Interest
Retro Space Battleship Yamato Bicycle Ad Streamed
posted on by Gia Manry
A YouTube user named "afnaste" has found and streamed an advertisement for a 1978 bicycle whose design is based on the Yamato, the titular space vessel based on a real-life World War II battleship in the anime Space Battleship Yamato.
The bicycle is equipped with a "Wave Motion Gun" — a light on the front of the bicycle activated by a button on the handle — and a visor with crosshairs, as well as a basket shaped like the Yamato's ship bow on the front of the cycle. The bicycle came in two colors, blue and green, and featured artwork on the rear wheels. According to the official Star Blazers website, the bicycle's original price was 25,900 yen, which in 1978 converted to about US$141.52.
The original Space Battleship Yamato anime series aired in Japan in 1974 with director/designer Leiji Matsumoto and director Noboru Ishiguro. In 1979, the series aired in the United States under the name Star Blazers. Recently, the series has seen a resurgence in popularity in Japan thanks to a 2009 anime movie titled Space Battleship Yamato Resurrection and an upcoming live-action film starring Takuya Kimura, of the Japanese boy band SMAP, as protagonist Susumu Kodai (Derek Wildstar in the English-language version). This past April, a Japanese astronaut named Sōichi Noguchi wore a shirt bearing Kodai's signature markings on board the International Space Station.
[Video via Topless Robot]
Image © Voyager Entertainment
