The month following the incredible box office success of Farewell to Yamato was both a victory lap and the beginning of a marathon. As new media coverage and publishing rolled out to feed a grateful public, production began on Yamato 2 and a major step was taken on the road to Star Blazers.
This was the month when all the suspense finally broke. Farewell to Yamato destroyed all previous box office records for anime films (including that of Yamato itself) with a fresh, uncompromised, top-notch production. It was a moment no one could have foreseen four years earlier.
The final month before the Farewell to Yamato premiere was a steady climb of excitement and anticipation as film production plowed through its final stages and publicity ratcheted up to maximum. Here’s what a full-blown case of Yamato Fever looked like…
As 1978 approached its midpoint, Yamato fever was heating up. The publicity campaign was just starting to ramp up, but production was running at full speed as the premiere date loomed ever closer. Here’s everything that brought us to the end of June, a period that included major announcements and the birth of anime journalism.
SF writer Haruka Takachiho is a founding member of the famous Studio Nue. In 2022, he took to Twitter to relate a previously-unknown account of his stint as negotiator for the design work of Farewell to Yamato in 1978. His opponent? Producer Yoshinobu Nishizaki. And it’s definitely a tale for the ages.
The new year brought new products, the birth of the official fan club, continued media attention, and a trickle of news about Yamato Part 2 that only vaguely hinted at the rush of preproduction activity behind the scenes. Here is an extensive record for the busy first quarter of 1978.
A collection of the classic Earth Defense Force mecha designed for Farewell to Yamato and Yamato 2 by the great Studio Nue in 1978, still some of the most respected anime mecha design to this day.
With the approach of Yamato 2202 and the explosion of new design work that will accompany it, we revisit the original designs from 1978 for comparison. This collection reviews the characters of Gatlantis, the Comet Empire.
With the approach of Yamato 2202 and the explosion of new design work that will accompany it, we revisit the original designs from 1978 for comparison. This collection reviews the mecha of Gatlantis, the Comet Empire.
The Groundwork
It took an enormous effort to make the first Yamato TV Series. It’s a classic tale of struggle and perserverence that should be told for the rest of time. Compared to that, less attention is paid to the big story that came next: how it was topped.
The Aritsune Toyota Draft
In December 1977, the writers were encouraged to roam in whatever direction their imaginations took them. Therefore, their ideas differed significantly from the finished film. Toyota was the first to crack the story, basing his concept directly on Nishizaki’s proposal.
The Keisukue Fujikawa Draft
This was the second draft of the story, which kept many of Toyota’s concepts. As the head scriptwriter for the first Yamato TV series, Fujikawa was the logical choice to take the reigns and push everything forward to the next phase.
The Toshio Masuda Draft
The ideas developed in late 1977 were turned over to Producer Toshio Masuda for further refinement. This would become the foundation for the screenplay, but the second half was somewhat different. The material presented here is extracted from that section.
Battle Plans
A scene-by-scene breakdown of battles and strategy for the action scenes. While Series 1 was considered an extrapolation of World War II, battle scenes in Farewell would be designed on the basis of modern scientific strategies and combat methods.
The Leiji Matsumoto Plot
Matsumoto wrote one more draft of the story before scriptwriting began. The draft presented here infused with his own ideas for SF concepts, strategy, character names, and battle scenes that reflected Matsumoto’s personality in interesting ways.
