When the new year began, all the strategizing for this phase of Yamato history was in full effect. While new music was being written, the story draft for Final Yamato was dusted off and returned to development. In this report, we examine the first three months of 1982.
January 10: The Anime Vol. 27
Yoshinobu Nishizaki himself came out swinging in the first article (outside the fan club magazine) that announced his plans for the coming year. Accompanied by illustrations from the latest Yamato calendar (which was offered as a prize to readers), he wistfully described his motivation for making one more movie, his hopes for what it would achieve, and his plans for future music releases.
Read the article here
A few pages away, readers could find a “Grand Prix Quiz” in which anime characters in different categories (heroes, heroines, villains, etc.) asked you questions about their respective stories. Among characters from the latest TV shows and films, Kodai, Yuki, and Dessler all put your knowledge to the test.
Read their segments here
January 10: My Anime, February issue
The Yamato III anime comic serial was still going strong in My Anime. This month’s installment covered the second half of Episode 18 and continued through 19 and 20 in 15 pages.
Read it here
January 10: Animedia, February issue
“Best 20” was the lead article this month, presenting survey results from over 38,000 readers in multiple categories. Yamato placed prominently in “best moments” and “best lines.”
Read the Yamato entries here
January: Final Yamato preproduction
The rest of the month was taken up with story development that picked up where it had left off in August 1981. Aritsune Toyota took the lead, writing a fresh set of story notes on January 16 and an overall assessment of the story on the 19th.
Read his material here
This work was done in preparation for a three-day writer’s summit. Nishizaki and his 6-member core group gathered at a hot springs resort from the 28th to the 30th to hammer out the story once and for all. No topic was off-limits, every detail was subject to debate, and numerous paths were explored in this loosely-structured conversation. They emerged with an outline that differed in a few key areas, but was essentially the story that would end up on the screen.
Complete transcripts of the entire summit were later published in the deluxe Final Yamato hardcover book. Read them here.
Anime magazines published in January
Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind manga debuts in Animage.
Gundam racks up two more covers for the third movie coming in March. Urusei Yatsura gets one more.
February 1: Choral Suite New Voyage/Brave Raideen LP
This was the second album of its kind, a choral and piano performance with Yamato music from The New Voyage arranged by Jo Hisaishi, who would go on to international fame with Studio Ghibli. Brave Raideen was a “Super Robot” anime series from 1974. Its music was arranged by composer Shoetsu Kawasaki to fill side B. Everything was performed by the Kanma Corps Chorus with accompaniment from pianist Akiko Shima.
Read the liner notes here
February: Final Yamato preproduction
In the wake of the January writer’s summit, there was an enormous amount of story information to be processed. The next step was to wrangle and streamline all the ideas into a single narrative with all the dots connected. Once refined, that narrative would become the basis for a script.
Read the notes and memos from February here
February 10: My Anime, March issue
The 12th installment in the Yamato III anime comics serial finally brought us to Planet Phantom. Episodes 21 and 22 were covered in 15 pages.
Read them here
February 10: Animedia, March issue
Leiji Matsumoto’s Queen Millennia movie was on the horizon (to open in March), earning it cover stories on both My Anime and Animedia. The Animedia article stood out for the inclusion of a Matsumoto “family tree” that depicted the interconnections of his many characters. Longtime Matsumoto fans know to take these things with a grain of salt, but since this particular chart was endorsed by Matsumoto himself, it’s worth a deeper look
See a translated version here
February 25: Fan club magazine #27
Final Yamato story progress was the hot topic for this issue, starting with an essay from Nishizaki, who confirmed that the next music release, titled Prelude to the Final Chapter, was coming in May. It was also announced that a series of fan gatherings would be held in the summer, giving club members across the country a chance to participate.
In a set of reader predictions for what would happen in Final Yamato, one contributor opined that if Captain Okita was actually revived (a concept already announced), “criticism of Yamato will increase even more, and the aversion to Yamato will continue.”
Read it all here
Also spotted in February
Star Blazers Fandom Report issue 5
A name change filled the header for this issue, which ran 6 pages and shared the latest news that was known at the time, including a description of Star Blazers merchandising in Italy.
Read it here
Starlog No. 57
It was announced in the Fandom Report that members had contributed enough money to fund a second classified ad in Starlog, and it appeared as promised. The issue also contained a 6-page listing of SF fan clubs across America, and although the Star Blazers fan club was not listed, it did include information on several chapters of the C/FO (Cartoon/Fantasy Organization), one of the first known fan clubs that championed anime from Japan.
Special thanks to Roger Proctor
February context
February 6: Combat Mecha Xabungle premieres
Yoshiyuki’s third “real robot” anime following Gundam and Ideon blasted onto TV screens with wild west overtones and one of the catchiest opening titles of all time.
Find series data at Anime News Network here
See the opening here
Anime magazines published in February
One new cover apiece for Urusei Yatsura, Godmars, and Dougram.
Two more covers for Leiji Matsumoto; his Queen Millennia movie was coming in March.
March: Final Yamato story development
The next step in the writing process was to expand the story outline into a detailed manuscript. This was not yet a screenplay, but was instead a story treatment with suggestions for dialogue and action to work out the mechanics of each sequence.
Four drafts of the manuscript were written throughout the month: the first draft on March 2, the second on March 9, the third on March 12, and the fourth on March 17. The individual drafts were never published, but the changes from one to the next were fully documented.
Read them here
March 10: The Anime Vol. 29
Gundam fever was at an all-time high as the third feature film was about to debut. Behind one of the strangest Gundam covers ever, The Anime offered a little bit of Yamato content as an antidote. It came in the form of a 5-page interview with Mecha Designer Katsumi Itabashi, who was hard at work on the next Matsumoto film, My Youth in Arcadia.
Read it here
March 10: My Anime, April issue
Gundam III got another cover on My Anime, and the antidote offered here was part 13 of the Yamato III anime comics serial, covering Episodes 23 and 24 in 12 pages.
Read it here
March 10-14: Prelude to Final Yamato recording
Musicians reported to the studio to perform what would later be known as an Image Album, a collection of music “inspired” by the anime it represented. It gave Hiroshi Miyagawa a chance to work out some theme melodies for Final Yamato, and gave his son Akira a chance to arrange scores for the orchestra to play (another step on his path to taking up the baton in later years). The album would be released on May 21.
March 30: Leiji Matsumoto’s Selected Masterpieces
Asahi Sonorama published this 282-page hardcover compendium of favorite chapters from Matsumoto’s best-known manga titles including Sexaroid, Galaxy Express, Battlefield, Gun Frontier, Otoko Oidon, and more. Yamato was represented by the spinoff tale Eternal Story of Jura (read it here). This book is highly recommended for its outstanding print quality.
March context
It was a busy month for SF anime with the TV premiere of Armored Fleet Dairugger XV on the 3rd (later to be known internationally as Voltron), and a movie battle on the 13th with two highly-anticipated features opening on the same day: Mobile Suit Gundam III Encounters in Space and Leiji Matsumoto’s Queen Millennia.
Anime magazines published in March
Gundam III dominates the month with four covers; Dougram new TV series Xabungle take the others. That’s five cover stories for Yoshiyuki Tomino productions in one month (a new record).
What’s Next
Final Yamato finally makes it to script form, the music engine starts running, and media publicity gets off the launch pad. Click here for Vintage Report 38 in which we cover the second quarter of 1982.