SF anime from the producer of Space Battleship Yamato!
Odin: Photon Sailor Starlight broadcasts in September
Published at Matomame, August 24. See the original article here
The space fantasy animation film Odin: Photon Sailor Starlight, released in 1985 and produced by Yoshinobu Nishizaki, producer of Space Battleship Yamato, will start broadcasting and streaming on BS10 Star Channel from September. This epic space adventure story, with a theme song by the legendary heavy metal band Loudness, is sure to catch your attention.
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the TV broadcast of Yamato this October, BS10 Star Channel is carrying out a long-term project. As part of this, it has been decided that Odin will be broadcast and streamed from September.
Odin is a space fantasy animation film released in 1985. It depicts the adventures of young people who set sail on the cutting-edge spaceship Starlight, aiming for the mysterious planet Odin, which lies beyond the galaxy. The film was directed by Toshio Masuda of Space Battleship Yamato, with animation by Yoshinori Kaneda and character design by Tomonori Kogawa, bringing together the top animators of the time. The high-quality images are appealing.
In addition, music by Hiroshi Miyagawa and Kentaro Haneda and the theme song Gotta Fight by the legendary heavy metal band Loudness, add to the worldview of this sci-fi epic. In the trailer, the theme song by Loudness plays as the star-studded voice actors such as Akira Tsukuba (Toshio Furukawa), Sarah Cianbaker (Keiko Han), Mamoru Nelson (Hideyuki Hori) and others are shown in action.
Odin will begin broadcasting on BS10 Star Channel from 18:30 on Sunday, September 8th. It will also be available on Star Channel EX from the same day. Take this opportunity to experience the magnificent world of space fantasy created by a legendary animation director. Since it was made by the producer of Yamato, expectations were very high, and from what I saw in the trailer, it will not disappoint.
The beauty of the images is very high, as it was created by the top animators of the time. In particular, the depiction of the spaceship is detailed and powerful, and it is overwhelming just to watch. The magnificent music by Hiroshi Miyagawa and Kentaro Haneda expresses the vastness of the universe, and the theme song Gotta Fight by Loudness stirs up the sense of adventure and gives power to the story.
The voice actors are also extravagant, including Toshio Furukawa, Keiko Han, and Hideyuki Hori, all of whom are talented. Their acting highlights the individuality and charm of the characters. The story is a grand adventure about the mysterious planet Odin. Judging from the trailer, it is expected to be thrilling.
This is a work that cannot be missed by both Yamato fans and by those who like SF animation. Please look forward to the start of the broadcast.
The staff of Space Battleship Yamato explains the appeal of space fantasy
What is the appeal of Photon Sailing Ship Starlight, the “third ship” that the staff took on after Space Battleship Yamato and Space Carrier Blue Noah?
by Yoichi Iwasa
Published at Comic Natalie September 19, 2024. See the original post here.
Odin: Photon Sailing Ship Starlight is a theatrical anime released in 1985, produced by Yoshinobu Nishizaki, producer of Space Battleship Yamato. It was broadcast on BS10’s Star Channel in September, and is also available on Prime Video Channel “Star Channel EX”.
In this column, Comic Natalie explains the appeal of Odin, which was created by the staff of Yamato and Space Carrier Blue Noah, released in 1979.
The year is 2099. The state-of-the-art spaceship Starlight, led by Captain Takeshi Suzuka, sets out with young trainees on board to rescue the spaceship Alford, which was destroyed in Jupiter’s asteroid belt. With guidance from the mysterious girl Sarah, whom they rescue, they discover a mysterious spaceship near Uranus. It is from the planet Odin, which is located far away in the Canopus star system in the constellation Argo. Knowing that there is something there, Akira Tsukuba and the other trainees launch the Starlight toward the planet Odin, but…
Starlight, a sailing ship that set off into space after the battleship and the carrier
The “third ship” that the staff of Yamato launched into space is Odin: Photon Sailing Ship Starlight. “Odin” in the title refers to the name of a legendary planet in space that the main mecha Starlight is heading for. It’s like the planet Iscandar in Yamato.
Unlike Yamato and Blue Noah (1979), which could be called the “second ship,” Odin was planned as a theatrical film from the beginning and was released nationwide as a summer vacation film on August 10, 1985.
The planning started under the general direction of Producer Yoshinobu Nishizaki, who has an extraordinary passion for “ocean romance.” In terms of promotional activities, he was the driving force behind the early release of information to various anime magazines and the media. The tentative title at the time of the initial release was Odin: Adventure into the Unknown 2099, and fans who read the article were a little skeptical, wondering, “It’s a sailing ship this time?”
Yamato was heavily influenced by World War II, and Blue Noah was heavily influenced by the US Seventh Fleet (postwar military), but many fans at the time felt that the war and battle elements were lacking in Odin.
In fact, Odin was the first part of a big project called the “Yamato Revival Three-Year Plan.” The catchphrase of the work, “The mystery and romance of Norse mythology! Now transcending time and space…”, symbolizes a world view based on Norse mythology. Producer Nishizaki’s intention in planning it was to reconstruct it in a sci-fi style on a cosmic scale. As a result, it gives the impression of having stronger fantasy elements than the previous two works.
Nishizaki’s first anime production, Triton of the Sea (1972, original story by Osamu Tezuka), was also a maritime romance based on Greek and Nordic mythology. If you add the worlds of Yamato and Blue Noah to that, then it’s possible to view Odin as the culmination of Nishizaki’s works.
More than Yamato and Blue Noah, this work pursues the ocean romance men dream of
The story is set in the future of 2099 and depicts the exciting adventures of the new spaceship Starlight. It is equipped with a new gravity-controlled drive system, and young cadets board the ship on its test voyage.
The second half of the story features traditional space battles, but while Yamato and Blue Noah focused on depicting the struggle between two forces, in Odin the battle is merely part of the “adventure.” It can be seen that the aim of the story was to create a modern sci-fi version of the famous novel Treasure Island (1883), an adventure in the Age of Discovery in Western Europe, in the 15th to 17th centuries.
The young protagonist, Akira Tsukuba, played by Toshio Furukawa (a famous actor who voiced the enemy Commander Zaitel of the Godom Army in Blue Noah), is a typical dropout who was removed from the crew after punching a stubborn and uncooperative instructor during a navigation test at the Space Navigation Technology University, but he boards the ship as a stowaway with the sole desire to “get on a ship.” This time, he is taken under the wing of the more flexible Captain Takeshi Suzuka (voice: Takeshi Kato) and is welcomed as a crew member.
The prologue does not have the sense of tragedy or urgency of Yamato or Blue Noah, but has the image of a marine adventure novel that predates the Showa era, a story of men of the sea. The dramaturgy that producer Nishizaki was aiming for can be clearly read. In one sense, this protagonist is a projection of Nishizaki himself, who came to anime from a different industry.
The elite staff of Yamato and Blue Noah are reunited!
Nishizaki himself had a strong attachment to the first Space Battleship Yamato TV series, and had complete trust in the staff who worked on it along with the first two films, so these elite staff members were summoned to create Odin.
Tomonori Kogawa and Shinya Takahashi were in charge of character design and key animation for Farewell to Yamato (1978). Directors Takeshi Shirato and Eiichi Yamamoto were in charge of composition and animation direction for the first series. Similarly, the master director Toshio Masuda, who is from Nikkatsu and known for the Japanese-American coproduction Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970), was appointed general director, and was an indispensable member of the Yamato series.
Other participants included Katsumi Itabashi and Masahiko Okura for mechanic design, animation directors Yoshinori Kaneda, Koichi Tsunoda, and Masayoshi Endo, chief animation director Kazuhiko Udagawa, and concept brains Aritsune Toyota, Hideaki Yamamoto, and Keisuke Fujikawa. The producer was Tomoharu Katsumata, and the music was by Hiroshi Miyagawa and Kentaro Haneda, who will be discussed below. The cream of the crop and regulars from the Yamato series were all listed in key positions.
Additionally, one of the setting brains is Satomi Mikuriya, a manga artist known for the Nora series. Mikuriya’s outstanding sensibility was mainly utilized in the visual aspects.
Following Yamato and Blue Noah, an extravagant voice acting crew boarded the Starlight
The cast is also extravagant, with the main actors drawn from Yamato and Blue Noah.
With Toshio Furukawa at the forefront, the others include Hideyuki Hori, who played Tatsuya Inoue in Blue Noah, Keiko Han, who played Sasha in Be Forever Yamato and Princess Ruda in Yamato III, Tetsuo Genda, who played Golsakov in Yamato III, Toru Furuya, who played the main character Makoto Kusaka in Blue Noah, Noriaki Wakamoto (now Norio Wakamoto), who appeared in Yamato 2, Kazuyoshi Sogabe, who played Akira Yamamoto in Yamato 2, Tsubasa Shioya, who played the main character Triton in Triton of the Sea, and others who did not appear in Yamato or Blue Noah also gathered together.
The best part is that Goro Naya, a veteran who played Captain Juzo Okita in Yamato, doubled as a character and the narrator. If Masato Ibu, who played Commander Dessler in Yamato and Chuji Shimizu in Blue Noah, had also joined the cast, it would have been a perfect lineup. But at the time Ibu had made his big break in a live action drama and was busy with his acting career, so he was unable to appear in this film.
The top composers of the series and a theme song by the legendary heavy metal band Loudness
When this film was released, the anime boom that had started with Yamato and Galaxy Express 999 (1979), and then suddenly heated up with Mobile Suit Gundam (1979) and Legendary God Giant Ideon (1980) was beginning to show signs of settling down, and from the start Odin did not generate the same kind of movement as Yamato or Blue Noah.
Even so, the fact that Loudness was chosen to sing the theme song caused a lot of buzz not only in the anime community but also in the general public. Here again, the outstanding sense of producer Nishizaki, who was particularly talented with music, was fully demonstrated.
Loudness is a legendary heavy metal/hard rock band that is still active today. Led by Akira Takasaki and Munetaka Higuchi, former members of Lazy, they made their full debut on November 25, 1981. After that, they released new songs steadily. On July 9, 1983, they went to the US and returned home in triumph after a successful US tour. This brought them into the limelight both inside and outside the music industry. Producer Nishizaki’s musical insight in choosing them to write the theme song is nothing short of admirable.
He also chose Hiroshi Miyagawa and Kentaro Haneda, the two great contributors to the musical world of the Yamato series, to write the score. Nishizaki was considerate of Yamato fans, and here too, his commitment to music was alive and well. He respected the history and know-how that had been cultivated up to that point, and returned to his origins while inheriting it. He aimed for even greater heights with Odin. Feel that spirit and enjoy the work of our great predecessors once again.