An interview with the Directors
What kind of story will be spun by the characters who have passed through the previous work Yamato 2205?
We asked about the theme of the film, as well as other information you would want to know before watching it. Reading this will surely help you enjoy the film even more, so be sure to check it out before watching!
Interview/Photo by Shinzo Inoue
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Harutoshi Fukui (L) and Naomichi Yamato (R)
Even if you know the previous works, the plot will be unpredictable
Interviewer: Announced at the end of the previous film, Yamato 2205, Be Forever Yamato REBEL 3199 is finally coming to theaters. First of all, please tell us how you feel.
General Director Harutoshi Fukui: I’m truly sorry for making everyone wait. Since the previous film ended the way it did, we wanted to release it around a year after that. But it’s been more than two years, so first of all, I would like to apologize for making everyone wait so long.
Director Naomichi Yamato: Personally, I felt that no matter how much time we had to build up the team, including the new staff, it would not have been enough. I also feel sorry for making you wait, but I think we’ve finally made it to a state where we can show it to everyone.
Interviewer: Mr. Yamato, you are now the director of the remake series starting with this work. Could you tell us about the background to that?
Yamato: I was in charge of directing several episodes in the previous work. After a series of twists and turns, I was contacted by Mr. Fukui, and since I like Space Battleship Yamato and SF works, I accepted the job as director. Now I’m working hard to get Mr. Fukui’s approval somehow.
Interviewer: So it all started with a request from Mr. Fukui.
Fukui: His name is unforgettable, but he also did a great job as a director in the previous work, so I thought, “I’ll definitely remember his name.” So when I thought about who should be in charge of the next one, he was the first to come to mind.
Interviewer: From here, I’d like to delve into the story. In the previous work, Ryusuke Domon and his friends brought a fresh wind. With that in mind, how will the story unfold this time?
Fukui: It’s been over 40 years since the original New Voyage and Be Forever were made, but although the enemies that appear are the same, the tones of the works are completely different, and the atmosphere is so different that it feels like the previous work never existed. So this time, we’ve taken into account the story of the characters that have appeared so far, and constructed it like a historical drama. The atmosphere has changed considerably, and I think it has an even more solid impression than the previous work.
Yamato: Compared to the original, the story is built up from a grounded perspective, so I feel that the things each character is carrying are more concrete.
Fukui: The first chapter is fairly close to the original, but I think this series will follow a completely different flow. There are many changes, and the story will move in a direction no one can predict, so I think it will be enjoyable for both those who know the original work and those who don’t.
Interviewer: On the other hand, are there any parts that you’ve kept unchanged?
Fukui: Yamato is a space romance in which a ship shaped like a battleship travels through space, so we wanted to properly preserve that sense of scale. We’ve tried to recreate as many memorable scenes and shots as possible from the original. There are some situations that have a different meaning, but we’re working hard on those aspects as well.
Animation is a medium that can do things on a scale that’s almost impossible to achieve in live action, and Yamato and Gundam are at the forefront of that. For that reason, we need to focus on the space battles and spectacle that can only be seen in Yamato.
Yamato: I sometimes get instructions from Mr. Fukui for a shot, like “Follow the original here” or “Use the same expression as the original here with today’s technology.” That’s why I think the work is based on the impressions of the fans from the original. However, the original was made by the top creators at the time, so it’s actually not easy to reproduce.
Interviewer: There are scenes that you specified to follow the original.
Fukui: If we don’t do that at the very least, it would be like the alibi of a “remake” is gone. I definitely want to pick up the memorable parts that fans from back then have in common.
The relationship between Susumu Kodai and Yuki Mori is “more like family than love”
Interviewer: Please tell us about the new characters who will appear in this work. Seiya Kitano is a one who doesn’t appear in the original.
Yamato: Right now he’s a mysterious man, but he’ll be appearing more and more from now on. As with the previous series, Mr. Fukui’s scripts don’t portray simple characters. I hope you’ll look forward to seeing what kind of drama is built into them.
Fukui: He has scars on his face and a prosthetic arm, and that will have a big meaning later on.
Interviewer: How does Alphon, played by Makoto Furukawa, relate to Susumu Kodai and Yuki Mori?
Fukui: The other day, when I spoke with Daisuke Ono, who plays Kodai, he called Alphon a “lover.” That word says it all. He’s a male character who comes between Kodai and Yuki. They’re not the kind of people who are shaken by that, but it’s not just the relationship between the three of them that’s depicted. Political matters are also involved, and he’ll be at the center of the story.
Interviewer: By interacting with Alphon, Kodai and Yuki Mori’s relationship will also change.
Fukui: In this episode, just as Kodai is about to make a firm decision to propose, he is torn away from Yuki. In this work, Kodai and Yuki’s relationship is no longer a romantic one, but a family one. The only thing left to do was to make it a reality, but they were assigned to Earth and Saturn, so they were far apart and couldn’t settle down. But both of them have already made up their minds.
I’m sure many of the people who will watch this work have families, so rather than a romantic relationship that tears two lovers apart, I focused on what to do when a family is torn apart. There are people who lost their families during the New Year, the most joyous time of the year.
The tag line for this work, “We can’t be together anymore,” is filled with our determination to think about those people and face this theme head on. We live in an age where we have to live side by side with pain and a sense of crisis, not knowing what will happen at any time, and I think the story of Kodai and Yuki in this work will symbolize that.
Yamato: We work on the production together, so we’re pretty much of the same opinion. When the original work was made, there was something of a boom, and I think there was an element of romance. But in this work, I wanted to show other aspects as well. I think some of the fans have children and grandchildren. When depicting people, I want to show that everyone is living their own life. I don’t just skim the surface. I think if you make something that doesn’t convey a feeling of life, it won’t move your heart, so I’ve done that deliberately in this work.
Interviewer: Susumu Kodai, who is the main axis of such works, is carrying more and more with each story.
Fukui: I was in 5th grade when I first saw Be Forever Yamato. Compared to then, I feel like the weight of life has increased to about 4 or 5 tons, and I think everyone is living while carrying that much. That weight, complexity, and the tricky parts are weighing down on the work itself, and Kodai is carrying it all on his shoulders.
In particular, the current generation has to do the opposite of what they were taught 30 years ago, and they need to live by a different sensibility than what they were taught as children. Even if AI and other things advance in the future and there is less work for us to do, we’ll have to ask, “What jobs will be left for humans?”
In the past, we could get away with “stopping things we don’t understand,” but now we need to utilize them to keep things going. For example, with regards to the population of the Earth, a while ago, we were saying “it’s growing too much and it’s a problem,” but now it’s decreasing and we don’t know what to do about it. I have a feeling that we’re moving in a different direction from the future everyone imagined.
In the same way, a person named Susumu Kodai imagined that, “when I came back from Iscandar, the Earth would be rebuilt like this,” but the situation went in the opposite direction to what he thought. He couldn’t have survived otherwise, so it can’t be helped, but all the hopes and promises he had as a child were betrayed. “How do you live with that reality?” “How do you recover from the situation of suddenly losing a loved one?” I think many people can relate to these points, and they are also themes of his story going forward.
Interviewer: In terms of visuals, I think the fleet battles and battle scenes will be a highlight. Please tell us what you paid particular attention to in the production.
Yamato: In this work, the battle scenes are not just about the fleet, but also mobile armor and fighter planes like the Cosmo Tiger. Normally, if you don’t reuse the patterns you’ve used before, it puts a lot of strain on the staff, but we change the idea every time so much that it [reusing previous elements] doesn’t work.
For the first chapter, it’s Dezarium. We’ve recreated many of the famous machines that appeared in the original. For the next chapter, we’re adding new expressions one by one. I hope you’ll enjoy these aspects as well.
Fukui: To tell the truth, I’ve avoided depicting ground invasions in my previous works. In the original, that part was finished by a super animator named Yoshinori Kanada, with expressions that only he could draw. However, there’s no point in clashing head-on with that, so this time, I’ve taken a straightforward approach to the concept.
Interviewer: I think there are still many young people who know the title Space Battleship Yamato but don’t know the content. Finally, please tell us what you’d like to convey to that generation through this work.
Fukui: I don’t think there’s any other work that so strongly depicts the world we live in now and the worries we have. If you empathize with the characters and feel their actions and words as if they were your own, then you can “see yourself from outside yourself.” You can think about your own life and view it objectively from the outside. I think this is a work that allows you to experience the function that such a film should have.
The remake series has been progressing, but this time we’ve included a detailed synopsis video at the beginning. If you watch it, you’ll understand all the thoughts that have been put into the previous works. I think you’ll be surprised that such things can be expressed in anime, so I hope you’ll give it a try.
Yamato: The old Space Battleship Yamato is an important work in the history of Japanese anime, and it’s a series of works made in sync with the events of that time. In the remake series, we’ve looked at them objectively, recreated them, and carefully reassembled them one by one. I think it will be an experience that allows you to look at your own anxieties from a different perspective, and I hope it will be an opportunity to solve those daily worries together.
Production will go on, but it’s really difficult to continue producing animation in the current workplace. Your support is important to keep people on the ground, so we hope you’ll continue to follow us!