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 everything was already in production as the year began and there was … Continue reading →
Aug 4, 2022 • Subscribe
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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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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…
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 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 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 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…
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 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 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 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,…
Summer ’24 Mid-Season Report, part 1
The week of 8/11 marked the official halfway point of the Summer 2024 season, so it’s time to take a look at how various series have been faring.…
2.5 Dimensional Seduction, Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian, Quality Assurance in Another World
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We’re approaching the midpoint of the Spring 2024 season, and thanks to having more free time on my hands than expected, I am still keeping up with way…
The Banished Former Hero Lives as He Pleases, The Irregular at Magic High School, A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics, Delicious in Dungeon, Laid-Back Camp
Spiraken Con Report: Animenext 2014 Part 1
In This awesome episode of Spiraken's Con Review, Xan and Baz talks about their awesome weekend at at the Garden State Exhibition Center in Somerset, NJ from June…
Fall 2024 Mid-Season Report, part 1
Week 7 of the Fall ’24 season marks the season’s official midway point, so let’s take a look at how some of the series airing this season are…
365 Days to the Wedding, DAN DA DAN, Let This Grieving Soul Retire, Loner Life in Another World, 2.5 Dimensional Seduction
The Winter 2019 Anime Final Report, Part 1
In a shock to almost no one, the long forecasted demise of anime did not occur during the recently completed Winter 2019 season. Instead, we got another solid…
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Persona 4 Analysis Part 1
For the tenth anniversary of one of our favorite games ever, Doc and Shadon do a deep dive analysis of their favorite themes, characters, story beats and more!…
Japan trip 2014 – Part 1/4: Tokyo
こんにちは. This post is probably 4 months late but better late than never, right? After years of dreaming, I finally made the pilgrimage to the holy land this…
Understanding Obayashi: House (1977)
Nobuhiko Obayashi’s House is an incredible film, and here I talk about some of its cultural context and thematic meanings.
Space Battleship Yamato 2205 Report 4
You have to go all the way back to January 18 (the premiere of 2202 Chapter 4) to find a match for all the Yamato action October had…
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The Frontline Report [4/2/22]
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Summer ’24 Mid-Season Report, part 2
This part of the report is for series which are hitting their seventh (or, in one case, sixth) episode during the week of 8/18. Plus, I’m adding in…
Dungeon People, Mission: Yozakura Family, Plus-Sized Elf, Why Does Nobody Remember Me in This World?
Fall ’24 Mid-Season Report, part 2
See here for part 1. This half of the report covers Orb (which I somehow overlooked in my first half) and all fall season series I have been…
Shangri-La Frontier, Spheres, The Do-Over Damsel Conquers the Dragon Emperor, Bleach, Demon Lord 2099
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For the tenth anniversary of one of our favorite games ever, Doc and Shadon do a deep dive analysis of their favorite themes, characters, story beats and more!…
Yamato movie time machine, 1977
1977 was the year anime became a mainstream phenomenon in Japanese media. It started slowly at the fringes, but when the Yamato movie hit pop culture like a…
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After the big announcements on January 3, everything went quiet again until March 2024 when we got the first news of official merch and a reveal of new…
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