Answerman

Why is Space Battleship Yamato a Big Deal in Japan?

The internet asks:

Hideaki Anno is creating a new Space Battleship Yamato film. What is the enduring legacy of this series in Japan?

Part of the reason I was asked to contribute to the Answerman column is because I am a salty, older anime industry exec type with lots of experiences and stories to share with you, dear reader. “I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain…” and if I don't hurry up and finish this column, maybe this Answerman gig too!

So! Yeah. I've seen things. I've done things, and I also watched all of Star Blazers as a child on ABC's Afternoon Show with James Valentine. I adored it. It was unlike anything else I'd seen before. Transformers was probably the most sophisticated animated series I'd seen up to that point with its simplistic, uncomplicated story-of-the-week format. Star Blazers wasn't like that at all. It was serialized, complex, dramatic, exciting, and sad. How many kid's series in the mid-80s started like this one?

Set on an uninhabitable post-apocalyptic earth where most of the world's population has died from radiation poisoning, and the survivors live deep within the earth's core, struggling for a meager existence? Star Blazers, alongside the American reworking of Tatsunoko Production's excellent Science Team Gatchaman (aka Battle of the Planets) and the English language dub of Tezuka Studio's Astro Boy anime, helped to steer me on my lifelong journey with the medium.

I expect that many of you reading this may have never watched Star Blazers or Space Battleship Yamato (Uchū Senkan Yamato, aka Cosmoship Yamato) as it was conceived. SBY is a Japanese sci-fi anime series written by Yoshinobu Nishizaki, directed by manga artist Leiji Matsumoto, produced by Academy Productions, and broadcast on Yomiuri TV for 26 episodes between 1975 and 1976. Contemporary anime audiences outside of Japan may be less familiar with the series. Perhaps the first time you heard about this series was the studio AIC and XEBEC reboot from 2012-2013 called Space Battleship Yamato 2199, which has since streamed on Funimation and these days can be found on Crunchyroll.

Space Battleship Yamato is one of the most recognizable anime series in Japan. It was a groundbreaking series for its time, which redefined the medium for both audiences and critics, for many of the same reasons why I enjoy it. It is a complex, episodic, serialized genre piece, which is a major influence on later works in the medium, including Gundam, Macross, and, of course, Neon Genesis Evangelion.

It should come as no surprise that none other than Hideki Anno and his studio, Khara, have recently announced that he will be hopping aboard the good ship Yamato for a very special 50th-anniversary project, which I am guessing is either a brand new anime series or animated feature film.

Hideaki Anno, a man famous for some of the most important anime creations of the past thirty years, has more or less been living his best life over the past decade, “re-imagining” some of his all-time favorite childhood programs as one-off theatrical projects starting with Shin Godzilla (2016), Shin Ultraman (2022), and finally Shin Kamen Rider (2023). The entire Japanese pop-cultural sandbox has been gifted to Anno, a creator considered experienced and gifted enough to steward these precious brands. It is fitting that he is now putting his considerable talents to work on Yamato.

Another interesting fact about Space Battleship Yamato is that the titular battleship is the very same Imperial Japanese Navy mega-cruiser, that the U.S. Navy sank towards the end of WW2 on August 31, 1945. The name Yamato has much more ancient origins than the vessel from which it took its name. Yamato, the word, is made up of characters that mean “great” and “harmony” and was historically the province in present-day Nara Prefecture, which many cite as the birthplace of the nation.

The Yamato was the pride of the Imperial Navy and one of the largest, most heavily armed military vessels in the world at the time. It was the pinnacle of Japan's maritime strength and a symbol of Imperial might. The sinking of the Yamato became a metaphor for the end of the Japanese Empire and its diminishment in the immediate post-war reconstruction period. For some, Yamato became a symbol of national shame.

Symbolism is important in Japan. Anime and manga are full of it. None more so than SBY. Take a moment to think about it.

It is a mythical story about a heroic quest that unites disparate survivors in the post-apocalyptic ashes of a once-great society. It is a story of survival and re-emergence. The unearthing and rehabilitation of the sunken warship, raised from the dystopian desert sands of the barren Pacific Ocean bed, set off on one final redemptive mission for all people.

SBY is an important moment in Japanese pop culture. It came at a time of renewed prosperity after 25 years of grueling toil and sacrifice by the Japanese people in the immediate Reconstruction period. It is an opportunity to reframe Japanese Imperial hubris as a moment of national and global unity, shared purpose, belief, and renewed sacrifice. It is a culturally significant work that still resonates today, and that still feels incredibly fresh and exciting.

Even Japan's newish and embattled Prime Minister, Shigeru Ishiba, a self-proclaimed otaku who fondly builds military model kits in his spare time, has also disclosed his passion for one anime in particular: the 1978 sequel film Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato, which he admits to watching over a hundred times.

If you have enjoyed this column and you'd like to read more about the cultural significance of Space Battleship Yamato on contemporary Japanese society I highly recommend this essay by academic Shunichi Takekawa, associate professor at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, first published in 2012 and titled, Fusing Nationalisms in Postwar Japan, The Battleship Yamato and Popular Culture.

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