Throughout its long history, Yamato has been the subject of repeated analysis with one textbook after another examining the phenomenon. They are all tempting targets for translation, but this one stands out for the depth of its exploration. Chapter 8 added March 2023
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.
Writer/Researcher Rikao Yanagita has been publishing books and delivering lectures for decades, bringing a scientific perspective to what we see in anime and manga. Presented here are various essays that shine a scientific spotlight on what we see in Space Battleship Yamato.
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.
If we were to name this specific stretch of Yamato history, the appropriate word would probably be “Afterglow.” The feature film was still burning up the box office after three months, media coverage was still very active, and important new things arrived to firmly plant Yamato‘s flag into the soil of the future.
In February 2020 a new story was announced with the working title of Space Battleship Yamato Next: Star Blazers Lambda. It launched as a manga series and ran for just over two years. Here, we round up everything attached to the project including the entire story, author interviews, design documents, and more.
The explosion of diverse media coverage continued well after the August premiere of the Yamato movie as the boom expanded and brought anime into Japan’s mainstream entertainment culture. Soon, seemingly everyone had something to say about it.
As summer gave way to fall, Yamato‘s fortunes just kept on climbing in an unprecedented increase in demand. Media attention widened and deepened as it became increasingly obvious that Yamato had evolved from fad to phenom and was here to stay.
Doujinshi publishing in the early years laid the groundwork for Yamato‘s explosive comeback in 1977, which in turn laid the groundwork for an entire industry. It all began with the ‘zines in this archive, which can be seen from cover to cover. New entries added October 2022
The whole world changed for the better in August 1977, and that is not an exaggeration. With the August 8 premiere of Space Battleship Yamato, the entire anime industry in Japan experienced a seismic shift that still gives us aftershocks today. In this report we’ll go through that pivotal month one step at a time and see how the future began.
It is no exaggeration to state that the period covered in this report was the most pivotal time in all of Yamato history. The movie that would change everything was already in production as the year began and there was low-level buzz about it, but getting that movie in front of the public was the key to everything that followed.
From issue 14 of the Star Blazers/Yamato Fan Club magazine (April 2022): very rare interviews with Sasha’s voice actor Keiko Han and singer Mitsuko Horie. Both cite their Yamato experience as a career-changer, and both recount remarkably similar moments from the recording booth.
1976 was a slow year for Yamato. As “super robots” took over the anime landscape, Yamato fans probably despaired that their show was over forever. In fact, the most important action was happening under the surface, destined to change everything. But for now, let’s see what got Yamato fans through this year of dim prospects.
Though entire forests probably had to be clearcut for the enormous amount of Yamato publishing in Japan, the amount of ink spent on Star Blazers is comparatively miniscule – which only makes these few examples that much more important. See them all here. New entries added July 2022
In June 2021, a dramatic discovery was made on eBay: a large collection of Star Blazers production scripts being offered for sale. Now they reside in the hands of fandom itself, and you can read The Comet Empire from the same documents as the voice actors did in 1979.
Even before the first TV series concluded, the next and most important phase of Yamato history began: the “redemption year.” Its driver was an unexpected force that would slowly but steadily change everything for the better. The name of that force was “fandom.” In 1975, that force took shape for the first time.
This series answers the question, “What if Cosmo DNA existed in real time during the production years?” Everything is chronicled in the order it all happened, bringing history to life in a whole new way. First up: the prehistory of Yamato all the way up to the end of “origin year” 1974. [2 pages]
The official Yamato fan club set very high standards throughout its run from 1977 all the way to 1991. So what happened next? A new group stepped in to pick up the slack, and they lasted another ten years. This is their story.
As we look toward the future of the “reboot universe,” we naturally wonder how vintage stories will be adapted. Surprisingly, significant parts of them already have been. Here, Anton Mei Brandt digs deep for fragments of Yamato lore that have found their way to the screen, sometimes barely noticed.
In 2013, a train station in the city of Kure, where the Battleship Yamato was built, adopted the Space Battleship Yamato theme as its jingle to announce arriving trains. A reporter for the AERAdot website investigated how this was decided, giving us a look into local and musical history.
From the Magmix website comes this short profile on Yamato Exec Producer Yoshinobu Nishizaki, described as a skilled maverick who brought change to the anime industry and carved out his reputation as the self-styled “Dessler of Akasaka” (an upscale business district in Tokyo).
In September 2021, a novel titled Space Battleship Yamato Dawn Chapter, Aquarius Algorithm began an effort to fill the 17-year gap between Final Yamato and Resurrection. There was plenty to learn about it if you knew where to look online, and it is all collected here in one place.
Isao Sasaki’s voice was the first anyone ever heard when they met Space Battleship Yamato, and he still belts out that theme song as no one else can. Two days before his first-ever livestream concert, a pair of interviews with Sasaki appeared online, and as usual he had plenty of stories to tell.
Regular followers of the Cosmo DNA Facebook page are familiar with “Yamatunes for Tuesday,” a weekly drop of amazing online music discoveries. The reach of Yamato music is far and wide with incredible energy and variety, guaranteed to lift your spirits. In this second collection of online Yamatunes, the fans step up and deliver.
Regular followers of the Cosmo DNA Facebook page are familiar with “Yamatunes for Tuesday,” a weekly drop of amazing online music discoveries. The reach of Yamato music is far and wide with incredible energy and variety, guaranteed to lift your spirits. Here’s an extensive roundup of Yamatunes for easy access whenever you need it.
In 2014, a 60th anniversary retrospective was published on Leiji Matsumoto’s manga, which included a unique conversation between three veteran writers. Two of them participated in the creation of the original Yamato series. Their discussion is presented here and offers perspectives available nowhere else.
As a key contributor to the two biggest anime franchises of all time, Yamato and Gundam, “Yas” possesses a unique vantage point and a fascinating career. He was extensively interviewed for two major books that were published in 2020, both of which are excerpted here.
As the creator and first editor-in-chief of the game-changing magazine Animage, Hideo Ogata played an instrumental role in the foundation of anime culture. In this chapter from his memoir Shoot That Flag! he recounts the origin of the magazine and Yamato’s pivotal role in it.
Starting in 2008, a year-in-review was written to look back at everything that happened in the ever-expanding world of Space Battleship Yamato; music, publishing, products, public events, and more. These articles map out the living-legend status of the original saga to confirm that Yamato is still alive and well.
Hideo Ogata is one of those people who played an instrumental role in building the foundation of anime culture. In 2004, he did the world a huge favor by publishing a book of his memoirs. Yamato figured heavily in two chapters of that book, so we’re presenting the first one here.
