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Susumu Kodai’s godfather • Leiji Matsumoto
Space Battleship Yamato is, after all, cool because of the mecha, fans say. Leiji Matsumoto was responsible for the design of the mecha and characters. This is common knowledge. However, did you know that the name of the protagonist, Susumu Kodai, was taken from Matsumoto’s work Lightspeed Esper, and that he also named “Iscandar” and “Gamilas”?
When producer Nishizaki brought the idea for Yamato to Leiji Matsumoto, he immediately envisioned the image of the rusted Yamato lying at the bottom of a dried-up seabed. Whether it was the revival of the protagonist of his own work, which had not been very popular, or the revival of Battleship Yamato, which had been buried without any chance to shine, the image of a “loser” always crossed the mind of writer Leiji Matsumoto.
His father was an airman in the army. The family fell into poverty after the war. He had seven siblings. He was poor. His grades were not good. His appearance, well, to be honest, he wasn’t exactly handsome. The only thing he was good at was drawing manga.
He decided that this was his only option and moved to Tokyo to become a manga artist. And so began his typical life of extreme poverty. The six years he spent in the boarding house “Yamakoshi-kan” in Hongo 3-chome mirrored the life of Otoko Oidon‘s character, Shota Oyama.
He even ate “Salmatake” mushrooms that had grown on his worn-out underwear, adding them to miso soup.
“Just wait and see,” “I’ll sleep today for tomorrow.”
Thanks to that, Leiji Matsumoto has now triumphed in his comeback. “It doesn’t matter if you’re ugly, just give it your all!” This spirit runs through all of Leiji Matsumoto’s works.
Yamato is my dream frontier!
A unique SF conversation
“Popular manga artist” Leiji Matsumoto VS. “High school writer” Motoko Arai
Since the smash hit of Space Battleship Yamato, a huge SF craze has swept through the movie, manga, and novel worlds. This conversation between Matsumoto, who sparked that boom, and Arai, who won a newcomer award in a SF specialty magazine, will surely take you to a world of dreams and romance!
Aliens laughed and cried!?
Arai: I’d like to start with the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which is currently making waves. I hear there’s a scene where UFOs fly around over the highway right from the beginning.
Matsumoto: Yes, Close Encounters is a real treat for people who love flying saucers! (laughs) But that movie seriously depicted the solemn communication between aliens and humans in a moody way. Toward the end, there’s a moving scene where the aliens laugh and cry.
Arai: What, the aliens laugh and cry?
Matsumoto: You might not notice it, but they smile, or rather, they laugh. And when it’s time to part, you can tell they’re crying. They have such sad eyes (emphasizing with gestures)! Osamu Tezuka said, “Did they really cry? Maybe my eyes were bad.”
Arai: Director Spielberg studied 2001: A Space Odyssey and Hitchcock’s mystery films extensively when making Close Encounters, didn’t he?
Matsumoto: That’s right. The mystery aspect is what makes it exciting. And the special effects are amazing. The UFO design is very realistic. I’m sure there were some serious airplane enthusiasts and machine maniacs on the staff who worked on it intensively. But I think it’s best to see Close Encounters only once.
Arai: What happens if you see it twice?
Matsumoto: Hmm, the first time, you’re overwhelmed by the lights and sounds, but the second time, it feels more detached, so the impact fades. And while you notice details you missed before, the magic disappears. Compared to that, the Star Wars movie coming out in summer is more like a blockbuster, but it’s a physically and mentally invigorating film. No matter how many times you watch it, it’s still fun. It’s a popcorn movie, after all.
Arai: When I think about it, I feel like the charm of chanbara is that it’s only that way the first time you see it…
Matsumoto: I think Star Wars is more playful, with lots of gimmicks that make it interesting. For example, when they speak a space language, it gets captioned, and in a scene where an alien is shot in a bar, it says “Goteso” and dies in a very dramatic way. (Laughs) Plus, the main character appears in a judo-style outfit, and there’s a sword-fighting scene in a kendo style, which gives it a Japanese-inspired feel. And it also feels like it’s filled with ideas from Japanese manga.
Arai: One is a grand drama, and the other is a space opera, so they’re completely different kinds of science-fiction, which makes it interesting to compare them.
“I’ve always been crazy about science-fiction.”
Matsumoto: Let’s leave the movie talk for now. What got you into science-fiction? Did you start with manga or novels?
Arai: Novels. My father was quite into science-fiction and mystery, and after reading Shinichi Hoshi’s works in SF Magazine, I got hooked on science-fiction, starting with the Juvenile SF Series. What influenced you, Matsumoto-sensei?
Matsumoto: Of course, there are Tezuka’s science-fiction manga, and then there are the science-fiction novels by H.G. Wells (such as The Time Machine) and Kaoru Umino (such as The Fifth Ice Age). Also, my tendency to be drawn to the South, or to want to go to the jungle, is probably due to Conan Doyle, who is known for The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. (Laughs) Movies like Forbidden Planet and King Kong were also interesting. Japanese films like The Invisible Man and the early Godzilla series were serious science-fiction, but after a few films, they turned into monster wrestling matches and became boring.
Arai: When we were kids, it was all about monster wrestling. After all, we started watching TV around the time Ultraman started. (Laughs)
Matsumoto: It’s a generational difference, or maybe just the passage of time. (Laughs)
Arai: I used to read Shonen Magazine a lot, and in your case, the image of Otoko Oidon is so strong that I was a bit surprised to hear you write science-fiction…
Matsumoto: I was originally a science-fiction fanatic. In high school, I was in the literature club. I wrote a story about a Mars expedition, but no one took me seriously, saying, “What kind of stupid thing is that?” At the time, science-fiction was called “fantasy science,” and even the slightest hint of it was dismissed as child’s play. On the other hand, there was a certain pride in thinking, “You guys don’t understand!”
Arai: That must have been difficult. For me, the world of science-fiction is so familiar that I worry that readers will know more than I do and think I’m stupid for writing about it.
Matsumoto: We’re all in the same boat. Things you thought were your own creations turn out to have existed 10 years ago. It happens all the time. Young people should just express what they want to express directly. I read your winning work, Inside Me, and I envied the free-spiritedness that only young people have.
Moto Arai profile
(3rd year student at Tokyo Metropolitan Igusa High School.) Won an honorable mention in the first New Writer’s Award for monthly SF magazine Kiso Tengai with her work Atashi no Naka no… (Inside Me). The story is a fantastic work of science-fiction in which the souls of many dead people coexist in the corpse of a young girl and cause various events to occur. One of the judges, Shinichi Hoshi, praised it as “a very well-crafted story.” She is currently writing a science-fiction story set in the world after the Third World War.
Leiji Matsumoto profile
(Manga artist) Of course, he is the creator of Space Battleship Yamato. The anime series, which aired on TV from October 1974 for 26 episodes, served as the basis for the film adaptation. Born on January 25, 1938, in Kurume City, Fukuoka Prefecture. In November 1953, his work The Adventures of a Honeybee was selected for publication in Manga Shonen (Gakuto-sha). This work was published in the February 1954 issue of the magazine, marking his debut as a manga artist. He was a first-year student at Kokura Minami High School at the time. This led him to create his first serialized work, The World of Insects. In 1957, he moved to Tokyo and lived in a boarding house. It was there that he created the masterpiece Otoko Oidon, which depicts the life of the great Shota Oyama. Currently, Captain Harlock, Emeraldas, and Galaxy Express 999 are all popular serialized works!
The kindness of Yamato
Arai: I’d like to ask you about my favorite, Space Battleship Yamato. All the characters in Yamato are very relatable and I love them, but did you have a hard time creating them?
Matsumoto: They’re the modern version of the Shinsengumi. Taking Captain Okita as a representative, the relationships between the members, their individual achievements, and their backgrounds were depicted in Shinsengumi Ketsu-furoku, which served as the foundation. That’s why it became very human and relatable.
Additionally, this is something I believe deeply, but no matter what the future holds, I think Japanese people will never be able to part with things like miso soup, pickled radish, and rice. In previous anime, it was all about looking cool, with characters wearing uniforms even when taking a bath, but I wanted something that showed the raw, human side of life, not just the surface.
Arai: Another thing I liked about Yamato was that it wasn’t just about defeating the enemy, but about “absolutely returning alive.”
Matsumoto: That’s right. I think everyone acts on the assumption that there’s a one in a hundred or one in ten thousand chance of coming back alive. If you’re going to die, you might as well commit suicide. There’s a scene where Captain Okita says, “Don’t die, come back no matter what…” That’s where the theme of Oidon comes in. We couldn’t put Oidon, aka Shota Oyama, on the Yamato, so we had Okita speak for him.
SF is the frontier of dreams!
Arai: I see. By the way, I hear that production of Yamato Part 2 is progressing steadily. Where will the story begin?
Matsumoto: The script is ready, and we’re aiming for an August 5 release. The second installment takes place a few years later. If too much time passes, the characters will get too old. (Laughs)
Arai: Also, I’m really curious about this, but in the first installment, Captain Okita died, right? What are you going to do about that?
Matsumoto: That will be addressed properly. Of course, it won’t be Captain Okita himself, but a character similar to him. We didn’t originally plan to make a sequel, so it’s too late to say, “I opposed killing him…” now, right? (Laughs) Plus, Gamilas and Dessler, who were supposed to have been destroyed in the first film, will also appear. It wouldn’t be interesting if they didn’t. Making sure there’s no sense of incongruity is the most challenging part.
Arai: Since the first film was such a big hit, the second one is bound to be popular, which makes it even more difficult.
Matsumoto: That’s right. This time, it will be released after Close Encounters and Star Wars. We didn’t want it to be similar, so we went all the way to Hawaii to seriously study those two films. Do you know that Japanese musical films all disappeared after West Side Story,? Since then, they haven’t been able to make any more. The same phenomenon could happen to science-fiction films, so we’re treating this as a crucial moment.
Arai: I’m really looking forward to it. Finally, please tell us about your dreams for science-fiction.
Matsumoto: I think science-fiction is a frontier. It’s a world where you can freely expand your own dreams and imagination. Whether you’re a manga artist or a novelist, if you can express what you’re thinking in your head directly, it would make wonderful science-fiction. But unfortunately, due to my lack of ability, when I put it on paper, it’s only about 1% of what I imagined.
Arai: Yeah, that’s right! It would be amazing if you could just project your mind onto paper.
Matsumoto: That’s why when I’m bragging, I say, “It’s amazing when I’m thinking about it in my head,” you know? (Laughs)
Arai: Thank you for sharing such an enjoyable conversation about science-fiction today.
Matsumoto: I look forward to seeing what kind of science-fiction you write in five or ten years. Let’s both do our best.