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 more details are found and loose ends are tied together, history becomes … Continue reading →
Nov 13, 2022 • Subscribe
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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…
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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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.…
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 7
As the final month leading up to 2205 Chapter 2 counted down, the pace picked up significantly with lots of online activity, product announcements, and an unexpected announcement…
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This week on The Frontline Report: The Detective is Already Dead, The aquatope on white sands, final thoughts on Fate/Zero
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Weekly thoughts on Blue Reflection Ray, Sonny Boy, and Kageki Shojo!!
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
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
Fall 2022 – Week 7
Sunrise on Mt Hiwada… Such a darn good sequence. Anyhow, time to wrap up the week. Some good eps, some great eps, some otherwise. All that and the…
Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury, My Hero Academia, Encouragement of Climb, Mobile Suit Gundam
Fall 2020 – Week 7
More crazy in the world, but still – anime continues to air and we’re still talking about ’em. There’s some good stuff this week and a couple of…
Be Forever Yamato REBEL 3199 Report 7
Things heated up quickly in the month of June, and not just from proximity to the sun. The final month before the premiere of 3199 Chapter 1 was…
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…
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…
Fall 2021 – Week 7/8
Yeah, whoops! The holiday week and my wife taking vacation days caused my scattered brain to lose track of days… So, don’t want to lose the momentum which…
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Episode #83 (S11E3) – House [ハウス] (1977)
Fellow podcaster KJ Brown joins Perry for a fun discussion of the infamous 1977 horror film, House! Widely regarded as one of the weirdest movies ever produced. We…
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…
Fall 2019 Summary – Weeks 7-8
Wooper: It’s Thanksgiving and Black Friday week in the U.S., but we’ve got a new site to promote, so the flow of fresh content must proceed. Lenlo is…
Fall 2023 – Week 7 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Having now gotten fully settled into my new accommodations, I am happy to report that life indeed finds a…
Fall 2019 – Week 7 in Review
I really don’t know how this happened, but somehow we have arrived at Wednesday once again. With the overall year drifting into its final stages, I find myself…
Fall 2020 Summary – Week 6-7
Houkago Teibou Nisshi – 07 Wooper: This episode was a reaction face gold mine. As Hina gets more comfortable around her new friends in the Breakwater Club, she’s…