An interview with Hideki Oka, the screenwriter of 'Space Battleship Yamato 2202: Warriors of Love,' who decided to quit cram school just to watch Yamato 2
' Space Battleship Yamato 2202: Warriors of Love,' a sequel to 'Space Battleship Yamato 2199,' is a remake of the film 'Space Battleship Yamato: Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato, Warriors of Love ' and the TV anime 'Space Battleship Yamato 2.' The third chapter, 'Pure Love,' has been showing in theaters since Saturday, October 14, 2017.
Space Battleship Yamato 2202: Warriors of Love
http://yamato2202.net/
The key visual for the currently released third chapter, 'Pure Love,' looks like this.
GIGAZINE (hereinafter, G):
Among the staff making '2202,' Oka is between Habara and series composer Harutoshi Fukui in terms of age. What kind of works had you been involved with before Yamato?
Hideki Oka (hereinafter, Oka):
At the time, both live-action and animated shows were called 'TV cartoons,' and I watched pretty much everything that was on TV when I was in elementary school.
G:
All of it!
hill:
Oh, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit. To explain, at the time, we had a strict rule in our house that we could only watch one hour of TV a day, so I was desperately trying to choose what to watch within that restriction, and watching all kinds of shows.
G:
Amazing...all in just an hour.
hill:
I would watch only the B-parts of 4 shows a day... (laughs). I would watch about 5-6 episodes, think 'Okay, I get it!', and then move on to another show. What a brat. There weren't many channels, so even if there was a rival show in the city, I could watch both in Hiroshima... that was the case a lot.
Nobuyoshi Habara (hereinafter, Habara):
Ah, I see.
hill:
The show we were told not to watch was '
Habara:
Eh!? Why not?
hill:
My parents said, 'If you watch it, you'll become stupid.' I liked the sex appeal of ' Lupin the Third, ' though.
G:
Is that safe? (laughs)
hill:
But even though people said that, I still watched Bakabon (laughs). So there are almost no shows I don't know at all. But isn't that the case for TV kids who grew up in a more carefree era back then?
Habara:
Indeed, I almost watched it.
hill:
Being the kind of kid I was, I would only draw pictures of monsters, Ultraman, and TV cartoons in my sketchbook.
Habara:
' Tiger Mask ,' for example.
hill:
Yes, Tiger Mask! When ' Kamen Rider ' started, the number of doodles of riders increased at once. ' Mazinger Z ' was also drawn while worrying, 'Wow, what is this face?' 'What kind of shape is it? I don't know'. Then, by the time of ' Great Mazinger ', the brain development had finally caught up and I was able to grasp complex three-dimensional objects, and at that time 'Yamato' appeared in the fall.
G:
I came.
hill:
And then I was like, 'I don't know!' (laughs)
(Everyone laughs)
hill:
'What is going on here?' It's too complicated, isn't it? There are an overwhelming number of lines, and in my head, I had an image of a stegosaurus flying through space. There are a lot of sharp points on the top of the ship, so from what I know, it's a stegosaurus.
From Chapter 3, Yamato travels through space.
(Everyone laughs)
Habara:
I see (lol)
hill:
My first impression was, 'What is this? What's going to happen next?', as I saw this stegosaurus-like foreign object with a creepy black hole in its face.
G:
Is that how you first met? At the time, you were collecting all the 'TV cartoons' regardless of the target age, and when Yamato came out, you all thought, 'This is the start of something amazing!'?
hill:
However, perhaps because I was in a different year from Habara-san, I have almost no impression of my friends talking about 'Yamato.'
Habara:
Hmm, I see.
hill:
At the time, I was also undecided and was in favor of the ' Monkey Army .' That's why I only saw 'Yamato' when it was first broadcast. However, my parents loved 'Yamato,' and as a child I had the idea of 'what does it mean to impress your parents?', so when Yamato was rebroadcast, I was engrossed in watching it. Many people nationwide became addicted to the rebroadcast, and I was one of them.
Habara:
Now that I think about it, that's what happened.
G:
As you grew up, did you ever feel embarrassed about anime and think you had grown out of it?
hill:
Yes, a little bit. I think it was around the end of the fourth grade. But I soon 're-enrolled' (laughs). For our generation, the revival boom had already started by the time we were in the fifth grade of elementary school. By that time, Yamato fan activities had gradually spread across the country, and a movement to re-evaluate
Habara:
oh yeah.
hill:
The summer of 1978, when ' Star Wars ' and 'Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato' came out, is an unforgettable summer that determined my fate. What I saw and felt then, the self that lived in that atmosphere, all of these things remain with me no matter how old I get. That's what motivated me to become an assistant director for movies and TV dramas, and it's probably the root of why I was invited by Mr. Habara to come here.
Habara:
I agree.
G:
I envy the fact that you were able to encounter and experience such a summer.
hill:
For me, the summer of 1978 is a sacred place. Personally, I feel like everything was decided in that summer.
Habara:
Given my age, it was probably the right time.
hill:
When you become a junior high school student, your horizons and everything else will broaden. That's when I watched the sequel to 'Space Battleship Yamato.' The following year, I watched ' Galaxy Express 999. ' I was immersed in the fantasy that 'somewhere far away, there is a wonderful world different from this one, and I'm traveling to it, and I'm sure that's what I'm doing.' It seems pretty crazy when I think about it now, but I think a lot of kids thought the same way back then.
G:
Did you all have fun in middle school?
hill:
Yes. There's no doubt that both boys and girls talked about 'Yamato.' However, after 'Gundam' came out, I had the impression that the attitude of the guys in my class towards fiction somehow changed. Before 'Gundam,' I think anime was summed up with the word 'romance.' Then 'Gundam' came along and taught everyone that 'cynicism,' 'adjusting to reality,' and 'those kinds of things can be in anime.' As a result, I think I started to look at anime a little more objectively and critically. This may just be because our growth and the progression of the work happened to be linked in that way, but I'm from that generation. However, as the world around me changed and the works changed, I was somehow always drawn to the old-fashioned scent of 'Yamato.'
G:
Hmm.
hill:
'Yamato' was in a class of its own; I continued to follow 'Yamato' in the hopes of experiencing that 'Yamato'-ness, and there were times when I watched other works while wondering if there was something that had a 'Yamato-like smell.'
G:
Are there any works other than the 'Yamato' series that have a 'Yamato' feel to them?
hill:
' Armored Fleet Dairugger XV .' 'Why is it so similar to Yamato?' I thought. It's similar in some ways to how it's not very sophisticated.
Habara:
Recognize!
hill:
There are some overlapping staff members, and Keisuke Fujikawa is the main scriptwriter. And it was a perfect match for ' Space Battleship Yamato.' I remember being overjoyed when I started watching it, thinking, 'I can experience even more of the Yamato-like feel!'
Habara:
That's because the staff are the same (laughs).
G:
Yamato, which became a major social phenomenon with 'Farewell,' returned as 'Space Battleship Yamato 2.' I heard that Mr. Habara had already decided to become an animator, and was happy to watch the series because Yoshinori Kaneda was also an animator. What about you, Mr. Oka?
hill:
I was deeply moved by 'Farewell' and cried tears at the end. But then it started nonchalantly two months later. I wondered what that line 'But I'll live forever in your heart, in your soul' was all about. I did think that, but then I thought 'I have to watch the whole thing since it's already started,' so I watched it anyway. In the end, I quit the cram school...
Habara:
Seriously! To see it?
hill:
On the day the first episode was broadcast, I made the mistake of skipping cram school. I thought to myself, 'This is a mistake I can't take back!' So, from the second episode onwards, I ended up abandoning cram school and choosing 'Yamato.'
G:
What! (laughs)
hill:
That's crazy for the fall of your first year of junior high school.
Habara:
At a time when English was becoming more and more difficult (laughs)
hill:
I wonder how I convinced my parents...I can't remember, but I quit.
G:
It's amazing that you chose to quit and watch it (laughs).
Habara:
This is the first time I've heard it too.
hill:
However, I missed the first episode.
Habara:
That's why I was even more disappointed.
hill:
Kids today probably can't imagine that it was a once-in-a-lifetime encounter (laughs).
Habara:
You can watch it on the internet (laughs). Back then, there was nothing like it being released on video.
hill:
This is a story from a time when most households did not even have videos.
G:
You mentioned earlier that the summer of 1978 was a milestone year for you. Was it around this time that you decided to pursue a career in film?
hill:
In July of that year, I went to see Star Wars. I had no idea when I left in the morning, but on the way home, I thought, 'I'm going to be a film director!' (laughs) There was no turnover at the time, so I stayed from morning to night and watched it four times. It's not like the saying 'If you don't see a man for three days, look closely,' but it was such a shock that I felt like a different person when I went and when I came back. I had seen movies before, but Star Wars was the first time I thought, 'I want to be on the production side.'
Habara:
Mr. Oka's family worked in the film industry, right?
hill:
No, my father was a banker and my mother was a dressmaker, so I was born into an ordinary family. But I ended up like that after watching Star Wars. Looking back, I think it was around that time that I started to look at things with a critical eye. I think Space Battleship Yamato 2 was the first anime I watched with that kind of awareness.
Habara:
'I would do it this way' (laughs)
hill:
Yeah. 'If it were me, I would do it this way.' That's the kind of feeling I had back then.
G:
After that, it may have been a big help to be able to see 'Yamato 2' from the perspective of a creator.
hill:
Talking about those days like this brings back memories. ...You know, it's strange, but at the time I had this feeling that 'it's only natural that Yamato exists.' Why did I think that?
Habara:
Isn't it because they happened one after the other?
hill:
Looking back now, there were many episodes, but the gap between each episode was five months or a year, which is a long time for a child. But for some reason, I didn't feel like it had disappeared... I think the world was thinking, 'We're not going to let go of Yamato.' There was a lot of enthusiasm for Yamato, including the commercial aspect, so I felt like Yamato was something you could watch anytime. I thought of it as something that was 'naturally there and really good, showing us something interesting every time.' But 'The Final Chapter' was different. That's because there was a clear atmosphere that the world no longer needed 'Yamato.' The only time I went to see it with the feeling of 'If I don't go, who will?' was 'The Final Chapter.'
Habara:
It was shown at the same time as '
G:
I am completely convinced that Mr. Habara recommended Mr. Oka.
Habara:
Right? I once watched 'Tiger Mask' with Oka-san while eating hotpot, and I felt that the way he felt while watching the film was very similar to how I felt, so I asked him to join me.
hill:
Yes. I was working in Indonesia and was away from Japan for about a year and a half, and just before I returned to Japan, I suddenly got an email from Mr. Habara saying, ' XEBEC has decided to make a sequel to 2199. Please write me a proposal.' (laughs)
Habara:
'Farewell' and 'Space Battleship Yamato 2'...
hill:
'It's a remake of the 'White Comet' arc.' At first I thought, 'Are they kidding me?' and 'What is going on?', but when I asked, I found out it was true, so I said, 'Okay, I'll give it some freedom,' and sent the proposal to Habara-san, and that's how it started.
G:
Will the screening of '2199' coincide with a time when you won't be in Japan?
hill:
I missed the seventh chapter of '2199,' so when I returned to Japan, I immediately rushed to TSUTAYA to watch it. I was in Indonesia when ' Ark of the Stars ' was released in theaters, so I watched it later on Blu-ray. I love 'Ark of the Stars,' and when Mr. Habara asked me about the 'proposal,' I thought, 'Does this sequel mean we're going to fight Gatlantis?... I guess it starts with a three-way stalemate between Garmillas, Gatlantis, and Earth...' and I wrote freely and threw it at Mr. Habara, feeling like I'd been given a topic, like a three-topic story.
G:
In this work, when writing the script, Harutoshi Fukui first creates the flow and divides it into episodes, and Oka creates the scenario. Everyone watches it and has a lively discussion, and then Fukui puts it together again at the end. Is this a common format?
Habara:
I think it's rare.
hill:
I don't think there are many.
G:
How much of it has already been decided at the stage where you 'create the flow' Mr. Fukui?
hill:
The outline of the story is completely done... is that the right way to put it? The amount varies from story to story, but overall it's a huge amount of text. The volume of the parts where Fukui-san thinks 'I want to write this' is particularly overwhelming. This is called a 'structure memo,' and the next step is to smooth it out into a 30-minute program. This is what I was doing, 'creating a long plot.'
G:
Are there any rules, like 'I'll definitely include this line from 'Farewell to Yamato'' or 'The line from 'Yamato 2' goes here'?
hill:
Although we have a policy of recreating famous scenes, I don't think there were any instructions in Fukui's original work to blatantly pull from lines. I didn't think about it at all when I first started working on it. There are times when I think, 'Ah... here it comes!' as I work on it (laughs).
G:
Do you ever write while listening to 'Yamato 2' or 'Sayonara'? I thought that might be necessary to bring out the lines, but do you rely entirely on your internal library?
hill:
The basics, like how lines and music come in, are imprinted on my mind. However, there are many differences between the finished film and the script. That's why I always kept this (Shueisha's ' Space Battleship Yamato Farewell: Warriors of Love Definitive Edition Roadshow Editing Vol. 2 ') on hand. This is the only copy that contains the original script.
G:
I see!
hill:
Also, the Deluxe Edition Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato, Warriors of Love includes a draft outline written by Masuda Toshio . Although the purpose was not to exactly repeat 'Farewell,' Masuda Toshio's draft was important in getting back to the goal the staff had when creating the framework for the drama at the time.
Amazon.co.jp: Deluxe Edition Farewell Space Battleship Yamato: Warriors of Love: Reiji Matsumoto, Yoshinobu Nishizaki: Books
hill:
Also,
During the interview, Mr. Oka showed me three books.
Habara:
That's certainly true.
G:
This time too, when you were rereading the script, was there anything you noticed again?
hill:
I think that 'Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato' is the most 'purely shaped' of the full-length Yamato films. Especially the first 30 minutes, from the start of Yamato to the takeoff, are flawless and efficient. I was reminded of the sharpness of Masuda Toshio's work at the time. Come to think of it, I watched a lot of Masuda Toshio's films in between work...
Habara:
Which one? Like '
hill:
I also saw 'Tora! Tora! Tora!' and ' Zero Fighter Black Cloud Family .' The climax of that film was the basis for 'Space Battleship Yamato: Farewell.' The Yamato the Movie really has a strong Masuda influence. I was able to confirm that.
G:
After writing the script this time, were there any parts that you thought were well done or that were difficult but definitely worth checking out?
hill:
In Chapter 3, it's the tenth episode.
Habara:
Are you talking about space fireflies?
hill:
That's right. It's based on an episode from Yamato 2. I was surprised when Fukui told me that he was going to do Hotaru. In the second half, the Space Cavalry and the Yamato crew are on the brink of a showdown. That part changed a lot at the storyboard and direction stage.
Habara:
yes.
Saito Hajime of Kodai and the Space Cavalry.
hill:
That's the wonderful thing about it. I thought, 'That's fine, that's the correct interpretation!'
Habara:
I see, that's good (laughs). I hope you'll go to the theater and see for yourself what's really going on.
hill:
Fukui-san wrote in the composition memo that 'this is an unavoidable part,' and I wrote it somewhat vividly in response to that, but I was surprised to see that it was directed with a completely different interpretation. Something I could never have imagined came up. I really like that scene.
Habara:
By the way,
hill:
Oh! Is that so? (laughs) That's surprising, it's episode ten.
Habara:
I thought it might come in episode 9, but Fukui-san recommended episode 10 (laughs).
hill:
Episode 10 is an episode that has a 'Yamato-like feel.'
Habara:
Yes, it does have a 'Yamato 2' feel to it.
G:
So we can see how things have changed. Thank you very much for your time today.
'Space Battleship Yamato 2202: Warriors of Love' Chapter 3 'Pure Love' will be screened in theaters nationwide for three weeks only from Saturday, October 14, 2017. The series is made up of seven chapters, which will be screened in theaters one after another. In addition, the theaters are selling the special limited edition Blu-rays in advance to coincide with the release.
The fourth chapter, 'Heaven's Destiny', will begin screening in theaters on Saturday, January 27, 2018.
©Yoshinobu Nishizaki/Space Battleship Yamato 2202 Production Committee
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