Space Battleship Yamato

The first ideas for what would eventually be Space Battleship Yamato began in 1973 by producer Yoshinobu Nishizaki, but the project underwent a number of revisions and overhauls before settling on the final design. The team responsible for the creation of Space Battleship Yamato consisted of Yoshinobu Nishizaki, Keisuke Fujikawa, Eiichi Yamamoto and Aritsune Toyota. It was initially planned to be a tokusatsu, and Nishizaki was inspired to create something set in space after reading Methuselah's Children. Aritsune Toyota offered his 1970 novel Desecrated Earth as a further source of inspiration for Nishizaki.

In 1973, works such as The Poseidon Adventure and Japan Sinks were enjoying considerable success. Eiichi Yamamoto believed this was because of the way in which they depicted people being able to survive in extreme circumstances, and this influenced the creation of Yamato. Additionally, he believed that, overall, industrialisation caused people to become more miserable, and Yamato was designed to show a triumph of humanity and love.[9]

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 crew from all over the world journeying through space in a hollowed-out asteroid in search of the planet Iscandar. There was to be much discord among the crew with many of them acting purely out of self-interest and for personal gain. The enemy aliens were originally called Rajendora.[10][11] The Rajendorians were robots whose exact form was unknown, and it was to be revealed towards the end of the story that the Rajendorians, along with the rest of the life on their home planet, had died over a hundred years ago.[12]

The first rough draft of Yamato came towards the end of summer 1973, where the Yamato (named as such by Nishizaki) was a regular spaceship, that used a large rock as a shell, and the story was notably darker. Heavier emphasis was placed on the character's flaws, and they were overall more misanthropic, and only one of them would survive until the end of the series.

The production of Yamato in its conceptual stage was overseen by Eiichi Yamamoto, until 1974, when he had to leave to work on a documentary film. As a replacement, Toshio Masuda, who had worked on Tora! Tora! Tora!, was considered, but had to decline as he had other projects of his own to focus own, though he would become involved in the production of the 1977 film. The role was given to Leiji Matsumoto, who had at an earlier stage declined an offer, due to his desire to have complete creative control.[13] Matsumoto overhauled the story, designing the titular ship after the IJN Yamato, its crew, and the Wave Motion Gun, which came from Sexaroid, an erotic comedy manga written by Matsumoto in 1968.[14]

In the earliest stages of production, Space Battleship Yamato was planned to be 52 episodes in length, before reducing this to 39, and ultimately, 26. The bulk of the cut content centered around Gamilas, who had more characters, and more complex motivations and goals. Additionally, in this earlier stage, the Yamato's battles were more closely tied to events in World War II - for example, the battle near Neptune in the first episode represented Germany circumventing the Maginot Line.[15]

The first draft for Space Battleship Yamato was completed on May 21, 1974. In August, a ten minute pilot episode was created, with at least nine copies being sent to the relevant organisations,[16] and, after the pilot's success, pre-production of the anime began, with the first episode airing in October that year. The original series 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.[17] 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.[18]

In the year 2199, an alien race known as Gamilas (Gamilons in the English Star Blazers dub) unleash radioactive meteorite bombs on Earth, rendering the planet's surface uninhabitable.[19] 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 has a space fleet, but they do not yet have interstellar capability, and they are hopelessly outclassed by Gamilas. 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.[20]

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. 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).

Using Starsha's blueprints, they equip the new ship with a space warp drive, called the "wave motion engine", and in an apparently unexpected move, weaponize the technology to create 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 tachyon particles which travel faster than light and 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.

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 Dessler (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.[17]

• 2199–2200: Space Battleship Yamato (1974–1975), Yamato the Movie (1977), Space Battleship Yamato (Live action version) (2010), Yamato 2199 (2012–2013), Space Battleship Yamato 2199: Odyssey of the Celestial Ark (2014)
• 2201: Arrivederci Yamato (1978), Space Battleship Yamato II (1978 – 1979), Yamato: The New Voyage (1979)
• 2202: Be Forever Yamato (1980), Yamato 2202 (2017-2019)
• 2203: Space Battleship Yamato III (1980–1981), Final Yamato (1983)
• 2220: Space Battleship Yamato: Resurrection (2009)
• 2520: Yamato 2520 (1995 – 1996)
• 3199: Great Yamato No. 0 (2004)

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. It is stated in Space Battleship Yamato: Resurrection that it is set 17 years after Final Yamato.

Due to its extensive financial success,[45] Space Battleship Yamato has since its release seen a long line of merchandise.

Starting in 1974, many Yamato-themed products have been sold, including clothing, tableware, stationery, and models of the characters, with the Cosmo Tigers and Yamato itself receiving particular attention. Additionally, models of Dessler's fleet were available, and at the time it was uncommon for the villain's ships or mecha to be sold.[46] Bandai was responsible for most of the merchandising, and their choice to sponsor Space Battleship Yamato at such an early stage of its production is considered influential in their financial success.[47]

Bandai produced an extensive number of models of the Yamato, in a variety of sizes, the largest, and most elaborate one being a 70 cm (27.5 inch) model released in 2007. The ship comes with a remote control, designed to look like the Wave-Motion Gun's pistol grip, with which the Yamato's shutters, main and auxiliary guns, pulse lasers, and Wave-Motion Gun can all be interacted with. The ship was sold for ¥47,250 ($450).[48]

Initially, Space Battleship Yamato was ignored - the original 1974 anime was forced to halve its episode count due to low ratings and viewership. However, with the release of the 1977 film, it had a surge in popularity, and ultimately achieved a cult status.[49] During, the original broadcast, despite the general lack of interest, Leiji Matsumoto received a "very surprising" amount of fan mail from women who had watched the show, which came as a surprise due to the fact he had intended for it to be watched mostly by a male audience.[50]

Prior to the release of Yamato in 1974, anime was called terebi manga (TV manga). The success of Yamato, both because of its tone and themes that were ambitious for an anime at that time, and the fact it was an original work, made it influential in the move towards the term anime.[52]

Yamato would go on to influence many later anime, including Mobile Suit Gundam and Neon Genesis Evangelion. Its popularity subsequently lead to various parodies and references, such as in Sgt. Frog,[53] Haruhi Suzumiya and Space Battleship Tiramisu.[54]

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. Dessler, 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 an important and loyal ally to Earth.

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.[22][23] Contemporary 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.

• Star Blazers at AllMovie
• Uchû senkan Yamato at IMDb
• Star Blazers at TV.com
• "Uchū Senkan Yamato", The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction