日本語 | English

■ We are featuring Stationery from Feb. 29 to Mar. 30.







Atom_feed
Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato
We Must Bid Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato
Date:17, Dec, 2019
Investigated and Written by Misaka Youhei
About our introductory articles


Hello, everyone. I'm talking about "Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato." It is a Japanese animation film released in 1978 August. Space Battleship Yamato first appeared as a TV animation program in the middle of 1970's. And the clip show film released in 1977. The TV animation was not popular, but the film became a hit. Then, they decided to make the 2nd film. Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato was made thus as the finale of the series. They say it marked a record high of 4,000,000 visitors at the time. 4 million! Don't you feel difficult to imagine the whole? I do. Well, why did it become popular in great numbers in 1978?

First, what story does the Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato have? Talking simply, it is a story about the fictional war in the universe. In fact, Space Opera were very popular and built industries in the latter 1970's. In 1977 America, the first film of Star Wars was released and became a big hit. It came to Japan and also got a hit in 1978. In 1979, Alien was released and became a hit among U.S. and Japan. Mobile Suit Gundam also appeared as a TV animation program in 1979.

In 1960's, Japan was still poorer than the West. Japan became rich in 1970's, and you can find the economic conflict between the United States and Japan over the trade in the decade. In 1970's, the United States fell into raptures over the military expansion race (in vain) against the Soviet Union, and already had a lot of their budget deficit. On the other hand, Japan had desperately grown up and became a temporary No.1 in the world economy.

As the European Community's report in 1979 said that Japanese people lived in rabbit hutches and worked like workaholics, Japanese people had worked hard in order to be rich. Great! But I suppose they didn't think about what to do after becoming rich. When you reach to the mountain top, you have nowhere to climb anymore. So it is supposed that they were lost since didn't find where they had to head for next.

Surprisingly, more than half of the Japanese people were under 33 years old in 1978. Young! It means that the film was mostly loved by Japanese youngsters. I suppose they were almost lost. "What should I work for?" When they cannot find what to do in reality, some desire to run away to virtual reality. Then, most people needed Space Opera at the end of 1970's. My personal opinion says so.

Today we are not as rich as we once were. What does it mean? We won't need virtual reality from now on. We are not so rich that we cannot afford to escape from reality. And it is supposed that most of the Space Opera industries have already finished their part. We should probably bid farewell to Space Battleship Yamato now.

About Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato

・Directed by Matsumoto Reiji & Masuda Toshio
・Generally Directed by Nishizaki Yoshinobu
・Original Story by Matsumoto Reiji & Masuda Toshio
・Music by Miyagawa Hiroshi
・Distributed by Toei
・Release: August 5, 1978
・Total time: 151 min.







 

Black Jack the Movie
Dezaki, Olympics, and HIV-tainted Blood Scandal

Crayon Shin-chan the Movie 2014
Requiem for the Phantom of Patriarchy?