Talking about Space Battleship Yamato
Space Battleship Yamato is the first animation I worked on. Up until then, I had always said I wanted to work in animation, but I never got the opportunity. I thought the chance would come eventually. I wondered when that would be, and then Yamato came along.
When I heard of the theme for Yamato, I was a little taken aback, wondering why I had to work in the world of “Battleship Yamato,” which has a war story image. The animation I wanted to create was something with a new, more fairy-tale-like design. In terms of my previous works, I think Galaxy Express 999 was closer to what I had in mind.
When I heard the word Yamato, I thought about something more in line with my own tastes. It’s a story that belongs to the hobby category, like airplane mania, battleship mania, tank mania, etc. In terms of my feelings about animation, it had to be something that I would enjoy myself.
However, there aren’t many opportunities to actually get involved with animation. I started out thinking “Oh, this is so troublesome,” but Yamato was the ship I boarded. I don’t regret it, but it’s been a very long voyage. I’m a little tired, and I sometimes wonder if it’s time to call it quits.
Space Battleship Yamato is an important work that gave me the opportunity and place to make animation. It has given me a world of sensory samples, struggling against the intense impression I had of animation as a boy. It is a fundamental question of whether I am walking together with the people who watch anime.
This is a theme that will never leave my mind, no matter what I create in the future. For me, this is an important work in the sense that if I had not done it, there would have been no future. I also put a lot of passion into it. It was the gateway to my other animation works. If you think of it in terms of training, Yamato was elementary school, Galaxy Express 999 was junior high, and Harlock and Queen Millennia are college.
I think Space Battleship Yamato could be better if we could think of a direction that allows it to be interpreted a little more freely. Animation should not continue to deprive the viewer of the freedom of their senses. I also have some regrets that I didn’t make it in a way that was was relaxed, fun, and warm, not just about love and justice. I should have made it in a casual way either for good or ill.
Because it is a very important work to me, I think I need to know when to quit, or when to move on, so Yamato doesn’t end up in a sad way. Parental instincts begin to arise, since parents don’t want to leave their children to fend for themselves.