Vintage Report 29: September 1980

As Be Forever Yamato closed its premiere run in Japanese theaters, spinoff media became more concentrated as the first dedicated books appeared, and magazines became the first source of information for what was coming next: a third TV series! Here’s what September 1980 had to offer fans who couldn’t get enough.

September 1: Terebi Land magazine, October issue

Since Terebi Land was published on the first of the month, this was the first post-Be Forever issue. The response was a spectacular 5-page article titled Yamato vs. Dark Nebula Empire, Big Battle!

The urge to use the big “exploding Yamato” scene must have been irresistible now that it was no longer a spoiler.

The article offered a strategic overview of where our heroes had to go in order to target the core of Dezarium. For whatever reason, the scene with the Wave-Motion Gun firing was lifted from Yamato 2.

September 1: Animec Vol. 13

Animec took a brief look back at summer fan events for a few pages, zeroing in on the June 29 lottery for tickets to the Adventure Roman cruise.

Read their man-on-the-street account here

September 1: Movie Series Space Battleship Yamato Big Collection

This 36-page full-color magazine from Asahi Sonorama was published to commemorate Be Forever, but gave equal time to the first two Yamato movies as well. It contained an archive of promotional material and a brief history of events and merchandising. Several pages were devoted to the promotion of Be Forever with unique photographs of such events as the sea cruise and Budokan concert.

The back cover (above right) promoted Sonorama’s new Complete Works novel series, which was about to add two Be Forever volumes.

September 1: Be Forever Yamato novelization, Monkey Library edition

Shueisha had already released the first Be Forever novelization in August (a single volume in their Cobalt Library series), and on this day they released the second. This was a longer version by a different author (Kiyoshi Miura) written for younger readers. Volume 1 came out September 1 and Volume 2 followed on September 10. Both ran 160 pages each and included stills and illustrations.

September 1: Movie review, University of Tokyo Weekly

Reviews for Be Forever could be found at multiple sources, even a university newspaper. In the September 1 edition, a Yamato fan credited as “Yui” offered her impressions, but couldn’t quite get past the disconnect with Farewell to Yamato.

Read her review here

September 1: Starlog Vol. 24, October issue

It would stand to reason that the Japanese edition of Starlog ought to have plenty of anime coverage. In fact, this was NOT the case since the magazine was devoted first and foremost to live-action and literary SF. So it wasn’t until issue 24 that, slowly and grudgingly, the editors had to finally acknowledge that the phenomenon was worthy of their attention. As you will see, they went into it with an obvious bias, certain that this flash would leave the pan in due time. The advantage of hindsight makes fretful accounts like this great fun to read decades later.

Read the complete 8-page article here

September 1: Kappa [Gem] magazine, October issue

Kobunsha’s digest magazine Gem had a column titled Exploring Popular People, which gave them an excuse to chase down and interview the rich and famous. Their subject in this issue was Yamato‘s Exec Producer Yoshinobu Nishizaki, who talked about Be Forever and took various side treks into the lifestyle choices afforded by wealth from a successful anime franchise.

Read the interview here

September 6: Weekly TV Programs Vol. 7, issue 37

From the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it category comes this weekly TV-Guide style magazine covering broadcasts from September 13-19 with a cover story on new fall anime shows. Right there on page 5 was the first known announcement for what was coming next. The headline read Susumu Kodai becomes the captain, Yamato launches for the third time.

In other words, Yamato III was on the way, to premiere October 11.

September 6: Manga Shonen, October issue

Published by Asahi Sonorama, Manga Shonen covered the Yamato phenom throughout 1977 and 1978 (as seen in previous Vintage Reports). There was no Yamato article in this issue, but there was a full page ad for the Complete Works novels (Be Forever to be added in two weeks) and the first announcement for Office Academy’s forthcoming “Final Deluxe” Be Forever hardcover book (due out in November).

September 10: Animage Vol. 28

Animage came out swinging with a 6-page article on Yamato III headed by a new interview with Yoshinobu Nishizaki. He laid out the huge scope of the new series and announced for the first time anywhere that he intended to make one more movie after this series. The news of Dessler’s return, new characters, messages from two key staff members, and the premise of the story all made for an exciting read.

Read the article in the Yamato III Time Machine here

September 10: The Anime Vol. 11

The Anime didn’t have quite as much to offer with their first Yamato III article, but the balance of power was destined to shift. They described the premise of the series in a two-page spread as seen in the Yamato III Time Machine here.

September 10: Be Forever Yamato Music Collection Part 2

It was released as the second Be Forever symphonic album, but it scored a first in that it included music as heard in the film rather than rearranged for an album. When the movie went into its ‘Warp Dimension’ changeover, the picture size widened and the soundtrack shifted from monaural sound to 4-channel stereo.

It was the first time in Yamato history (and perhaps anime history) that cinematic sound quality measured up to what could be heard on an LP, so it gave the sound team a rare opportunity to place a symphonic arrangement directly into the film rather than mixing it down to mono. You might even say it was the beginning of modern anime cinema.

September 10: Be Forever Yamato / New Voyage 4-track EP

Since The New Voyage and Be Forever were essentially a single body of work (unofficially referred to as “Yamato Part 3″) it was a natural to pack four of its songs onto a single release.

Yamato!! The New Voyage and Sasha My Love came from the first story, Pendant of Stars and Face in the Stars from the second.

September 15: Kinejun No. 794

As a followup to articles in issue 791, Kinejun closed out its Be Forever coverage with the rest of the screenplay spread across eight pages. This went from the “Warp Dimension” arrival in the White Galaxy to the end of the movie. In other words, the entire widescreen/stereo portion.

September 18: Yamato III voice recording begins

Recording for Episode 1 was done about three weeks before the broadcast. The session began at 6pm with Goro Naya (the original Captain Okita) as narrator along with seven members of the regular cast. New to the group were Hideyuki Tanaka as Domon, Toshio Furakawa as Ageha, Kaneto Shiozawa as Bando, and Makoto Terada as General Dagon.

Guest actors were Yasuro Tanaka as Professor Simon, Kunihiko Kitagawa as the Earth president and academy headmaster, Yoshito Miyamura as the academy instructor, Koji Yada as Dr. Kuroda, and Keiko Miyazaki as Domon’s mother. In all, 17 people participated.

Read more about the process here

Read magazine coverage of the first recording here and here

September 20: Be Forever Yamato Roadshow special

Roadshow magazine’s special for Be Forever upheld the high standards of earlier editions. It contained a bonus poster (shown at right), a section of double-page highlight scenes, a character guide, background paintings, the complete screenplay, staff interviews, model sheets, song lyrics, and a full-color retrospective on the previous movies.

September 20: Be Forever Yamato Complete Works novels

Released on September 20 and 25 respectively, volumes 8 and 9 of Asahi Sonorama’s Complete Works series adapted Be Forever with Yoshinobu Nishizaki indicated as the author. As before, they were probably ghostwritten by someone else since Nishizaki never even pretended to have the skills of a novelist. They ran 192 and 190 pages with color stills.

September 21: Roadshow, November issue

This issue of Shuesha’s monthly movie magazine had a grab-bag of Yamato content, starting with a 5-page color feature on “The huge boom that Yamato caused.” This was followed by the next announcement for Yamato III and capsule reviews of Be Forever.

See all the content here

September 25: Be Forever Yamato Precise Illustrated Edition

Sonorama published two of these unique sets (the other was for Farewell to Yamato) with fold-out blueprints of the movie’s major spacecraft and other mecha. Each sheet was bound on one side and opened to 18″ x 13.5″ when cut free of the spine. They featured isometric views of their subjects with occasional cutaways and technical notes. Single sheets were also dedicated to Gamilas warships and the Comet Empire Dreadnought.

September 25: Anime Poster Big Compendium

This is as good an example as any of the popularity of anime by the year 1980. Champion Graphic, an imprint of Akita Shoten, put together this substantial full-color collection of poster art from various anime productions dating back to the 60s. Leiji Matsumoto’s works opened the book with Yamato movie and promotional posters getting 10 pages of coverage.

See the Yamato pages here

September 25: TV special introduces Yamato III

Yomiuri TV got offers from seven stations to broadcast Yamato III, and on September 25 (19 days before the broadcast debut) their Thursday Special featured a program called Space Battleship Yamato: All the Love and Adventure. It presented scenes from the past and teasers for Yamato III. To date, this program has yet to resurface.

September 27: OUT magazine, November issue

OUT was still remembered as the magazine that helped Yamato come back to life in 1977, but by 1980 the original devotees had moved on and the only attention OUT ever gave to Yamato III was squeezed into the two pages shown above.

September 27: Be Forever Yamato Setting Data Collection

Also known as “SF Fantastic Animation Materials” due to the English on the cover, this was part of a short-lived series published by Shonen Pictorial Company. Living up to the English name, it devoted 234 pages to extensive features. Regrettably, Be Forever was the only Yamato film to receive this treatment (the only other known volumes were devoted to Galaxy Express 999 and My Youth in Arcadia).

It contained a full-color photostory, character profiles, Yamato‘s interior, the complete screenplay, model sheets, an event report for the summer of 1980, the complete script of the Be Forever radio drama, the complete movie storyboard (including deleted scenes), and a voice actor roundtable.

Read the voice actor round table here


Hiroshi Miyagawa and family, 1981. Akira Miyagawa is standing
behind him; Akira got his first composing credits on
Yamato III
in an unintentional warmup for future projects.

September 29: Yamato III music recording begins

The initial plan for Yamato‘s third TV series was the most ambitious yet; a luxurious 52-episode mission across the entire galaxy in four major story arcs with many new characters to enliven the experience. Naturally, a lot of music would have to be written to emphasize the newness and its sheer volume meant the composing needed to start even before Hiroshi Miyagawa could catch his breath after the fast-paced summer of Be Forever.

Read more about the making of the music here

From the Yamato III Sound Almanac liner notes by Tomohiro Yoshida:

In an unusual situation, the recording had to be split into three sessions. The first was done just 12 days before the broadcast launch (!) on September 29, the second happened in late October, and the third in late November. Music from the second session was heard starting in Episode 6 and music from the third session was heard starting in Episode 10. To compensate for shortages in the beginning, tracks from previous works filled the gap, both used and unused.

Read more here

September 30: Be Forever Yamato Anime Cel Collection

Repeating the format of their successful Cel Collection books for Farewell to Yamato, Shonen Pictorial Co. produced this set of 12 pseudo-cels for Be Forever which were combined with a guide to the film’s story.


Also spotted in September

TV Rumors, fall issue

Featured a two-page promo for Yamato III

SF Animation & Suspense Super Library LP

As in previous years, numerous genre-anthology records featured Yamato songs and covers of Yamato songs. Not many have been shown in the 1980 timeline yet because very few have specific release dates on them (so watch the year-end report for a big pileup).

This release is an exception, a 2-disc set with selections from east and west. Among such fare as Star Wars, Superman, Alien, Battlestar Galactica, Logan’s Run, and Jaws was one full side of anime tunes. Two of these eight tracks were the Yamato prelude and Yamato!! The New Voyage. Since this was a Columbia release, they didn’t have to be covered by anyone else.

Find out more about this album here

Anime magazines published in September

Animec No. 13 (Rapport), Animage Vol. 28 (Tokuma Shoten), The Anime Vol. 11 (Kindaieiga-sha), OUT (Minori Shobo)

What’s Next

At the close of September, the next Yamato adventure was less than two weeks from launch. It would be the most ambitious journey yet, scheduled to last an entire year, and some very big players were on board. Tune in to Vintage Report 30 for the beginning of Yamato III!


Newly-discovered backlog

June 9, 1978: Middle 2nd Year Course, July issue

Two months before the release of Farewell to Yamato, Gakken’s student digest for eighth graders did their best to spoil the movie with a 6-page article that described the story, bracketed by a message from the producer and a list of production trivia.

See the article here

August 1, 1978: Eiga Fan, September issue

Right before the premiere of Farewell to Yamato, Atago Shobo’s monthly movie magazine ran a 4-page pictorial to highlight the mecha, which included a somewhat accurate callout of the “City Empire.”

See the article here

December 1, 1978: Mimi magazine, January issue

The January 1979 issue of Kodansha’s manga magazine Mimi contained a unique six-page exploration of the Yamato 2 production office at Academy Studio, filled with insider details and step-by-step instructions for how anime is made.

See the article here

February 3, 1979: 3rd Grader magazine, March issue

With Yamato 2 heading toward its climactic fleet battle, Shogakukan’s student digest for third graders published a 4-page article to remind everyone what Yamato brings to a fight.

See the article here

December 9, 1979: Middle 3rd Age, January 1980 issue

Marking the approximate halfway point between The New Voyage and Be Forever, Obunsha’s student digest for 9th graders promoted the forthcoming TV broadcast of the first two movies on Fuji Television. Space Battleship Yamato would be seen on January 2 followed by Farewell‘s broadcast debut on January 3.


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