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.
From the Chapter 7 program book: as the mastermind of 2199‘s mecha presentation, Mr. Nishii talks about his experiences as a viewer of Series 1 and how they colored his opinions of what a remake should accomplish. He also discusses what it took to make Yamato mecha look better than ever.
From Great Mechanics DX #26, September 2013. Shigeru Morita of Studio Nue spearheaded some of the most complex episodes of the series and masterminded the battle of the Rainbow Star Cluster. He talks in detail about the thought process behind the on-screen strategy and creative state of the Yamato saga.
Rather than reporting on news and promotion, Monthly Animation magazine took an investigative approach: thoughtful essays and interviews with prominent industry figures that went far beyond their current projects. The August 1980 issue featured this short essay by the always-insightful Director Toshio Masuda.
Published August, 1980 during the release of Be Forever Yamato. Animation director Tomoharu Katsumata described the division of labor on the film, the beginning of his pre-animation career at Kyoto Studio, and the emergence of live-action sensibilities in the world of anime.
Published August, 1980 during the release of Be Forever Yamato. The most prolific member of Yamato‘s writing team, Fujikawa talks about the development of the characters and the delicate balance between reality and abstraction in animation.
Published August, 1980 during the release of Be Forever Yamato. Director Toshio Masuda discussed his contributions to the first two Yamato films and the appeal of the series to young viewers.
This 1993 interview included five staff members; three veterans and two new participants who had came on board for the first round of development on Yamato Resurrection. The project was discussed in a fair amount of detail, and was remarkably consistent with the film that finally emerged 16 years later.
Yoshinobu Nishizaki, Executive Producer and Creator of Space Battleship Yamato, died on November 7, 2010, by accidental drowning. The best that can be said about it was that, like the man himself, it was extremely unusual. Find out more about his remarkable life and read the final message from the producer here.
The second known published essay by Nishizaki, from just before the release of the 1977 feature film in which he makes his first statements about what he would like to do with a sequel.
The earliest known published essay by Nishizaki in the summer of 1977, in which he discusses the making of Series 1, shares his regrets about the premature cancellation, and makes first mention of the forthcoming feature film.
Kinejun is one of the longest-running entertainment magazines in Japan. Concerned as much with the business side of movies as the entertainment, its editors were always on the lookout for a good story, and when the Yamato movie thundered in seemingly from nowhere in August 1977, they knew they had found one.
When Yamato first rippled across mainstream pop culture in 1977, it caught the attention of editors across a broad spectrum of publications. In this case, it was literary magazine Weekly Bunshun, which makes this interview with exec producer Yoshinobu Nishizaki a unique piece of the Yamato puzzle.
An essay written by Yoshinobu Nishizaki in 1977, discussing the earliest phases of pre-production, from the first hint of the idea through the rigors of world-building and the arrival of Leiji Matsumoto. Nishizaki’s words provide an invaluable personal record of this remarkable period in anime history.
Writers around the world have exhausted entire vocabularies trying to describe his unique vision, his incredible range, and his bottomless supply of creative energy. So in the end, there’s only one way to sum up Leiji Matsumoto: he’s a true original.
There still would have been a Space Battleship Yamato without Leiji Matsumoto, but none can deny that it wouldn’t be the Yamato we know and love today. Unsatisfied with many of the ideas in the 1973 plan book, Matsumoto wrote his story treatment in April and May of 1974, presented here in full.
From Yamato Fan Club Magazine #1 (February, 1978). In a unique Q&A column Nishizaki gives career and personal advice to inquisitive Yamato fans and writes a wistful story of first love.
A spinoff of the pivotal OUT magazine, Rendezvous Comic was a bi-monthly manga anthology that launched in the spring of ’78. The third issue was released in July and contained a thoughtful essay by Yoshinobu Nishizaki about the making of Farewell to Yamato.
From Kinejun magazine #740, (August 1978) the first mainstream magazine to devote its cover story to an anime film. Yoshinobu Nishizaki was interviewed at length, discussing aspects of the Yamato success story that hadn’t been reported before.
Presented here is the second of two articles published in the February 2013 issue of Otoko 40 Nen Otoko [1965 Man], a rare interview with writer/director Eiichi Yamamoto that explores the creation of characters that influenced a generation.
In 1999, a book was published titled the Space Battleship Yamato Legacy. It covered Series 1, ending with an insightful interview with the one and only singer Mr. Isao Sasaki. In it, the legendary “Voice of Yamato” shared his privileged viewpoint of the experience.
Hideaki Ito and his peers are all dismissive of praise and humble about the roles they played as fans in Yamato history. But the simple fact is that without them doing what they did precisely when they did it, it is doubtful that we could call ourselves anime fans today since anime as we know it would probably not exist. [2 pages]
Director/Producer Noboru Ishiguro was not only a master craftsman, he was also a true friend to American anime fandom. Fittingly, it took two writers to pay proper tribute; we begin with a biography written by Jonathan Clements and conclude with a personal memoir by Ms. Jan-Scott Frazier that could have been written by no one else.
The first-ever interview with the chief director, published in a fanzine titled Yamato from the Cosmo Battleship Yamato Laboratory fan club. The interviewer was Tatsuya Nakatani, who now works as a professional anime writer under the name Ryusuke Hikawa.
Fantoche magazine #2 published this very early interview with Leiji Matsumoto when he was still a humble newcomer to the world of anime. This may, in fact, be the first published interview with Matsumoto after his work on Yamato, and therefore captured his freshest memories of the experience.
Kinejun is a bi-weekly magazine that covers moviemaking from around the world, and the August 1978 issue was the first to give Yamato a mainstream cover story. Presented here is the Matsumoto interview conducted by writer Nanae Sasaya, who came to the table with special perspective as a reader of his early girl’s manga.
