Stop the presses moment: in the course of writing these vintage reports, new discoveries inevitably pop up that belonged in previous reports. Sometimes they warrant special attention, and this is one of those. So our report on December 1978 begins … Continue reading →
Aug 24, 2023 • Subscribe
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Vintage Report 13: September 1978
The month following the incredible box office success of Farewell to Yamato was both a victory lap and the beginning of a marathon. As new media coverage and…
Vintage Report 12: August 1978
This was the month when all the suspense finally broke. Farewell to Yamato destroyed all previous box office records for anime films (including that of Yamato itself) with…
Vintage Report 11: July 1978
The final month before the Farewell to Yamato premiere was a steady climb of excitement and anticipation as film production plowed through its final stages and publicity ratcheted…
Vintage Report 15: November 1978
Though Farewell to Yamato was no longer in theaters in November 1978, it continued to dominate the discourse, both in media and merchandising. But it was no longer…
Vintage Report 14: October 1978
To understand how significant this month was, here’s a metaphor. Imagine that it’s July 1977, two months after Star Wars exploded into the world. Now, without buying a…
Vintage Report EXTRA, 1978-1981
It may be impossible to construct a complete timeline of Yamato history in the Vintage Report series since previously unknown artifacts can emerge at any time, and sometimes…
Vintage Report 10: 1978, Part 2
As 1978 approached its midpoint, Yamato fever was heating up. The publicity campaign was just starting to ramp up, but production was running at full speed as the…
Vintage Report 9: 1978, Part 1
As the new year began, the Yamato movie was still raking in box office profits after an incredible five months. After a slowdown in December, the New Year’s…
Vintage Report 32: December 1980
As we look back over the entire sweep of 1980, December was the lightest month with the least amount of activity. That wasn’t the case for Yoshinobu Nishizaki,…
Vintage Report 8: November/December 1977
If we were to name this specific stretch of Yamato history, the appropriate word would probably be “Afterglow.” The feature film was still burning up the box office…
Vintage Report 23: November/December 1979
The fan community didn’t know it yet, but the end of 1979 tipped them just past the halfway point between The New Voyage and the next big adventure,…
Vintage Report 3: 1976
Of all the original production years, 1976 was definitely the leanest. Total “above-the-surface” activity was less than what occurs during a typical month in the remake years. As…
Vintage Report 2: 1975
The simplest description of Yamato‘s arc in 1974 would be “a herculean rise leading to a sudden fall.” An enormous amount of effort to get the thing off…
Vintage Report 30: October 1980
You have to push pretty hard to top the premiere of a new TV series, but the publishing community did its best with the last big wave of…
Vintage Report 18: February 1979
As Yamato 2 moved into its post-Telezart phase with four very compelling episodes, development continued on The New Voyage, media coverage intensified, and new books kept the world…
Vintage Report 31: November 1980
After Yamato III‘s first month on the air, Be Forever was still rippling through the publishing world and all seemed well in camp. At least on the surface.…
Vintage Report 26: June 1980
As Toei Studio’s animation staff labored through their final month on Be Forever Yamato, the publicity machine ramped up with major media coverage and the first live events…
Auto-tagged Be Forever Yamato
Vintage Report 29: September 1980
As Be Forever Yamato closed its premiere run in Japanese theaters, spinoff media became more concentrated as the first dedicated books appeared, and magazines became the first source…
Auto-tagged Be Forever Yamato
Vintage Report 28: August 1980
The enormous momentum that built up in July burst wide open on the first two days of August with the hotly-anticipated premiere of Be Forever Yamato. Familiar patterns…
Auto-tagged Be Forever Yamato
Vintage Report 7: Fall 1977
The events and artifacts in this account took place several decades ago, but the actual research in putting them all in order inevitably leads to new discoveries. As…
Vintage Report 1: 1973-74
As Yamato Resurrection approached in 2009, this website took on a new dimension when the Yamato saga returned to real time and there was news to report every…
Vintage Report 27: July 1980
This was the last round before the premiere of Be Forever Yamato in theaters, and thus became the single busiest month in all of Yamato history until the…
Auto-tagged Be Forever Yamato
Vintage Report 6: September 1977
As summer gave way to fall, Yamato‘s fortunes just kept on climbing. The initial theatrical engagements ended just before September started, but far more theaters were picking the…
Vintage Report 5: August 1977
The whole world changed for the better in August 1977, and that is not an exaggeration. With the August 8 premiere of Space Battleship Yamato, the entire anime…
Auto-tagged Space Battleship Yamato
Vintage Report 17: January 1979
At the dawn of 1979, Yoshinobu Nishizaki’s Office Academy studio was on the highest trajectory ever seen in the TV anime industry, which at the time was just…
December monthly report.
From now on I'm going to do monthly reports on additions to my web pages rather than spread things out. For December there are changes to th...
Yamato 2 production site report, 1978
From the January 1979 issue of Kodansha’s manga magazine Mimi comes this six-page exploration of the Yamato 2 production office at Academy Studio, filled with insider details and…
Auto-tagged Space Battleship Yamato
Vintage Report 24: January-March 1980
The new decade dawned with the making of a new Yamato adventure that would be just one part of Academy Studio’s busiest year of them all. While the…
Auto-tagged Be Forever Yamato
Vintage Report 20, May/June 1979
This stretch of time can be described as a gap, since it marked the period between the Yamato 2 finale and the broadcast premiere of The New Voyage.…
Vintage Report 21: July/August 1979
For a two-month period that didn’t actually see a large amount of activity, this was a huge moment for Yamato fans. July in particular delivered a big one-two…
Vintage Report 19, March/April 1979
The spring months of 1979 saw the first slowdown in Yamato activity since the previous summer, which was inevitable given that the intervening period was the busiest in…
Vintage Report 4: 1977, Part 1
It is no exaggeration to state that the period covered in this report was the most pivotal time in all of Yamato history. The movie that would change…
Vintage Report 25: April/May 1980
The runup to summer 1980 was deceptively quiet on the surface, but momentum was building like a freight train underneath as Be Forever moved into the second half…
Auto-tagged Be Forever Yamato
Vintage Report 22: September/October 1979
As summer merged into fall, the world of Yamato was only getting bigger in the wake of The New Voyage, and Office Academy studio was only getting busier.…
Vintage Report 34: 1981, second quarter
After the final episode of Yamato III aired in early April, Exec Producer Yoshinobu Nishizaki found himself in an uncommon situation. For the first time since early 1978,…
Vintage Report 33: 1981, first quarter
After a banner year like 1980, it could only be expected that Yamato activity would decline, and it certainly did. In this time period, the second half of…
Monthly Report for December 2024
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Author Journey (December 16, 2024)
Last week was a far more productive week than either of the weeks before it, but it was still a constant battle to get anywhere. That said, reaching…
Space Battleship Yamato 2205 Report 16
October 2022 was one of the busier Yamato months we’ve had since the premiere of 2205 Chapter 2, especially at the end when it started to heat up…
Auto-tagged Space Battleship Yamato
![Featured image for The Frontline Report [1/16/22]](https://cdn.aniblogtracker.com/live/20220116/1642345114.29315.56857.jpg)
The Frontline Report [1/16/22]
This week: Ousama Ranking, Tokyo 24th Ward, My Dress-Up Darling, CUE!, and Artiswitch!
Auto-tagged Artiswitch, CUE!, My Dress-Up Darling, Ranking of Kings, Tokyo 24th Ward
TSUTAYA Weekly Manga Sales Ranking: December 16 – December 22, 2024
There have been some changes to the reporting style here on the Blog. Please refer to the post here for further information. All of the data you find…
Auto-tagged BLUE LOCK, Fighting Spirit, Diary of Our Days at the Breakwater, Possibly the Greatest Alchemist of All Time, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
NC 1978
The 2011 anime series Tiger & Bunny takes place in NC 1977 to NC 1978. While this clearly isn’t our 1970s, there is no such place as Sternbild…
Auto-tagged Tiger & Bunny
Japan Top Weekly Video Game Ranking: December 16 – December 22, 2024
Total hardware sales for those tracked and published on Famitsu’s weekly posts had shown a jump in sales for the week by 7.59% with significant gains observed by…
Make Believe Melodies For December 16, 2024
Can I Get The Year-End List Out This Week??? Well, Hopefully A Shorter Round-Up Will Help
Top Weekly Manga Sold in the US: December 10 – December 16, 2023
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COMIC ZIN Weekly Manga Sales Ranking via Natalie: December 16 – December 22, 2024
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Auto-tagged TONIKAWA: Over The Moon For You
Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – December 16, 2023
Welcome back to the middle of “holy crow, jet lag is a thing” week. I had planned on writing up a bunch of stuff, but crashing to the…
Inside Academy Studio, 1978
One of the most significant differences between the making of Yamato Series 1 and Series 2 was public perception. In 1974/75, there was no anime journalism to speak…
1978: Anime's Greatest Year?
Japanese animation, anime, cartoons, manga, 1960-1990, Tezuka, Miyazaki, Ishinomori, Matsumoto, Yamato, Gatchaman, Star Blazers, Captain Harlock
Auto-tagged Lupin III