For a limited time, you can purchase three amazing Space Battleship Yamato books created by fans for fans. Like this website, they are unauthorized and unofficial, but contain a treasure trove of information that can be found nowhere else.
Full disclosure: these are fan publications. Buying them will not support the Space Battleship Yamato Production Committee.
The curator is Mr. Toshinori Watanabe, a first-generation Yamato fan living in Japan who was personally acquainted with Executive Producer Yoshinobu Nishizaki and was granted access to his personal archive of Yamato artifacts. Like the fans who published the first doujinshis with materials obtained from the production studio, Mr. Watanabe carefully curated this vast archive into a museum on paper. The result was a pair of encyclopedias titled Hero’s Trajectory.
Hero’s Trajectory: Be Forever Yamato
Yamato Land Resource Collection
August 2016
8” x 11.5” Full color, 108 pages
Hero’s Trajectory: Final Yamato
Yamato Land Resource Collection
December 2018
8” x 11.5” Full color, 96 pages
Each book is packed to the limit with images and documents related to its respective film; pre-production materials, cels, poster images, advertising, event photos, contemporary media coverage, the works. All text is in Japanese, but spot translations will be provided in a future Cosmo DNA support article.
Supplies are limited.
Sample pages from the Be Forever volume
Sample pages from the Final Yamato volume
Proud of Yamato Visual Book
Office Legacy
Hardcover, May 2012
12” x 8.5”
Full color, 112 pages
Mr. Watanabe also contributed to this earlier book, which must be seen to be believed. It contains high-quality, full-page reproductions of animation art (in landscape format) from across the entire saga. This includes production art seen on screen and special pieces created for books and posters. All of it was curated directly from Yoshinobu Nishizaki’s personal collection. No other source contains this material at this size or quality.
Unlike Hero’s Trajectory, this was a fully-authorized publication sold through the Yamato Crew website in 2013. Text is in Japanese, French and English.
Supplies are limited.
Sample pages from Proud of Yamato
Ordering information
Because of the limited nature of these books, they are not available in stores. They can only be ordered directly from the source via Cat Hands Agent, a handler for buying and shipping Japanese goods. Tim Eldred, the editor of Cosmo DNA, has been using his services since 2006 and assisted in brokering this exclusive arrangement.
Prices are as follows, including shipping and handling. (Exchange rates as of April 14, 2019; rates can vary.)
Hero’s Trajectory, Be Forever Yamato
5735 yen ($52.99)
Hero’s Trajectory, Final Yamato
5235 yen ($48.37)
Hero’s Trajectory, both volumes
9935 yen ($91.79)
Proud of Yamato
6835 yen ($63.15)
All three books
15500 yen ($143.21)
To order, send an email enquiry to order@cathandsagent.com with the subject line “Yamato book request.” You will receive a reply with instructions. Payment is accepted through Paypal.
From left: Tim Eldred, Anton Kholodov, Toshinori Watanabe