“Yamato Final” is finally starting!
The long-awaited Yamato is back. As a New Year’s present, we asked Producer Nishizaki to tell us a glimpse of it.
Exclusive New Year’s interview with Producer Yoshinobu Nishizaki
I started thinking about a finale for Yamato when I was making Be Forever Yamato. That’s because in my mind, I had the idea that Be Forever was not the final work.
If you look at Yamato as a whole, Be Forever is simply the fourth part. In other words, it wasn’t made as a story that could be the “conclusion” of Yamato‘s 10-year journey. Even when we reflect on what Yamato has meant to us, it doesn’t provide an answer. Some people think that Farewell to Yamato meant that Yamato came to an end, but when I think about what Yamato has meant to its fans since 1974, I believe it’s not over yet. This was my first motivation for making a finale.
Secondly, I was a little dissatisfied with the way theaters have handled Yamato. The pros and cons of a theater are the seats, the sound system, and the size of the screen, but I want to show the finale of Yamato in a theater with a certain scale and the right conditions. In fact, I requested a 70mm theater for Be Forever. Producers are very greedy, and it’s not just about making money. When you present a work, you want to show it in a theater with the best conditions possible.
That’s another reason why I want to make a final work for Yamato. I think each Yamato work was a pioneer. That’s why I want Final to be a quality work in a quality theater.
Regardless of whether a theater is full or not, since this work has been supported for so long, it makes sense to show the final installment in a large theater. However, it is commonly believed that anime cannot support a big screen. That’s why we’ve had to do it in 35mm Vista.
Yamato has what is known as “Yamato sound,” but it is actually monaural. It is about overlapping monaural sounds, that is, aiming for a stereo effect. For Be Forever, we used a 4-channel method, and halfway through we expanded the screen to Cinescope size. When I saw the finished product, I concluded that it was sufficient as a drama. Regardless of whether the audience wanted it or not, I’ve always wanted to let Yamato and the characters run wild on the big screen.
That idea has certainly remained a source of stress for me. That’s why, even when I was making Be Forever, I didn’t think it would be the final work. The final film will be a culmination of everything seen so far, and I want to make it a 70mm film in terms of scale.
I actually started planning the final film around August of last year. The framework of my thinking was, “Let’s make this the true finale.”
The first film was in 1974, and the final film is taking two years to produce, so you can think of it as the 10th anniversary of Yamato. Just as 007 went back to its roots, I want to make a film that looks back at what Yamato meant to us.
The ultimate main theme is love, but that’s true of any movie. Yamato has been particularly vocal about that. Those fundamental things haven’t changed. However, what I want to depict in the final film is children surpassing their parents. In a broad sense, it’s about the new generation surpassing the old generation. I want to emphasize that.
Also, in the previous Yamato works, I often used the phrase “temporary peace,” but this time I want to set a permanent peace. In other words, even if the battleship Yamato is no longer there, the next generation who inherited its spirit will be able to maintain peace. That is the kind of story I want to create. In the story, I want Yamato to disappear forever from everyone’s sight. I want to conclude it with Yamato‘s role in the drama coming to an end.
If Yamato has a personality, I want the work to end with the words “Don’t wake me up again.” I also want to leave an impression that peace can be maintained even without Yamato. Furthermore, I want this work to be a romance between a man and a ship. The universe is the sea, and Yamato is the ship. And on the ship, the captain is the leader, and everyone cooperates to fight for peace. This was the theme of the first work.
However, I feel we may have gone too far with the action and romantic subplots after that, and that is something I reflect on. This time, I want to create a romance between a man and a ship, based on the premise that the universe is an ocean. Ultimately, the appeal of Yamato lies in its action-drama elements and the fact that the protagonist overcomes hardships to achieve his goal. That aspect was missing in Be Forever.
Yamato is a man’s ship, and I think that depicting the romance of a man and a ship will produce a wonderful work.
When I think about it, the 10 years of Yamato is also a turning point for me. I was 38 when I planned the first film, and it will be exactly 10 years when we release the final film. Maybe I was watching the story of my own youth in Yamato. However, I have no intention of becoming a children’s author, and I feel that I cannot create any more Yamato-style works. While I was working on Yamato, I received offers to work in TV, but it takes at least a year to create Yamato, so I couldn’t take on any other work.
After making Yamato, I felt a desire to do work in a different genre. Speaking of personal reasons, I honestly feel that I have to end it here for my future. For me, anime was a method. The final work of Yamato is an attempt to conclude the 10 years of that. I am a producer who has depicted my way of life, so I have depicted things that are important to me, not only in anime but also in feature films.
Of course, that is also the case with Yamato. In that sense, I will focus on making the finale of Yamato and not start any other work until I finish it. After that, I would like to challenge the next genre. It is very emotional for me to make the final work exactly 10 years after the first work. After all, Yamato was the story of my youth for me.
The staff for the final Yamato work has already been decided. New music is already in progress, and six LPs are planned to be released.
The first will be a grand symphony with 68 performers, and I hope to create a powerful impact by linking the music and narration. The second release will be a background piece with about 34 members in the style of Diana Ross. Then, the first collection of Yamato theme music will be released in September this year. The second collection will be released in December.
After that, a soundtrack will be released, and in March, to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Yamato, I plan to create and release a complete classical symphony. I would like the Leningrad Symphony Orchestra to perform it.
[Translator’s note: things stuck pretty close to this plan. The first LP was Prelude to Final Yamato and the “second release” was the trilogy of “Rhapsody albums” focused on piano, violin, and guitar. The “Diana Ross” reference is still a puzzler. The “complete classical symphony” turned into the Yamato Grand Symphony, performed in 1984 by the NHK Symphony Orchestra rather than going to Russia.]
When it comes to music, the essence of Yamato is basically Tchaikovsky. I think you will understand when you hear it, but Tchaikovsky’s music is truly wonderful. The symphonic suite for Yamato has been released, and the original source of that music is Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. I think Miyagawa-san, who is in charge of the music for Yamato, was also influenced by Tchaikovsky. For that reason, I think it would be best to have Leningrad perform it.
I want everyone to enjoy this new Yamato to the fullest as a true entertainment piece. To achieve that, it needs to be a work with a large-scale screen and a grand entertainment experience. I also think it’s essential for the music to resonate powerfully. In any case, I want to unveil a large-scale story on a big screen. I think that’s something only anime can do. There are various genres in anime, so it’s hard to generalize, but I believe that dreams, fantasy, and large scale are things that can only be expressed through anime.
With the final Yamato film, I want to bring back the fun of anime. That’s what I think entertainment is. It is said that there are few Japanese producers who understand entertainment, but I don’t think that’s true. I hope to prove that with the final Yamato film.
This is something I’ve reflected on before, but Yamato has become too much of a human drama. It forced me to reflect on what to do about that. My vision for the next Yamato is to make it a grand action spectacle. In a nutshell, it’s about returning to the roots of Yamato. Of course, we will continue to convey themes of love for humanity and love for others, but we also want to incorporate the excitement of an action drama throughout the story. That’s what I’m aiming for. It’s for that reason that we’ll try various things with music, and the same goes for making it in 70mm.
After continuing Yamato for 10 years, many things happened. There were people like Yoshikuni Kishimoto, who steadily continued his work and had his ideas recognized, leading to the creation of Gundam and Ideon, only to pass away suddenly. It’s a very sad story, and at the same time, I think it’s a loss for the entire anime world. It’s a shock for me personally, and I want to mourn his death from the bottom of my heart. We lost a great person. I still feel very sad.
[Translator’s note: Kishimoto was one of the seven founding members of Nippon Sunrise, and its first president. He died in 1981 due to stress from overwork (no surprise). He is invoked here because Sunrise Studio was a subcontractor on the first Yamato TV series.]
The art director for the first Yamato film passed away just before the production of Farewell to Yamato in 1978. I will never forget this.
It’s been 10 years, but a lot has happened in that time. When I think about it, I feel like Yamato was a history of its own. That’s why I want the final Yamato film to be a good one.
What exactly is a theatrical anime? I have been thinking about this, but lately it seems like there are only works with similar themes. It seems like not only anime, but the entire Japanese film industry is in a slump. But I think there are good films out there. If you make a good film, it’s sure to be a hit. That’s my basic philosophy. I think we need to show real anime to kids who should be watching it now. Kids are waiting for interesting anime.
It may seem presumptuous, but I think each of the Yamato series was a pioneer in anime. I’m proud of this, and I don’t think there has been a work that surpasses Yamato in terms of visual and sound effects. From that perspective, I would like the final Yamato work to be a culmination of all the Yamato works so far. Not only in terms of the theme, but also in terms of the scale of the screen, the sound, the action, and everything else, I want it to be a conclusion to all the previous works.
Finally, regarding the release schedule, the original plan was to release it this summer [1982], but there were various issues, and after discussing it, we decided to release it next year. The current release schedule is set to be at the end of next year or during the spring break of the year after next. In any case, we have plenty of time with the two-year production period, so we would like to take advantage of that to make it 70mm.
[Translator’s note: this would later be revised down (probably for budgetary reasons) to a 35mm release in March 1983, which was upscaled to 70mm for a revival later in the year.]
It’s been exactly 10 years since the first movie, and this time it’s the final one. I’m doing my best to meet the expectations of the fans, so please look forward to it.