THE GRAND FINALE

DVD cover for the Voyager release of "Final Yamato"

Galaxies collide! An empire crumbles! An entire planet is flooded! Yamato's crew is attacked and defeated! And that's just the first 15 minutes! This month, the last and biggest Yamato voyage arrives to take its place next to all the previous adventures on DVD. Final Yamato has a history just as fascinating as its predecessors. The special features on the forthcoming DVD will explore that history with all the depth and detail you've come to expect. Other extras include art galleries, the movie trailer, the program book, and two segments of bonus footage that accompanied the film on two separate releases, one in March 1983 and the other in November of the same year.

Final Yamato, in addition to having perhaps the most unambiguous movie title ever conceived, also holds a couple of interesting records. Clocking in at over 150 minutes, it is still the longest-running animated film of all time, and in its theatrical re-release, it became the first animated feature ever to be distributed on 70mm film. In Japan, of course, audiences were overwhelmed by the grand spectacle, especially those who had been Yamato fans right from the start. Here with more on the Japanese Final Yamato experience is commentator Yu Hayakawa (his liner notes reproduced from the Final Yamato "Eternal Edition" CD)...

Kodai & Yuki visualized by Leiji Matsumoto

The planning for Space Battleship Yamato began in the spring of 1973. And exactly ten years later, in 1983, the story to end the Yamato series was released in theaters. At that time, Final Yamato was anime's all-time biggest production, using a state of the art sound system as well as 70mm film. At the time of its release, Final Yamato was sent forth to the theaters with much fanfare, like that of a fireworks festival. But these days I wonder if people will have the same romantic feelings for the Yamato Saga, reliving the past as if they had stepped into a Time Machine.

The story surrounds the mysterious water-planet Aquarius, orbiting the galaxy every few billion years. Four billion years ago, when the Earth formed, legend has it that this world allowed life to appear by giving water to our world. So what would happen if that planet returned? Against this astronomically huge backdrop, a new foe appears with military might that dwarfs Yamato's previous enemies. In its final battle, the Space Battleship Yamato faces the Dinguil Empire, with all its forces spread across the big screen.

The main character is the Battleship Yamato, whose rusted hull sank into the ocean during WWII, then rose again like an immortal Phoenix. With this in mind, the filmmakers wanted a climactic scene in which the brave ship fades into the vast ocean of space, like that of the previous war in the distant past. This powerful image, evoking the sadness of the real battleship lost in the Pacific Theater, was how the animated Yamato finally meets its end, even while protecting the peace in the great galaxy.

Captain Okita returns!

The one to carry out Yamato's final mission was none other than the first commander of Space Battleship Yamato: Captain Jyuzo Okita. This announcement caused quite a stir among the fans, since everybody thought he had died in the first Yamato TV series. With this development, Yamato was shown to actually be a guardian of life in scenes drawn by none other than Leiji Matsumoto, the illustrator of many such "ships of life."

As many elements as possible were added to fill out this epic feature, including the beautiful love story between Kodai and Yuki, the last appearance of the saga's anti-hero, Dessler, and much more. The first draft of the script was 500 pages long and would have easily gone over the 4-hour mark, but the "rough cut" version whittled that down to 3 hours and 28 minutes. You can imagine the energy it took to bring the 10-year history of Yamato to its conclusion.

Dessler's last stand

The year is 2203. The story begins with a great disturbance at a distant location in the galaxy. Through a rift in space-time comes an unknown world that creates major cataclysms as it invades the galaxy. As Yamato goes forth to investigate this anomaly, Dessler confirms the destruction of the planets Galman and Gamilus. Fleeing immediate danger by a random warp, Yamato reappears to witness a great threat befall the planet Dinguil. Faced with this danger, Kodai orders his men to go forth. They land in the waters there, only to find and rescue one boy among the casualties. Planet Dinguil is flooded because of the proximity of the water-world, Aquarius, which is now headed towards Earth! As the crew sends out an alert, they come under attack by Dinguil forces that escaped the flooding of their world and now use the island-fortress Uruku as their main base. Using Hyper-Radiation Missiles, they down the Yamato. They plan to migrate to Earth, and they want to use Aquarius to rid the planet of its bothersome inhabitants. Using their advanced technology, they plan to "warp" Aquarius into Terran space. Will Yamato be able to stop this Evil Empire?

Final Yamato reunited many of the veterans who made the series what it was. Of course, the main credit went to the co-creator/supervisor of the original series, Mr. Leiji Matsumoto. During the premiere of the film, he was quoted as saying that he wanted Yamato to end with a "fresh" perspective and without any bumps in the storyline. Directing this film for the first time was Tomoharu Katsumada, who worked as the mediator between the animators and the writers of Toei Animation Studio. For this important project, the script was handled by five people, including Hideaki Yamamoto and Kazuo Kasahara, while the storyboards were mainly done under the supervision of Chief Director Takeshi Shirado.

Key staff members from Left to Right: Leiji Matsumoto, Tomoharu Katsumada, Hideaki Yamamoto, Kazuo Kasahara, Takeshi Shirado, Geki Katsumata

One production director, Yoshinori Kanada, worked on early conceptual illustrations for what was commonly known as Yamato Hyakutai, or "The Many aspects of Yamato." The man tasked with taking Yamato to places it had never been before was Art Director Geki Katsumata, who brought his special touch to numerous vivid image boards.

Galactic collision

Now, a few words which will undoubtedly serve as a garland for this production. The film begins with the collision of two galaxies. The expanding forces traverse the great distances of outer space, until finally this great ocean of energy approaches the Earth. This awesome setting draws the line between the garden-variety SF Anime that sprouts from the ground like bamboo shoots after the rain, and the caliber of Yamato. Now, over 20 years after Final Yamato, I wonder if I'm the only one who feels that the average person just can't appreciate the greatness of what Yamato stood for. I hope that with the re-release of this movie, it will be a step towards understanding the phenomena.

The first of five "Final Yamato" soundtrack LPs

Regarding the music releases surrounding the movie, the first album appeared almost a year before the film. It was an experimental, narration-free music collection. Hiroshi Miyagawa, who breathed life into Yamato with the power of music, while receiving much of his youthful energy from his own son, led his orchestra with everything he had. Later that year, another album was released featuring piano suites from Yamato and Mobile Suit Gundam. This included many famous tunes from the 1st and 2nd Yamato movies that everybody knew, even if they weren't anime fanatics. They were performed by music editor Nozomi Aoki with much feeling and color.

The music of Yamato was full of luxurious, free-flowing ideas that were not afforded to any other anime. This went hand in hand with an enormous amount of record sales. Yamato founded a new anime music genre which didn't previously exist. A precedent was set for later anime musical scores by having a full orchestra, including a complete horns section, for later mixing into a complete soundtrack. This also made variant versions possible, including Drama Soundtracks, BGMs, etc. These days, it's commonplace to find anime CDs in stores, but without the pioneering aspect of Yamato, chances are that the anime music industry would have floundered for at least ten years, if not more.

Nippon Columbia Records released four Yamato music albums which won the Japan Music Awards for Best Anime Music in 1978. At the time, these albums weren't dismissed as mere "anime music," but were ranked at the same level as the scores for movie soundtracks.

For a conventional movie soundtrack, the score is written after the completion of principal photography. For Yamato, the score was created simultaneously, while the animation was being created and filmed. This is how it was with all Yamato soundtracks. Points were discussed, scenes were shown, and the orchestra performed over and over until the right sound was achieved. In order to create more vivid tunes, professional music makers from both pop and symphonic backgrounds lent their talents. The production staff knew that music industry professionals would be expensive, but they were confident that the emotional quality and high standards of the soundtrack would guarantee box office success.

The music of Final Yamato was the best of all the Yamato movies. When the movie hit the theaters, Nippon Columbia Records released 3 albums and Tokuma Records released 2 albums, a total of 5 Final Yamato albums hit the stores in one year!

Composers Hiroshi Miyagawa and Kentaro Haneda

Hiroshi Miyagawa and Kentaro Haneda were selected as the conductors for Final Yamato. Miyagawa's role was Main Composer and the Maestro of the Yamato Sound. Haneda, a virtuoso pianist, focussed the efforts of Symphonic Orchestra Yamato. Miyagawa was responsible for writing the melodies, and he focussed on the character-driven scenes, for emotional quality and content as well as providing a dramatic "pops" feel at which he excelled. Haneda handled scenes that demanded a full orchestra, for a high-caliber movie soundtrack feel, and to depict the vastness of outer space to its fullest effect. (Editor's note: Haneda's next project was to write the now-famous score for the Macross movie, released the following year.)

This was the first time two distinctly different styles and conductors were used simultaneously on an animated movie project, so it was definitely a high-class production. Their music combined with a harmony of balance, neither upstaging the other. Had this balance not been in place, the movie would not have worked as well as it did. Final Yamato merged these two great musicians' talents for music and created a perfect blend that is still unequaled in the history of movie making!