Space Battleship Yamato
Japanese anime television series
Space Battleship Yamato (Japanese: 宇宙戦艦ヤマト, Hepburn: Uchū Senkan Yamato; also called Cosmoship Yamato and Star Blazers) is a Japanese science fiction anime series written by Yoshinobu Nishizaki, directed by manga artist Leiji Matsumoto, and produced by Academy Productions. The series aired in Yomiuri TV from October 6, 1974, to March 30, 1975, totaling up to 26 episodes. It revolves around the character Susumu Kodai (Derek Wildstar in the English version) and an international crew from Earth, tasked during an interstellar war to go into space aboard the space warship Yamato, derived from the World War II battleship of the same name, in response to a message of aid from the planet Iscandar in order to retrieve a device which is able to reverse the radiation infecting Earth after being bombed by the Gamilas (Gamilons).
Space Battleship Yamato is one of the most influential anime series in Japan. Its turn toward serious themes and complex storylines influenced later works in the medium, including Gundam, Macross, and Evangelion, in addition to influencing the style of video games such as Space Invaders.
Development
The first ideas for what would eventually be Space Battleship Yamato began in 1973 by producer Yoshinobu Nishizaki, but the project underwent a number of revisions and overhauls before settling on the final design. The team responsible for the creation of Space Battleship Yamato consisted of Yoshinobu Nishizaki, Keisuke Fujikawa, Eiichi Yamamoto and Aritsune Toyota. It was initially planned to be a tokusatsu, and Nishizaki was inspired to create something set in space after reading Methuselah's Children. Aritsune Toyota offered his 1970 novel Desecrated Earth (地球の汚名, Chikyū no Omei) as a further source of inspiration for Nishizaki.
In 1973, works such as The Poseidon Adventure and Japan Sinks were enjoying considerable success.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Space Battleship Yamato” is japanese anime television series. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Space, Battleship and Yamato, not as a finished interpretation.
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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4292. VIAF identifies the subject as 185996459. The Library of Congress control number is no2013137676. None of the 2 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1974, 1975, 1973 and 1970.
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This entry incorporates text from “Space Battleship Yamato” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.