What exhibits does Hideaki Anno recommend? Newspaper clippings from that time are also hot!
Space Battleship Yamato Complete Records Exhibition is a real “complete record”
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The Space Battleship Yamato Complete Records Exhibition, planned and produced by Director Hideaki Anno as “a Yamato fan”, is being held at Seibu Shibuya! There are only XX days left until the exhibition ends…
The 26-episode series began on October 6, 1974, and the masterpiece Space Battleship Yamato has since had multiple sequels, theatrical versions, remakes, and live-action films. An exhibition event looking back on its 50-year history is being held at Seibu Shibuya in Tokyo.
The exhibits include not only the materials used for planning, numerous design drawings, original drawings, and art boards, but also 100-yen plastic models released at the time, newspaper clippings, records, and more. It is truly a maniacal exhibition that covers the culture of the 1970s centered around Yamato.
Not only can you learn about the flow of the series, including sequels and remakes, but you can also get a glimpse of how fans at the time supported the series, making it a culturally interesting experience.
The exhibition was planned and produced by Hideaki Anno. Since he himself has been a veteran fan since the time of broadcast, the exhibition content is rich enough to impress even die-hard fans. In this article, we will introduce the exhibits, which number more than 1,000 items, and share the appeal of the exhibition, as discussed by Anno at a preview held prior to the general public opening.
Exhibition hall on the 7th floor unravelling Yamato’s journey
The exhibition is mainly divided into two parts, the first half on the 7th floor and the second half on the 2nd floor.
On the 7th floor, the first anime series is the focus, and the actual design drawings, original drawings, art boards, and storyboards are displayed, unravelling the story from the origins of the project to the end of Yamato‘s journey (the final episode). On the 2nd floor, the exhibition focuses on peripheral developments such as toys and records, and traces the series’ grand history using a large timeline.
In addition, a collaboration cafe is open on the 4th floor, a special corner for related books is set up at Kinokuniya Bookstore on the 7th floor, and models are on display in the corridor on the 5th floor, so there is a lot to see.
The reason why the work has been so loved is that it depicted full-scale science-fiction earlier than Mobile Suit Gundam, and the content was so shocking that it was hard to believe it was for children. In the story, which counts down each episode with “X number of days left until the Earth is destroyed,” the crew’s desperate determination to travel through space to save the Earth was depicted, creating incredibly cathartic moments.
Its epic storytelling and unique visuals depicting the distant future represent a sense of wonder that has been lost in today’s world where realism is so important. For fans of the time, it will bring back memories, and for anime fans of today, it will bring back a sense of newness that can still be felt 50 years later.
How was this work planned, and what was the production process that led to it being delivered to fans? At the 7th floor exhibition hall, you can get a glimpse of all of this through the original materials.
The exhibition. Storyboards (yellow exhibits) are lined up among the original drawings and design drawings. Above them are famous scenes and quotes!
In another exhibition space, a large model showing the internal structure of Yamato is also on display.
A depiction of the internal mechanisms that will be familiar to Showa-era kids. This alone is enough to get you excited.
Each section of the 7th floor exhibition corner is basically structured to trace the voyage of the first anime series. The beginning starts with materials for consideration from the early planning stages.
Here is the process by which the “new anime project” became Space Battleship Yamato.
The initial designs of familiar characters. Even Harlock is there!
Main character design drawings completed after multiple planning meetings.
A corner of the exhibition area. Time flies by as you look around carefully at each piece.
Captain Okita’s all-too-famous scene.
Storyboard depicting Director Okita’s famous scene.
A depiction of the future that, looking back at it now, has a retro feel that is typical of sci-fi anime of that era. At the time, the standard view of the future was traveling by car inside a tube.
Handwritten manuscripts. Of course, the scripts were also hand-written.
Screenplay, storyboard, and dubbing script for episode 26, the final episode of the first anime series.
PHotos of the voice actors taken in the studio for the final episode of the first anime series. And the voice actors’ signatures on the original drawings.
An exhibition corner related to “sound.” You can actually listen to the sounds.
A corner explaining the circumstances surrounding manga adaptations at the time of broadcast. Of course, there is also Leiji Matsumoto’s manga!
Original artwork for the manga adaptations.
The second floor has peripheral development & merchandise
The seventh floor mainly exhibits existing production materials, but the second floor has a wide selection of peripheral developments from that time, mainly products. The newspaper clippings are particularly interesting.
Collecting clippings from TV listings is a unique fan behavior that only fans of the time would do. Yamato was broadcast at 7:30 p.m., which was known as a time slot for children at the time. The listing was probably for the Kanto region, but other TV stations also broadcast Great Mazinger and Heidi, Girl of the Alps, giving us a glimpse of the “now-lost kids slot.”
For TV lovers of that time, the TV listings in newspapers were the gateway to their dreams, and the most familiar and easiest “related products” to obtain. They would stare at the listings in the newspaper every morning, looking forward to the next episode. Then they would despair when they found out that a baseball game was being broadcast instead. That was also part of the kids’ culture of the time.
Another notable example is Bandai’s Mecha Collection, a plastic model series sold at candy stores and stationery stores. It was popular because it was a low price range of 100 yen that could be purchased with pocket money, so any kid at the time would have seen it at least once. It was unique to those days that stationery stores were places where kids could socialize and they even sold plastic models. It was a romantic spot that was different from a candy store.
Visitors are greeted by a 1/100 scale Yamato and a timeline in the exhibition space on the second floor.
1/100 scale third bridge section of Space Battleship Yamato.
A chronology of the entire series and the remakes!
Alongside the timeline are clippings from the TV listings. This is a “treasure” collection unique to kids at the time, with only the relevant information on each episode collected.
Alongside the Japanese drama Red Destiny and the overseas dramas Columbo and Banacek, there is also an article featuring Space Battleship Yamato.
In the center of the wall in the products corner is the Mecha Collection series.
“Mecha Collection” was a plastic model series from an era when there were no color-coded models and glue was used as a matter of course. It was also unique to those days that they were sold at stationery stores.
Other items on display include masks, cups and rice bowls familiar to Showa-era kids.
Analog records from that time. The larger ones are LP records, and the smaller ones are singles. LPs are what we call albums, and are larger than singles, which can only hold about two songs.
And Yamato is moving on to the “next 50 years”!
What are the highlights of the exhibition according to Hideaki Anno?
At the preview held the day before the opening, Yoko Asagami (who played the heroine Yuki Mori and is now active as a storyteller under the name Shunsui Ichiryusai), Tohokushinsha president Keiichi Kosaka, and Hideaki Anno appeared to cut the ribbon. Each of them spoke about their thoughts on the event and Space Battleship Yamato.
Kosaka said, “Thanks to the cooperation and support of many people, including Mr. Anno, we were able to hold this complete exhibition. I’m very happy. I hope that everyone who comes to the exhibition will be able to feel just how wonderful a work Space Battleship Yamato is.”
Yoko Asagami’s thoughts turned to the sky when she said, “I can only imagine how happy it would be if Leiji Matsumoto and Yoshinobu Nishizaki were here and we were able to shake hands.” She also smiled as she remembered Kei Tomiyama, Hideo Nakamura, Takeshi Aono, and Goro Naya, saying, “I’m sure Kodai-kun, Shima-kun, Sanada-san, and the captain are all watching over us.”
Anno said of Space Battleship Yamato, “For people of my generation, it was an epoch-making animation. I think it’s a work that will be talked about for centuries to come.” He expressed his gratitude to the fans who have supported the work up to now, all those involved in the exhibition, and also expressed his hopes for “future fans.”
Afterward, in a joint interview held at the same venue, anime commentator Ryusuke Hikawa also took the stage. Together with Anno, he spoke about his thoughts on the exhibition. According to them, Space Battleship Yamato was a work that shocked viewers at the time.
Up until then, all anime works had been “TV manga” and were made to be shown to children. However, Space Battleship Yamato overturned this conventional wisdom, and Anno was impressed by the fact that the spaceships, which were drawn in detail to an extent unthinkable at the time, were still in action with the same quality. It also featured a hard-hitting human drama, and was a work that made him feel that “everything was new.”
Hikawa was a second-year high school student at the time, and when he visited the Office Academy studio where the program was produced, he was very surprised to learn about the existence of design drawings. After all, at that time anime magazines had not yet been published. He never dreamed that designs existed as a guide for drawing, so his perspective on anime changed completely.
The many materials made public at this exhibition were the very reason Hikawa was so shocked at the time. And it could be said that the “world” that Anno loved is all part of this Space Battleship Yamato Complete Records Exhibition.
The names of all the people who helped by providing materials and other things are written on this wall.
The Anime and Tokusatsu Archives Centre (ATAC), which helped plan this exhibition, is an organization with the primary goal of protecting and passing on the culture of anime and tokusatsu works, with Anno as chairman and Hikawa as vice chairman.
Based on the organization’s philosophy, the Space Battleship Yamato Complete Records Exhibition protects valuable materials from the time that are easily scattered. They called on staff from the time to provide valuable materials. This has allowed them to display existing materials in their original form, and original drawings that even Director Anno had never seen in magazine features or special editions.
Anno is proud of the highlights of the exhibits:
“We put a lot of effort into all the exhibits. We didn’t cut corners anywhere. We would have liked to display more originals if possible, but many of them are large, and we had to make difficult decisions due to space constraints. We created high-precision scanned images of such materials and display them in reduced sizes. Still, we think the exhibits are more accurate than those in books or magazines.”
He also explained the historical relationship between the Mecha Collection plastic model series on display on the second floor, saying, “Plastic models sold well during the Yamato boom, so they decided to do Gundam next, which led to the later Gundam model boom.” He didn’t say which one was greater, but gave an interesting explanation of the historical context.
It’s common to see panels of design drawings and original drawings at other exhibitions, but there aren’t many where you can see original drawings from half a century ago, dubbing scripts, handwritten manuscripts and toys, and even newspaper clippings.
The exhibition is unique to Space Battleship Yamato, which remains popular even after celebrating its 50th anniversary, and shows Director Anno’s passion, which is different from that of his films, as well as the way fans supported the series at the time, and valuable cultural materials all gathered together. There is no reason to miss this opportunity.
The exhibition will run from March 15 to March 31, 2025.
There are only…X days left until the exhibition ends.
There is a variety of items for sale, including acrylic stands, soft vinyl dolls, and T-shirts.
Official event pamphlets, badges with famous quotes, and Yamato glue designed after Space Battleship Yamato!
There are also hand towels with a list of the steps to firing the Wave-Motion Gun.