Kazutaka Miyatake is a man of few words, but his pen speaks volumes. As the primary mecha designer of Series 1 and Farewell to Yamato, his work has dazzled us and set an industry standard for over 40 years. He reveals much in this interview with Showa 40 Man magazine, including the design genesis of the Comet Empire itself.
In the month of January, Yamato 2202 writer Harutoshi Fukui took the lead in media interviews. Here we bring you interviews from two separate magazines that each brought something unique to the discussion. [2 pages]
From Ship’s Log #16. In Yamato 2202, Daisuke Ono and Houko Kuwashima appear as Susumu Kodai and Yuki Mori. We asked them about their enthusiasm for the new series. Hopes and fears…we bring you the passionate message of these two people who faced the recording with various feelings.
From Great Mechanics G, Winter 2016 issue. This quarterly magazine consistently delivered the most in-depth and knowledgeable 2199 coverage, and they picked right up where they left off in this extended conversation with Yamato 2202 writer Harutoshi Fukui.
Direct from issue 15 of Ship’s Log, the Yamato Crew Premium fan club magazine, we bring you a fresh interview with the phenomenally-talented illustrator Makoto Kobayashi. It touches on his previous involvement with the saga leading up to a description of his duties on Yamato 2202 and a hint of things to come.
From Ship’s Log #14: Nobuyoshi Habara’s first interview in his capacity as the supervising director of Yamato 2202, in which he discusses his work on Resurrection and 2199, his time as a fan watching Yamato on TV, and his intentions for the new series.
In issue #14 of the fan club magazine Ship’s Log, Producer Furukawa and Exec Producer Nishizaki talk about something you rarely hear in anime production: the process of rounding up primary staff members. In this interview, they welcome aboard Character Designer Nobuteru Yuuki and Composer Akira Miyagawa.
From Yamato Crew Premium fan club magazine Ship’s Log #13, published March 28, 2016. Head writer Harutoshi Fukui delivers his first interview for the series, marked by a passionate and unusually insightful analysis of its source material, Farewell to Yamato.
From Yamato Crew Premium fan club magazine Ship’s Log #13, published March 28, 2016. The third in a series of interviews with Producers Shoji Nishizaki and Hirotaka Furukawa on the new production Space Battleship Yamato 2202 and other projects in development.
From fan club magazine Ship’s Log #12: “Last time, our Producer Speaks Special Report was a great sensation, and this time we delve into the “second series” to the limit of confidential information. Everything said here is an official statement and this report is true.”
Continuing our observance of the fifth anniversary of the live-action Space Battleship Yamato movie’s premiere, here are two interviews that were not translated at the time of publication. They are both conversations with Director Takashi Yamazaki and the lead actor Takuya [Kimtak] Kimura.
As of this writing, five years have passed since the milestone release of the live-action Space Battleship Yamato movie, and there is still plenty of coverage to be translated. This article, from the November 2010 Kinejun magazine, featured dual interviews with the director and producer.
Akira Hio is the record-holder for drawing Yamato manga, but interviews with him were practically nonexistent until another manga artist, Keiichi Tanaka, published this extensive conversation that covers Hio’s long and storied career working alongside some of the best mangaka history has to offer. [2 pages]
From fan club magazine Ship’s Log, July 2015. When the curtain closed on Yamato 2199 in May 2015, it was the first time since 2009 that fans had no new production to look forward to. That uncertainty was broken two months later with this interview, containing the official announcement of the next big thing!
From Dengeki Hobby Web: this interview with 2199 Mecha Director Masanori Nishii was published to mark the arrival of Yamato 2199 Hyper Mechanical Detail Artworks, the ultimate mecha art book on the series. He discusses the demands of creating Yamato mecha AND prepping it for the printed page.
From Hobby Japan, July 2015: Yamato 2199’s Chief Mechanical Designer talks about the use of CG in the anime and many of the decisions behind the on-screen action in the movie, including the creation of the Gatlantis ships rendered in CG for the first time.
On March 2, 2015, the Imperial Japanese Navy Battleship Musashi, a twin to Yamato, was found at the bottom of the Philippine Sibuyan Sea by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. Naturally, someone in the media wondered what Leiji Matsumoto thinks about that…
From Otona Anime magazine, February 2015. In this interview, Producer Mikio Gunji encapsulates Yamato 2199 history with observations about its progression in the media from the premiere in 2012 to the making of Ark of the Stars in 2014.
During the final countdown to the premiere of Ark of the Stars, Director Yutaka Izubuchi finally broke several months of silence with his first interview of 2014. Here he explains when and how the idea of the film was first proposed and what steps were taken to lay its foundations. (From Yamato 2199 Pia)
From the Voyage to Remember movie program book: Director Takeo Kato and Writer Shigeru Morita discuss the nitty-gritty of how they struggled to cut Yamato 2199 down to a single feature film without losing the essence of the story – a task neither fully appreciated until they became responsible for it.
Koichi Yamadera is unique among Yamato voice actors, having played the top two characters at different times: Kodai and Dessler. This makes him an interesting guy to talk to, and resulted in these three publicity interviews for A Voyage to Remember, all published on October 10, 2014.
Great Mechanics DX #30 maintained its groundbreaking reputation by becoming the first magazine to feature in-depth coverage of the 2199 movies. Writer Shigeru Morita and Producer Mikio Gunji were both interviewed about the creation of a new chapter in Yamato history.
Model Graphix #352 contained a major cover story on Yamato 2199 that included an extensive 4-page interview with Yutaka Izubuchi, his first since the conclusion of 2199. Here, he shares his perspective at the end of one road and the beginning of the next.
When Yamato 2199 was released on home video in Japan, each of the seven volumes came with 12-page, full color introductory booklets covering the episodes found on that disc. Each booklet ended with a brief essay by a heavy hitter from the production crew, both old and new. Those seven essays are presented here.
In this insightful interview from Great Mechanics DX #27, Yamato 2199‘s Chief Mechanical Director Masanori Nishii talks about the herculean effort of producing the second half of the series; building on trial and error, facing new challenges, and grappling with the climactic battles the brought the series to an end.
Hyperweapon is a semi-annual magazine that showcases the work of designer/director/modeler/manga artist Makoto Kobayashi. In recent years, it has been a major source for the art and design of Yamato Resurrection, and in the 2013 issue he wrote about his involvement with Yamato 2199 for the first time.
In this second half of a rare conversation with one of the mecha design superstars behind the original Yamato, Miyatake discusses his role in both the 1974 series and Yamato 2199, which had to have his special touch before director Yutaka Izubuchi could consider it to be authentic.
What happened when a ‘zine publisher found her way into the inner circle back in August 1977? Something that could never happen again – completely candid interviews with Yoshinobu Nishizaki and the main voice actors on the eve of super-stardom. That makes this issue of Yamato one for the history books.
As a key Studio Nue mecha designer on the original series, Miyatake was an eyewitness to the secret origins of Space Battleship Yamato. On the night of September 3, 2013 he made a rare personal appearance in the Yamatalk series to sit down with 2199 director Yutaka Izubuchi and tell a story that had never been told before…
From Tim Eldred’s 2013 Yamatour, a detailed conversation with the talented director of Yamato 2199 episodes 9 and 19 with scene-by-scene commentary, inside stories, exclusive artwork, thoughts about the future, and much more.
