Space Battleship Yamato
| Space Battleship Yamato | |
 Cover of Leiji Matsumoto's manga adaptation | |
| 宇宙戦艦ヤマト (Uchū Senkan Yamato) | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Military sci-fi,[1] space opera[2] |
| Created by | |
| Manga | |
| Written by | Leiji Matsumoto |
| Published by | Akita Shoten |
| English publisher | |
| Magazine | Bōken Ō |
| Original run | October 1, 1974 – November 1, 1979 |
| Volumes | 3 |
| Anime television series | |
| Directed by | Leiji Matsumoto |
| Produced by | Yoshinobu Nishizaki |
| Written by |
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| Music by | Hiroshi Miyagawa |
| Studio | Academy Productions |
| Original network | NNS (YTV) |
| Original run | October 6, 1974 – March 30, 1975 |
| Episodes | 26 |
| Sequels | |
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TV series:
Animated films:
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| Spin-offs | |
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| Remakes | |
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| UNCF Yamato (大和) | |
|---|---|
| Space Battleship Yamato vehicle | |
| First appearance |
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| Based on | Japanese battleship Yamato |
| Information | |
| Affiliation | Earth Defense Force (original series) UNSA Defense Force of Earth (live-action) United Nations Cosmo Force (remake series) |
| Launched | 2199 |
| Decommissioned | 2199 (live-action) |
| Captain | Juzo Okita |
| Combat vehicles | Cosmo Tiger Cosmo Zero Cosmo Python (remake) |
| Auxiliary vehicles | Live-action: At least 1 Armored transport aircraft C-2101 Leonne Type-Y Remake:
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| General characteristics | |
| Registry | BBY-01 |
| Armaments | Original:
Remake:
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| Defenses | Wave Motion Shield |
| Maximum speed | 30 "Space Knots" (conversion unknown) |
| Propulsion | Sublight engines Wave Motion Engine |
Space Battleship Yamato (Japanese: 宇宙戦艦ヤマト, Hepburn: Uchū Senkan Yamato; also called Cosmoship Yamato and Star Blazers) is a Japanese science fiction anime series written by Yoshinobu Nishizaki, directed by manga artist Leiji Matsumoto, and produced by Academy Productions.[c] The series aired in Yomiuri TV from October 6, 1974, to March 30, 1975, totaling up to 26 episodes. It revolves around the character Susumu Kodai (Derek Wildstar in the English version) and an international crew from Earth, tasked during an interstellar war to go into space aboard the space warship Yamato, derived from the World War II battleship of the same name, in response to a message of aid from the planet Iscandar in order to retrieve a device which is able to reverse the radiation infecting Earth after being bombed by the Gamilas (Gamilons).
Space Battleship Yamato is one of the most influential anime series in Japan. Its turn toward serious themes and complex storylines influenced later works in the medium, including Gundam, Macross, and Evangelion, in addition to influencing the style of video games such as Space Invaders.
Development
[edit]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 (地球の汚名, Chikyū no Omei) 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.[3]
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.[4][5] 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.[6]
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, who 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 on, 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.[7] 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.[8]
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.[9]
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,[10] 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 and back again. A continuing story, it featured 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.