Space Battleship Yamato

Space Battleship Yamato

Cover of the first volume of the manga adaptation from the seventies titled Cosmoship Yamato.
宇宙戦艦ヤマト
(Uchū Senkan Yamato)
Genre Space opera, Military science fiction, Adventure
Anime television series
Directed by Leiji Matsumoto
Produced by Yoshinobu Nishizaki
Written by Story:
Yoshinobu Nishizaki
Screenplay:
Eiichi Yamamoto
Keisuke Fujikawa
Maru Tamura
Music by Hiroshi Miyagawa
Studio Academy Productions,
Group TAC
Original network Yomiuri TV
Original run October 6, 1974 – March 30, 1975
Episodes 26
Manga
Cosmoship Yamato
Written by Leiji Matsumoto
Published by Akita Shoten
Demographic Shōnen
Magazine Adventure King
Original run November 1974 – April 1975
Volumes 3
Original video animation
Great Yamato No. Zero
Directed by Tomoharu Katsumata
Produced by Leiji Matsumoto
Written by Story:
Leiji Matsumoto
Screenplay:
Kazuo Kasahara
Music by Hiroshi Miyagawa
Studio God Ship Company
JCF Studio
Released March 31, 2004 – June 15, 2007
Runtime 45 minutes (each)
Episodes 5
Sequels, Spin-Offs and Remakes

TV series:

OVAs:

Animated films:

Live-action films:

Space Battleship Yamato (Japanese: 宇宙戦艦ヤマト, Hepburn: Uchū Senkan Yamato, also called Cosmoship Yamato) is a Japanese science fiction anime series featuring an eponymous spacecraft.[1] It is also known to English-speaking audiences as Space Cruiser Yamato; an English-dubbed version of the series was broadcast on North American and Australian television as Star Blazers.[2] The first two seasons ("The Quest for Iscandar" and "The Comet Empire") of this version were broadcast in Greece in 1981–82 as Διαστημόπλοιο Αργώ ("Spaceship Argo"). An Italian-language version was also broadcast under the name Star Blazers in Italy, and a Portuguese-language version was successfully shown in Brazil under the title Patrulha Estelar ("Star Patrol"), Viaje a la Ultima Galaxia ("Voyage to the Final Galaxy") or Astronave Intrepido ("Starship Intrepid") in Spain and Latin America, a version called Stjärnbrigaden ("Star Brigade") was released in Sweden, and Nusoor Al Fada'a ("Space Eagles") in the Arabic version.

It is a seminal series in the history of anime, marking a turn towards more complex serious works and influencing works such as Mobile Suit Gundam, Neon Genesis Evangelion[3] or SDF Macross. Hideaki Anno has ranked Yamato his favorite anime[4] and credited it with sparking his interest in anime.[5]

Yamato was the first anime series or movie to win the Seiun Award, a feat not repeated until the film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984).

Development

Conceived in 1973 by producer Yoshinobu Nishizaki, the project underwent heavy revisions. Originally intended to be an outer-space variation on Lord of the Flies, the project at first was titled "Asteroid Ship Icarus" and had a multinational teenage crew journeying through space in a hollowed-out asteroid in search of the planet Iscandar. There was to be much discord among the crew; many of them acting purely out of self-interest and for personal gain. The enemy aliens were originally called Rajendora.[6][7]

When Leiji Matsumoto was brought onto the project, many of these concepts were discarded.[8] It is his art direction, ship designs and unique style that accredit him in fans' eyes as the true creator of Space Battleship Yamato, even though Nishizaki retains legal rights to the work.[9]

Plot

Set in the year 2199, an alien race known as the "Gamilas" ("Gamilons" in the English Star Blazers dub) unleash radioactive meteorite bombs on Earth, rendering the planet's surface uninhabitable.[10] Humanity has retreated into deep underground cities, but the radioactivity is slowly affecting them as well, with humanity's extinction estimated in one year. Earth's space fleet is hopelessly outclassed by the Gamilas and all seems lost until a message capsule from a mysterious crashed spaceship is retrieved on Mars. The capsule yields blueprints for a faster-than-light engine and an offering of help from Queen Starsha of the planet Iscandar in the Large Magellanic Cloud. She says that her planet has a device, the Cosmo-Cleaner D (Cosmo DNA), which can cleanse Earth of its radiation damage.[11]

The inhabitants of Earth secretly build a massive spaceship inside the ruins of the gigantic Japanese battleship Yamato which lies exposed at the former bottom of the ocean location where she was sunk in World War II. This becomes the "Space Battleship Yamato" for which the story is titled. Using Starsha's blueprints, they equip the new ship with a space warp drive, called the "wave motion engine", and a new, incredibly powerful weapon at the bow called the "Wave Motion Gun". The Wave Motion Engine (波動エンジン, hadō enjin) is capable of converting the vacuum of space into tachyon energy, as well as functioning like a normal rocket engine, and providing essentially infinite power to the ship, it enables the Yamato to "ride" the wave of tachyons and travel faster than light. The Wave Motion Gun (波動砲, hadō hō), also called the Dimensional Wave Motion Explosive Compression Emitter, is the "trump card" of the Yamato that functions by connecting the Wave Motion Engine to the enormous firing gate at the ship's bow, enabling the tachyon energy power of the engine to be fired in a stream directly forwards. Enormously powerful, it can vaporize a fleet of enemy ships—or a small continent (as seen in the first season, fifth episode)—with one shot; however, it takes a brief but critical period to charge before firing.

In the English Star Blazers dub, the ship is noted as being the historical Yamato, but is then renamed the Argo (after the ship of Jason and the Argonauts). A crew of 114 departs for Iscandar in the Yamato to retrieve the radiation-removing device and return to Earth within the one-year deadline. Along the way, they discover the motives of their blue-skinned adversaries: the planet Gamilas, sister planet to Iscandar, is dying; and its leader, Lord Desslar ("Desslok" in the Star Blazers dub), is trying to irradiate Earth enough for his people to move there, at the expense of the "barbarians" he considers humanity to be.[12]

The first season contained 26 episodes, following the Yamato's voyage out of the Milky Way Galaxy and back again. A continuing story, it features the declining health of Yamato's Captain Okita (Avatar in the Star Blazers dub), and the transformation of the brash young orphan Susumu Kodai (Derek Wildstar) into a mature officer, as well as his budding romance with female crewmember Yuki Mori (Nova Forrester). The foreign edits tend to play up the individual characters, while the Japanese original is often more focused on the ship itself.[12] In a speech at the 1995 Anime Expo, series episode director Noboru Ishiguro said low ratings and high production expenses forced producer Yoshinobu Nishizaki to trim down the episode count from the original 39 episodes to only 26. The 13 episodes would have introduced Captain Harlock as a new series character.[13]

Movie edition

The series was condensed into a 130-minute-long movie by combining elements from a few key episodes of the first season. Additional animation was created for the movie (such as the scenes on Iscandar) or recycled from the series' test footage (such as the opening sequence). The movie, which was released in Japan on August 6, 1977, was edited down further and dubbed into English in 1978; entitled Space Cruiser Yamato or simply Space Cruiser, it was only given a limited theatrical release in Europe & Latin America, where it was called Patrulha Estelar (Star Patrol, in Brazilian Portuguese) or Astronave Intrepido (Starship Intrepid, in Spanish), though it was later released on video in most countries.

Fictional chronology

Sequels

Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato (1978)

The success of the Yamato movie in Japan eclipsed that of the local release of Star Wars, leading to the production of a second movie that would end the story. Also going by the name Arrivederci Yamato, Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato, set in the year 2201, shows the Yamato crew going up against the White Comet Empire, a mobile city fortress called Gatlantis, from the Andromeda Galaxy. A titanic space battle results in the crew going out on a suicide mission to save humanity. The film has been considered as a non-canonical, alternate timeline.

Space Battleship Yamato II (1978)

Viewer dissatisfaction with the ending of Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato prompted the production of a second Yamato television season which retconned the film and presented a slightly different plot against Zōdah (Prince Zordar in the Star Blazers dub) and his Comet Empire, and ended without killing off the Yamato or its primary characters. Like Farewell, the story is set in the year 2201, and expands the film story to 26 episodes. This second season featured additional plots such as a love story between Teresa (Trelaina) and Yamato crew member Daisuke Shima (Mark Venture), and an onboard antagonism between Kodai and Saito (Knox), leader of a group of space marines.

Footage from Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato was reused in the second season, particularly in the opening titles. The sequence of the Yamato launching from water was also reused in two of the subsequent movies.

Yamato: The New Voyage (1979)

The television movie Yamato: The New Voyage (aka Yamato: The New Journey), came next, featuring a new enemy, the Black Nebula Empire. The story opens in late 2201. In the film, later modified into a theatrical movie, Desslar sees his homeworld, Gamilas, destroyed by the grey-skinned aliens, and its twin planet Iscandar next in line for invasion. He finds an eventual ally in the Yamato, then on a training mission under deputy captain Kodai.

Be Forever Yamato (1980)

The theatrical movie Be Forever Yamato, set in the year 2202, sees the Black Nebula Empire launch a powerful weapon at Earth, a hyperon bomb which will annihilate humanity if they resist a full-scale invasion. The Yamato, under new captain, Yamanami, travels to the aliens' home galaxy only to discover what appears to be a future Earth—defeated and ruled by the enemy. Appearing in this film is Sasha, the daughter of Queen Starsha of Iscandar and Mamoru Kodai (Susumu's older brother).

Space Battleship Yamato III (1980)

Following these movies, a third season of the television series was produced, broadcast on Japanese television in 1980. Its date was not mentioned in the broadcast, but design documents, as well as anime industry publications, cited the year 2205. In the story, the Sun is hit by a stray proton missile from a nearby battle between forces of the Galman Empire and Bolar Federation. This missile greatly accelerates nuclear fusion in the Sun, and humanity must either evacuate to a new home or find a means of preventing a supernova. During the course of the story, it is learned that the people of the Galman Empire are actually the forebears of Desslar and the Gamilas race. Desslar and the remnants of his space fleet have found and liberated Galman from the Bolar Federation. Originally conceived as a 52-episode story, funding cuts meant the season had to be truncated to 25 episodes, with a corresponding loss of overall story development. This third season was adapted into English several years after the original Star Blazers run and, to the dissatisfaction of fans, used different voice actors than did the earlier seasons.

Final Yamato (1983)

Premiering in Japanese theaters on March 19, 1983, Final Yamato reunites the crew one more time to combat the threat of the Denguilu, a militaristic alien civilization that intends to use the water planet, Aquarius, to flood Earth and resettle there (having lost their home planet to a galactic collision). Captain Okita, who was found to be in cryogenic sleep since the first season, returns to command the Yamato and sacrifices himself to stop the Denguili's plan. Susumu and Yuki also get married.

The story is set in the year 2203, contradicting earlier assumptions that its predecessor, Yamato III, took place in 2205. Having a running time of 165 minutes, Final Yamato holds the record of being the Japanese longest animated film ever made, a record which has yet to be surpassed as of 2017.

Yamato 2520 (1994)

In the mid-1990s, Nishizaki attempted to create a sequel to Yamato, set hundreds of years after the original. Yamato 2520 was to chronicle the adventures of the eighteenth starship to bear the name, and its battle against the Seiren Federation. Much of the continuity established in the original series (including the destruction of Earth's moon) is ignored in this sequel.

In place of Leiji Matsumoto, American artist Syd Mead (∀ Gundam, Blade Runner, Tron and Star Trek: The Motion Picture) provided the conceptual art.

Due to the bankruptcy of Nishizaki's company Office Academy (former Academy Productions), and legal disputes with Matsumoto over the ownership of the Yamato copyrights, the series was never finished and only three episodes were produced.

Space Battleship Great Yamato (2000)

Space Battleship Great Yamato (新宇宙戦艦ヤマト, Shin Uchū Senkan Yamato, lit. "New Space Battleship Yamato") is a graphic novel comic created by the animator Leiji Matsumoto.[14][15] For a time it was streaming online.[16] However this has since stopped.

New Space Battleship Yamato (2004, cancelled)

In March 2002, a Tokyo court ruled that Yoshinobu Nishizaki legally owned the Yamato copyrights. Nishizaki and Matsumoto eventually settled, and Nishizaki pushed ahead with developing a new Yamato television series. Project proposals for a 26-episode television series were drawn up in early 2004, but no further work was done with Tohoku Shinsha not backing the project. American series expert Tim Eldred was able to secure a complete package of art, mecha designs, and story outline at an auction over Japanese store Mandarake in April 2014.[17]

Set 20 years after Final Yamato, the series would have shown Susumu Kodai leading a salvage operation for the remains of the Yamato. The ship is rebuilt as the Earth Defense Force builds a second Space Battleship Yamato to combat the Balbard Empire, an alien race that has erected a massive honeycombed cage called Ru Sak Gar, over Earth in a bid to stop the human race's spacefaring efforts. A feature film to be released after the series ended would have featured the original space battleship fighting the Balbards' attempt to launch a black hole at Earth. Kodai, Yuki, and Sanada are the only original series characters who would have returned in the series.

Great Yamato No. Zero (2004)

Great Yamato No. Zero (大ヤマト零号, Dai Yamato Zero-go) is the second original animated video based on Space Battleship Yamato[18]

The story begins in 3199, when a mighty enemy attacks the Milky Way from a neighbouring galaxy, and defeats the Milky Way Alliance, reducing them to just six fleets. After the Alliance headquarters is destroyed, and when the collapse of the central Milky Way Alliance is imminent, the Great Yamato "Zero" embarks on a mission to assist the Milky Way Alliance in one last great battle.

Yamato: Resurrection (2009)

Although New Space Battleship Yamato was sent to the discard pile, Nishizaki began work on a new movie titled Yamato: Resurrection (宇宙戦艦ヤマト 復活篇, Uchū Senkan Yamato: Fukkatsu hen), set after the original series, while Matsumoto planned a new Yamato series. However, additional legal conflicts stalled both projects until August 2008, when Nishizaki announced plans for the release of his film on December 12, 2009.[19][20]

Set 17 years after the events of Final Yamato, Resurrection brings together some members of the Yamato crew, who lead Earth's inhabitants to resettle in a far-flung star system after a black hole is discovered, which will destroy the solar system in three months.

Remakes

Live-action film (2010)

Released on December 1, 2010, Space Battleship Yamato is the franchise's first live-action film. Directed by Takashi Yamazaki, the movie stars Takuya Kimura as Susumu Kodai and Meisa Kuroki as Yuki. It was revealed originally that the plot would be based on that of the 1974 series.[21][22] However, an official trailer released during June 2010 on Japanese television has also shown elements from the series' second season (1978).

Yamato 2199 (2012)

Debuting in Japanese cinemas on April 7, 2012, 2199 is a remake of the 1974 series. Yutaka Izubuchi serves as supervising director, with character designs by Nobuteru Yuki, and Junichiro Tamamori and Makoto Kobayashi in charge of mecha and conceptual designs. The series is a joint project of Enagio, Xebec and AIC. Hideaki Anno designed the new series' opening sequence.[23]

Timeline(s)

With the retelling of Arrivederci Yamato as the open-ended Yamato II television series (ending in late 2201), Arrivederci Yamato was redesignated as a discardable, alternate timeline. The follow-on film, Yamato: New Journey, took place in late 2201; and its successor, Be Forever Yamato, in early 2202. Yamato III was commonly believed to be set in 2205 (several printed publications used this date, although it was never stated in the show's broadcast). But the following film, Final Yamato, was set in 2203. The opening narration of Final mentioned the Bolar/Galman conflict, implying that the date for Yamato III was to be regarded as some time between 2202 and 2203 (making for an unrealistic and compressed timeline).

It is not known if this change was due to the lackluster response to Yamato III, the production staff's dissatisfaction with the truncated series (additionally, Nishizaki and Matsumoto had limited involvement with it), or a mere oversight.

In 2220, the ship is rebuilt following the events of Final Yamato. The new captain of the ship is Susumu Kodai, who was the main character in the previous movies. This told in Space Battleship Yamato: Resurrection that it is set 17 years after Final Yamato.

Staff

Series Staff
Direction Production Story Screenplay
Space Battleship Yamato
(1974 series)		 Leiji Matsumoto Yoshinobu Nishizaki Yoshinobu Nishizaki Eiichi Yamamoto
Keisuke Fujikawa
Maru Tamura
Space Battleship Yamato
(1977 film)		 Eiichi Yamamoto
Arrivederci Yamato Leiji Matsumoto
Space Battleship Yamato II Noboru Ishiguro Eiichi Yamamoto
Keisuke Fujikawa
Yamato: The New Voyage Toshio Masuda Hideaki Yamamoto
Be Forever Yamato
Space Battleship Yamato III Hiroshi Sasagawa Eiichi Yamamoto
Keisuke Fujikawa
Hideaki Yamamoto
Final Yamato Tomoharu Katsumata Eiichi Yamamoto
Kazuo Kasahara
Yamato 2520 Takeshi Shirato
Shigenori Kageyama		 Yoshinobu Nishizaki Eiichi Yamamoto
Yasushi Hirano
Great Yamato No. Zero Tomoharu Katsumata Leiji Matsumoto Kazuo Kasahara
Yamato Resurrection Yoshinobu Nishizaki Toshio Masuda
Takeshi Shirato		 Yoshinobu Nishizaki Bull Ishihara
Atsuhiro Tomioka
Yamato 2199 Akihiro Enomoto Atsushi Ariyoshii
Hideaki Matsumoto
Fumi Teranishi
Mikio Gunji		 Yutaka Izubuchi Yutaka Izubuchi
Hiroshi Ōnogi
Sadayuki Murai
Shigeru Morita
Odyssey of the Celestial Ark Makoto Bessho Fumi Teranishi
Mikio Gunji		 Yutaka Izubuchi Yutaka Izubuchi
Hiroshi Ōnogi
Yamato 2202 Nobuyoshi Habara Shoji Nishizaki Harutoshi Fukui Harutoshi Fukui

Space Battleship Yamato arcade game

Space Battleship Yamato was a 1985 Japanese exclusive Laserdisc video game designed by Taito which was based on the television series of the same name.[24][25]

Characters

The Space Battleship Yamato series generally involves themes of brave sacrifice, noble enemies, and respect for heroes lost in the line of duty. This can be seen as early as the second episode of the first season, which recounts the defeat of the original battleship Yamato while sailors and pilots from both sides salute her as she sinks (this scene was cut from the English dub, but later included on the Star Blazers DVD release). The movies spend much time showing the crew visiting monuments to previous missions and recalling the bravery of their fallen comrades. Desslar, the enemy defeated in the first season and left without a home or a people, recognizes that his foes are fighting for the same things he fought for and, eventually, becomes Earth's most important ally.

English title

For many years, English-language releases of the anime bore the title Space Cruiser Yamato. This romanization has appeared in Japanese publications because Nishizaki, a sailing enthusiast who owned a cruiser yacht, ordered that this translation be used out of love for his boat. However, in reference to naval nomenclature, it is technically inaccurate, as senkan (戦艦) means "battleship" and not "cruiser" (which in Japanese would be jun'yōkan (巡洋艦)). Leiji Matsumoto's manga adaptation was titled Cosmoship Yamato.[14][15] Today, Yamato releases, including the Voyager Entertainment DVD, are marketed either as Star Blazers or Space Battleship Yamato.

Star Blazers (1979) is a heavily edited dubbed version for the United States market produced by Westchester Film Corporation. Voyager Entertainment released DVD volumes and comic adaptations of the anime years later.

References

  1. ↑ "Leiji Matsumoto 2010 Interview". StarBlazers.com. Archived from the original on February 14, 2011. Retrieved 2011-04-02.
  2. ↑ "Flying off to Iscandare for the Cosmo DNX! Can we defeat the Gorgons?". StarBlazers.com. Archived from the original on March 14, 2012. Retrieved 2008-09-10.
  3. ↑ "Yamato also caused a paradigm shift in animation. Departing from the usual plot of "good vanquishes evil" so common in children’s programming, it acknowledged the enemy’s necessity in attacking Earth: the Gamilons must relocate, as their home planet is doomed to die. The highly realistic design of "mecha" (meka) — mechanical vessels and weapons — also set the standard for the genre of "mecha-robot anime". Without Yamato there would have been no Gundam or Evangelion (pls. 30, 33)." "Space Battleship Yamato" entry in Little Boy 2005 ed. Takashi Murakami ISBN 0300102852
  4. ↑ "Kazuhiko Shimamoto and Hideaki Anno". Web.archive.org. 2005-04-07. Archived from the original on April 7, 2005. Retrieved 2013-09-01.
  5. ↑ "A Yamato Discussion with Hideaki Anno, Leiji Matsumoto, and Hiroshi Miyagawa; translated from the 1998 Railway of Fantasy Concert Program". Starblazers.com. Archived from the original on November 29, 2010. Retrieved 2013-09-01.
  6. ↑ "1973-1976 Timeline". StarBlazers.com. Archived from the original on March 15, 2012. Retrieved 2008-09-06.
  7. ↑ "Leiji Matsumoto 1976 Interview". StarBlazers.com. Archived from the original on March 14, 2012. Retrieved 2009-09-01.
  8. ↑ "Yamato X Harlock: Ships in the Night". Starblazers.com. Retrieved 2012-08-13.
  9. ↑ "A Rainbow of Threads". StarBlazers.com. Archived from the original on March 21, 2012. Retrieved 2008-09-10.
  10. ↑ "Yamato Origins". StarBlazers.com. Archived from the original on February 2, 2012. Retrieved 2010-06-03.
  11. ↑ "Matsumoto's Yamato". StarBlazers.com. Archived from the original on February 8, 2009. Retrieved 2009-09-01.
  12. 1 2 "Make way for StarBlazers" (PDF). StarBlazers.com. Archived from the original on January 20, 2013. Retrieved 2009-09-11.
  13. ↑ Fenelon, Robert. Yamato Forever, Animerica, Vol 3 No 8, August 1995.
  14. 1 2 "Cosmoship Yamato Part 1: The Leiji Matsumoto Manga". StarBlazers.com. Archived from the original on January 5, 2011. Retrieved 2008-10-02.
  15. 1 2 "Cosmoship Yamato Part 2: The Leiji Matsumoto Manga". StarBlazers.com. Archived from the original on March 14, 2012. Retrieved 2008-10-02.
  16. ↑ "Great Yamato #0 Volume 1 Streamed Online for Free". Anime News Network. 2007-06-01. Retrieved 2009-08-02.
  17. ↑ "New Yamato Proposal Plan". Ourstarblazers.com. Retrieved 12 May 2016.
  18. ↑ "Yamato Copyright Suits Settled for 250 Million Yen". Anime News Network. Retrieved 2009-06-25.
  19. ↑ "New Attempt at Yamato Anime Project Announced". Anime News Network. 2008-08-01. Retrieved 2008-08-31.
  20. ↑ "Brand New Day". StarBlazers.com. Archived from the original on September 1, 2009. Retrieved 2008-10-02.
  21. ↑ "Noboru Ishiguro Confirms Live-Action Yamato in Development (Update 2)". Anime News Network. 2009-07-18.
  22. ↑ "Live-Action Space Battleship Yamato Film's Cast Listed (Update 3)". Anime News Network. 2009-10-02.
  23. ↑ "Evangelion Director Hideaki Anno to Design Yamato 2199 Anime Opening". Crunchyroll. 2012-02-25. Retrieved 2012-02-25.
  24. ↑ "The Forgotten Game 2". StarBlazers.com. Archived from the original on March 14, 2012. Retrieved 2008-10-02.
  25. ↑ "1985 Laserdisc Game Part 2". StarBlazers.com. Archived from the original on July 26, 2012. Retrieved 2010-02-02.
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