While the television anime program Space Battleship Yamato was in production, director Leiji Matsumoto also created a version of the story in manga form, which ran from October 1974 to March 1975. Appearing monthly, it features some marked changes from what was shown in the televised series. It's interesting to note the methods by which Matsumoto managed to summarize several weeks of episodes into a monthly "catch up" episode and yet maintain a sense of suspense. Below are synopses of each monthly chapter.
- In 2199 A.D., the people of Earth have been forced underground by radiation "planet bombs" dropped by the alien Gamilons. Earth warships intercept a Gamilon fleet near Pluto but are soundly defeated and forced to retreat. A torpedo ship commanded by Mamoru Kodai remains behind and is apparently destroyed. Meanwhile, two cadets, Susumu Kodai (Mamoru's younger brother) and Daisuke Shima, investigate a crashed spacecraft on Mars and discover the body of a beautiful alien woman. They also retrieve an information capsule which, back on Earth, reveals itself to be a message from Starsha of Iscandar, who tells mankind that she can help them if they journey to her planet. Later, while in pursuit of an alien fighter, Kodai and Shima sight the ruins of the WWII battleship Yamato, embedded in the dry earth.
- In an underground medical ward, Kodai and Shima meet a nurse named Yuki, as well as a veterinarian named Doctor Sado and his robot assistant Analyzer. They are all summoned to Earth HQ where they board the space battleship Yamato. When a Gamilon carrier appears, Captain Okita has Kodai fire the Yamato's shock cannons, which destroys it. Next, a giant Gamilon missile approaches. The Yamato is forced to make an immediate launch in order to avoid destruction.
- The Gamilon missile detonates but the Yamato is undamaged. As it leaves Earth space, Gamilon destroyers approach. In order to evade them, Okita orders the Yamato to perform a space warp to Mars. However the "wave motion" engine goes out of control, causing a breach in the hull. Nearing Jupiter, the crew detect a Gamilon base stationed on the planet's fabled floating continent. They fire the "wave motion gun" which destroys the floating continent, and brings the wave motion engine back under control.
- On Pluto, Gamilon Commander Schultz tests his "reflex gun" on a mock up of the Yamato and destroys it. Ten days later, Gamilon Leader Desslar is informed that the Pluto base has been destroyed by the Yamato. However, Commander Hiss reveals to him that the Yamato is trapped in a field of Gamilon space mines just outside the solar system.
- After Analyzer defuses the space minefield master control, the Yamato crew clear the mines away from the ship with their bare hands. While approaching Rigel, the ship becomes hindered by a magnetic space net (force field). Desslar uses this opportunity to deploy a corrosive gas to destroy the Yamato, or force it to head towards Rigel. When a solar prominence from Rigel threatens to incinerate the Yamato, Okita orders Kodai to fire the wave motion gun, clearing a path. In order to escape the gravity well of the star, the Yamato does an emergency warp, but emerges in the Magellanic stream's "space sargasso".
- Outside the sargasso, Gamilon General Domel and his fleet fire at the Yamato while it is stuck inside. However, the Yamato receives a message from Starsha of Iscandar to follow a mysterious craft and escape through a gateway. After reaching safety, the mysterious black craft demands food and supplies from the Yamato. When the cloaked commander, Captain Harlock, recognizes Kodai amongst the Yamato's crew, he leaves them without asking for further aid. Soon, the Yamato approaches planet Balan. The Gamilons try to crush the Yamato with its artificial sun, but the wave motion gun destroys the satellite's core, causing it to crash into the Gamilon base.
- In the Dark Nebula on the outer border of Gamilon's own system, Domel attaches his saucer ship to the bottom of the Yamato and initiates a self-destruct sequence, hoping to take it down in the blast. Fortunately, the Yamato survives the explosion and sights Iscandar. Much later, the Earth receives an information capsule describing the Yamato's destruction of Desslar's capitol on Gamilon and subsequent arrival on Iscandar. While guarded in space by Captain Harlock's ship, the Yamato crew had obtained the cosmo-cleaner from Starsha and are now on their way back to Earth. On the Yamato, Kodai suspects that Harlock was in reality his brother Mamoru, and that Starsha was his lover. Suddenly Desslar attacks (emerging from a warp) and boards the Yamato, flooding it with radioactive gas. Yuki uses the cosmo-cleaner to disperse the gas but is injured in the process. After a brief retreat, Desslar attacks again, this time firing his wave motion gun at the Yamato, but Sanada's reflective shielding causes the blast to rebound on Desslar's own craft, destroying it. As the Yamato nears Earth in 2200, Captain Okita dies from his wounds, but Yuki regains consciousness.
For more on this manga series check out CosmoDNA's excellent articles here and here.
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| The Battle of Jupiter, ca. 2199 |
In 1976, Matsumoto also published a "side story", which takes placed during Iscandar/Gamilon arc. In
a framing sequence taking place after the Yamato has destroyed
Desslar's carrier and is about to reach Earth, a woman named Jura thinks
back on events which took place while the Yamato had still been
journeying to Iscandar...
Desslar's lover Mela (a telepath
from the planet Siren) and their daughter Jura have been exiled to Siren
so that they will not be able to read Desslar's thoughts and influence
his policies. However, the Gamilon leader orders Mela to probe the minds of the Yamato
crew and cause them to experience disturbing hallucinations. The Yamato
detects the source of these dark psychic manipulations and heads towards
planet Siren. Seeing this, Desslar asks Mela to transmit to him all of the
Yamato crew's secrets before they arrive, but she resists. Desslar then
sends a Gamilon force to destroy Mela and Jura, but the Yamato arrives
just in time to destroy the Gamilon force with the wave motion gun. Mela
takes her own life rather than help either the Gamilons or the
Earthlings. Jura departs the planet alone and observes the Yamato's
progress from afar.
When the film Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato: Soldiers of Love and its resulting second series were in production, Matsumoto began writing and drawing a manga adaptation of this sequence as well (published from July 1978 to December 1979). Unfortunately, he only adapted about half of the narrative before abandoning it.
- In the year 2201, Dr Sado honors Captain Okita at his monument alone. While commanding a transport patrol ship, Kodai intercepts an S.O.S. message from an Earth fleet outside the solar system. However the fleet is destroyed by unknown invaders. At the same time, Kodai's craft records a mysterious signal coming from deep space.
- On Earth, Sanada begins to decrypt the mysterious signal, but in the process causes a massive system-wide overload. In space, the new fleet destroyer Andromeda takes off from Earth HQ on a test run, causing Kodai great anger when it cuts across into his own ship's flight path while returning from space.
- Back on Earth, the former crew of the Yamato meet in honor of the 2 year anniversary of Captain Okita's death. With Analyzer's help, Sanada decodes part of the message received from deep space, revealed to be a call for help. Meanwhile, a strange comet approaches the Earth, although the Earth government is unconcerned about it. In fact, they have ordered the Yamato to be scrapped.
- Kodai visits the empty Yamato, and the lights mysteriously flicker on the bridge.
- The crew of the Yamato decide to take off against orders in the Yamato. As Earth HQ tries to order them to disperse, a blackout affects Earth, Venus and the moon, and an alien ship is spotted in the skies above Earth.
- The Earth Chief of Staff has mines deployed outside the Yamato's underwater berth to stop the Yamato's take off, but the Director has them defused. The Yamato launches from its underwater berth and is unharmed by the mines.
- With Shima making a late arrival at the helm, the Yamato breaks free of the surface of the ocean and heads into the sky.
- The Yamato destroys the EDF battle satellites deployed against it in Earth orbit. Near Mars, the Yamato is confronted by the Andromeda and its commander Hijikata.
- The Yamato and the Andromeda narrowly scrape by each other. Hijikata decides to let them pass in honor of Captain Okita. Kato and his Black Tiger squadron reunite with the Yamato. Additionally, some strange alien fighters appear behind the ship and then veer off. In short order the Yamato receives a message from Earth HQ asking them to go to the aid of the Eleventh Planet, which is under hostile attack.
- The Yamato warps to the Eleventh Planet, but one of the alien fighters lodges in its hull just before the warp is complete. This compromises the Yamato's ability to engage full engine power.
- Heading away from the solar system (and the Milky Way Galaxy), the Yamato crew dislodge the alien ship from the hull, but it self-destructs. Kodai thinks back on the events of the past few days...
- When the Yamato had arrived at Planet Eleven the battle had already ended. However, a small craft containing Space Marines led by a man named Saito had been rescued. Kodai eventually tells Saito that an alien craft had crashed into the Yamato but that the aliens have been captured (although their ship self-destructed).
- The Yamato warps towards planet Telezart, as one of the alien ships monitors their progress and reports back to their mysterious leader.
For more on this manga series check out CosmoDNA's excellent article here.
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| The Old Underground Earth HQ, 2201 |
All of these comics are now available (in English) from Seven Seas.
