, the enemy of humanity, unfolds in the universe!
Headline: Kodai and his friends hope that the peace they have regained on Earth will last forever, but…
Text in yellow box: Popular singers Akira Fuse, Hiromi Iwasaki, and Isao Sasaki sing insert songs and the film features new innovations in the projection method, so this third work has even more to offer than the previous two. Yamato said its eternal farewell in the previous film, but has reappeared in response to the passionate requests of its fans. What will happen to the Yamato series after this? Will it continue with the fourth and fifth films? The cheers of the fans will surely create new dreams.
August 25: Fan club magazine, #18
This was the last issue of the Fan Club Magazine to cover Be Forever, offering Yoshinobu Nishizaki’s personal thoughts on the premiere, the editorial staff’s man-on-the-street report of the night before, a summary of the major summer events, and a story synopsis with new stills. Starting with the next issue, the magazine would follow the lead of the production office and go full steam ahead with Yamato III.
See the magazine from cover to cover here
Read the text here:
Message from Yoshinobu Nishizaki
Man-on-the-street report
Summer events
Trivia alert: this was the final issue of the fan club magazine to carry the name Office Academy Ltd. as its publisher. Why? It’s complicated. Watch the next few reports for the answers.
August 27: Sound Anatomy column Vol. 65
The month began with music and ended with music commentary. Hiroshi Miyagawa wrote a weekly column for the Asahi Shimbun newspaper that drew on his long career experience and occasionally offered unique insights on creating Yamato music. This week he covered Akira Fuse’s song for Be Forever, contrasting it with the tragic theme song for Toshio Masuda’s war film, Hill 203.
Read the column here
Also spotted in August
Earth Defense Force Fleet, Susumu Kodai patrol ship model kit
The first two Bandai model kits specifically made for Be Forever appeared in August. Thirteen models were prototyped, but only four made it to market. The first was Kodai’s patrol ship.
Earth Defense Force Fleet, Large Unmanned Battleship model kit
The second was the larger of the two unmanned battleships. For reasons that have never been clarified, none of the kits specific to Be Forever were reissued in later years. There are many possible explanations, but none have as yet graduated from the rumor mill.
Yamato model kit reissue
An official scale was never applied to this one, but it’s the first Yamato kit that wasn’t “kiddified” with a windup motor; it was issued in gold-painted plastic in 1977 and reissued as the “Panel Model” in 1978. This was the same product with new decals for Be Forever.
1/700 Yamato model kit
First issued as the “Mechanic Model” in 1978, this simplified version eliminated all the internal parts and was sold for a lower price. A “New Mechanic Model” with the interior would be released in three months.
New Image Model
This was the third edition of what started out as the “Deform Display Model” in 1977 then became the “Image Model” in 1978; a forced-perspective style that looked great from the intended angle. Very odd from other angles.
New Cosmic Model
The first “Cosmic Model” was the largest made so far, a 1/500 scale monster that stretched to 20.5 inches long and came with a reissue of the 1978 Analyzer model. This version added the Be Forever decals and a new sticker for the base.
Contemporary Bandai ads
Headline at left: Today I passed the crossroads of youth.
Headline at right: When I looked at my heart in the mirror, I saw Yamato.
“Mystery magazine” pages
What you see in these Vintage Reports is often the result of years of research and scavenging. In some cases, scrapbooks donated by Japanese collectors contain pages extracted from magazines. Some led to discovery of their sources. This one is an exception; the pages in this article have no identifying marks or graphics. All we have to go on is the term “Summer Movie Special” at the head of a gorgeous 12-page spread.
One of these days, the specific source may emerge from history. Until then, see the pages here
August context
Very few in the anime industry would test their mettle against a new Yamato movie in its premiere month. One of those few was Leiji Matsumoto. He did it not once, but twice in a single week.
The Legend of Marine Snow was a 90-minute TV special that premiered on August 12, an underwater adventure with all the Matsumotoisms you could ask for. Not to mention familiar voice actors; Yoko Asagami (Yuki), Masato Ibu (Dessler), and Ichiro Nagai (Tokugawa & Dr. Sado) all had prominent roles. Read more about it here.
Great Tale of the Foundational 4½ Tatami Room, released on August 16, was a live-action feature film based on a Leiji Matsumoto manga that was autobiographical in nature. It focused on a young man in the big city, unprepared for the challenges (and people) life throws at him. Matsumoto was interviewed about the film in Kinejun No. 792. Read that interview here.
Anime magazines published in August
Due to the loss of Monthly Animation, the bimonthly schedule of Animec, and the quarterly schedule of Fanroad, pickings were slim this month. The contenders were Animage (Tokuma Shoten), The Anime (Kindaieigasha), and OUT (Minori Shobo).
What’s next
Office Academy’s busiest year isn’t even close to being over with. Even as Be Forever merch pours out in a flood, the world learns of the next voyage almost as soon as it’s about to begin when the first Yamato III announcements ripple outward. Watch events unfold when Vintage Report 29 takes us through the turning point month of September 1980!
But before we go…
Newly-discovered backlog
Spring 1980: Fanfare magazine No. 3
Published quarterly by William W. Spicer, this self-described “magazine of popular culture and the arts” was one of the first to grab the eyeballs of future anime fans with a striking image of Captain Harlock on the cover. This fronted for an expansive, 11-page article by Fred Patten titled TV Animation in Japan, which served as a valuable on-ramp for those who had seen Star Blazers and begun to wonder what else Japan had to offer.
Yamato is discussed, along with many other classic titles, and though some of the information was incomplete, it stands as a remarkable monument from the very beginning of the “anime invasion.”
Read a complete PDF of the article here
May 9: Middle 1st Year Course, June issue
Gakken’s student digest for 7th graders performed a valuable service as Be Forever approached from over the horizon, reviewing Yamato‘s previous battles to provide context for the next one.
See their 5-page article here
May 9: Middle 3rd Age, June issue
Obunsha’s student digest for 9th graders devoted half a page to the forthcoming movie (in the magazine’s “Multi Information” section) with the following text:
Yamato is back in theaters August 2!
Sasha, who has feelings for Susumu Kodai, makes an appearance!
Yamato is back with a whole new charm. The main character is, of course, Susumu Kodai. The story begins about a year after the battle against the Dark Nebula Empire at Iscandar. A huge missile launched by someone falls to the Earth, and a large fleet of mysterious ships approaches from outside the solar system…
Sasha, the daughter of Mamoru Kodai and Starsha, also makes an appearance as a beautiful girl. Also, Yamato has been remodeled, doubling the fun and power of the film.
June 10: Course Newspaper
In addition to its various student digest magazines, Gakken also made inroads into schools with a monthly newspaper that cost 30 yen and delivered news you could use. The edition dated June 10 led with a story synopsis and stills from Be Forever. (And ads for other Gakken publications such as Shonen Challenge and The Best One.)