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 17 years old. Choosing to strike the iron while hot, he took … Continue reading →
Oct 6, 2023 • Subscribe
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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 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 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 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 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 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 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…
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 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 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 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 16: December 1978
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…
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 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…
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 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…
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 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…
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…
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 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 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 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 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…
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 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 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 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 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…
January 2024 monthly report
I added a new page in the Tokyo Stroll web supplement for Kita ku http://www.koyagi.com/TokyoStroll/TSKitaku.html Added a note on the tempo...
Farewell to Yamato panel book, January 1979
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Author Journey (January 17, 2022)
Last week was another one focused purely on survival. Thankfully, I don’t mean in the literal sense. My main goals were to keep the kids entertained and fed,…
Space Battleship Yamato 2205 Report 17
Yamato world stayed just about as busy in November as the previous few months, always a good sign when there’s no new anime to supercharge things. News announcements,…
Special - Alien (1979)
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1979 Voice Actor interviews
In the wake of The New Voyage, the popularity of Yamato‘s voice actors continued to grow in parallel with Yamato itself and the overall anime boom it helped…
Yoshinobu Nishizaki profile, 1979
The magazine Gallantmen was so close in style and content to the Japanese Playboy, you could have switched covers and not known the difference. Why has it come…
Vintage manga Twitch stream!
Happy new year, friends! This Sunday (Jan 21, 2024), I'll be doing a chill stream where I'll flip through some vintage manga with y'all and ...
Vintage Yamato doujinshi archive
The importance of doujinshi (fanzines) in the early years of Space Battleship Yamato cannot be underestimated. Thanks to a handful of fans who visited the Office Academy animation…
Office Academy brochure, May 1979
Anticipating the character of the times: ACADEMY ’79-’80 This is the front and back cover of a unique time capsule of anime history, the 16-page company brochure for…
The Execution Game (1979) review
A satisfying and stylish conclusion full of captivating action-sequences.
Kanada and Tomonaga, 1978-1979
This article is an annex to this piece 1979 was no doubt a busy year in the anime industry, and especially so in the careers of Yoshinori Kanada…
A Vintage Discovery – Death Hunter
One of my favorite hobbies is finding semi-obscure one-shot manga that will never be translated into English at second-hand stores. It’s nothing serious and I only do this…
This Week: At Home And Around Tokyo For January 17-23
A lot is happening this week: think a major organic festival, a massive sumo tournament, a hot pot celebration, a favorite musical, unique exhibitions exploring the delicate details…
The New Voyage Time Machine, 1979
Contained here is a complete record of media coverage for The New Voyage from the first teaser to the last lookback, spanning all of 1979. April 9: Middle…
Status Report
Status Report Hey gang. It is kinda frustrating for me to not be able to do what I’d like to do at times. When I quit playing Marvel…
The Inferno (地獄, Tatsumi Kumashiro, 1979)
No one can escape from their sins according to the ominous voiceover that opens Tatsumi Kumashiro’s loose reimagining of Nobuo Nakagawa’s Jigoku, The Inferno (地獄, Jigoku). Then again,…
Mobile Suit Gundam (1979) | An Anime Retrospective
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