Be Forever Yamato (ヤマトよ永遠に Yamato yo Towa ni) is the third theatrical film based on the classic anime series Space Battleship Yamato).[1]
Synopsis[]
In year 2202 The Black Nebula Empire, last seen in Yamato: The New Voyage launches a huge fortress into Earth's solar system. It plunges through Earth's defensive systems and lands on Earth, sending out invasion forces. A Black Nebulan fleet wipes out Earth's space fleets. The invasion fortress contained a bomb capable of destroying half the planet. The Nebulans will use it if attacked by Earth.
The Yamato is launched from a secret base in the asteroid belt with the mission of finding the Black Nebulan mother planet. It is from this planet that the bomb is controlled. Yuki gets left behind on Earth and is captured by a kind Black Nebulan Intelligence Officer, Lt. Alphon. Kodai's brother Mamoru, dies (technically for the second time, because he was thought to have died in the quest for Iscandar) in a suicide bombing allowing Heikuro Todoto escaping capture. The Earth government collapses.
The Black Nebula is a double, spiral galaxy very near the Milky Way. The disc that faces Earth is made of black, inert matter which obscures all light from the other disc. For this reason, it had never been seen before. The Yamato's encounter with the Black Nebulans in Yamato: New Journey is the only reason the Earthers now know of it.
The Yamato gets three new crew members. First is Shiro Kato, the original Kato's younger brother. The original Kato had died in the battle with the Comet Empire. The second member is Sasha (Called Mio Sanada to avoid confusing the crew due to her age), daughter of Starsha and Mamoru. Sasha has grown from infancy to a teen in about 1 Earth-year. This is the Iscandarian aging process. Amazingly, her education has kept pace. The third new member is a new captain, Captain Osamu Yamanami.
The Yamato reaches the other side of the Black Nebula, through a vortex at its center, revealing a grand, white galaxy, similar to the Milky Way. They follow a beacon signal to a planet that looks just like Earth. They land, and are greeted by an apparently-human woman, Sada, and two officers from the Black Nebulan Empire. They meet the Emperor, Scaldart, who also appears to be a human. He tells them that they are actually back in the Milky Way, in the year 2402. The vortex was a hole in time. The Earth has been under Black Nebulan rule for 200 years, and he is the (puppet) governor. Scaldart shows Susumu and the landing party all sorts of collections of Earth's famous artwork, and, up on the Yamato, the video screen scans the surface of the planet to find all of Earth's famous landmarks.
Scaldart shows them a time viewing machine which tells the history of the Yamato and her crew from 2199 up until the present. Then he shows them the future. The Yamato, in orbit above Earth, is destroyed by the enemy's fleet and its flagship, the Grodaze, in 2402.
The landing crew returns, demoralized, to the Yamato, except for Sasha who seems to have foreknowledge of her true destiny. She abandons the party and remains on conquered Earth. Alone on Earth's surface, her mother Starsha appears in a vision. She tells Sasha that she was born between Iscandar and Earth, and that her destiny is to die far from both, in service of both.
In orbit, the Yamato is attacked by the Grodaze and its fleet. Beta particle guns rain fire onto the ship. But the Yamato's fateful instant of death does not come. Sanada figures out that the woman on the planet was not really human, and that the artworks were all frauds. Might the Earth below them not be Earth?
The Yamato turns around and fires the Wave Motion Gun at the Grodaze and its fleet, destroying them. But, the tachyon- based energy of the Wave Gun has an unexpected reaction with the beta particle energy systems of the exploding enemy ships. A huge cascade explosion forms over Earth, burning up much of its surface. The Earth, where Sasha remained, dissolves away in fire.
Within the fire is revealed the black skeleton of a planet, its twisting ribs formed into a sphere. It is not Earth, but the Black Nebulan mother planet, Dezarium. It was all an elaborate hoax designed to demoralize and defeat the Yamato. Scaldart pulls off the mask he wore to reveal his true Black Nebulan face.
Back on Earth, Lt. Alphon frees Yuki, who then leads an assault on the fortress. She has a showdown with Alphon, who is then shot by another Earth trooper. Yuki runs to catch Alphon's fall. Alphon tells her that his people are a race of cyborgs, who gave up most of their flesh for longer life through Mechanisms. But they almost lost the ability to love in the process. Alphon gives Yuki the plans to the fortress, including instructions on how to disarm its hyperon bomb, and dies in her arms.
Sasha managed to survive the incineration of the surface by running into lower levels of the planet. She reaches a sub-control center and sends a communication to the Yamato, telling them that to destroy Dezarium, they must reach its core through a huge conduit she is about to open. Scaldart interrupts her message to warn the Yamato that if it proceeds any further, he will detonate the hyperon bomb on Earth.
From more than 200,000 light years away, Yuki's radio message interrupts Scaldart telling the Yamato that she is alive, that the Earth forces have immobilized the fortress, and that the double-nucleus hyperon bomb has been disarmed.
The Yamato speeds though the conduit, dodging all sorts of enemy fire. It reaches the center of the planet where it finds a huge crystal city all bound up in a spherical arrangement... (looks something like a glass sea urchin). Buildings fly off and burst into missiles. The Yamato is hit and Captain Yamanami is killed. Kodai prepares the Wave Gun, but stops when he realizes this will kill Sasha. But Sasha again radios the Yamato, insisting that they fire. This is her destiny. Scaldart finds and shoots Sasha. An enraged Kodai pulls the Wave Gun trigger. The crystal city withers under its power and Skaldart is incinerated before he’s able to close the vent.
The blast sets off another explosive chain reaction. The Yamato does a 180-degree turn and rushes out of the internal chamber entering into an emergency warp as it reaches the conduit exit. Dezarium explodes behind them, destroying the delicate gravitational balance between the two sides of the Double Galaxy. They crash into each other, becoming the birth of a new galaxy.
The Yamato warps home while Yuki looks towards the glowing horizon for their return. The Yamato disappears into the distance, leaving a view of the Earth
Warp Dimension[]
The film is unique for switching from monaural VistaVision (1:1.85) to 4-channel magnetic stereo CinemaScope (1:2.35) when the Yamato enters the Double Galaxy.[2] The home video releases have handled this different ways. The Blu-ray shows the first half in an open matte 4:3 ratio, with an optional windowbox overlay for those that want to view it in its theatrical VistaVision. The Japanese DVD shows this portion in 16:9. The second half retains its letterboxed CinemaScope in all home video releases. The Japanese DVDs and Blu-rays also have an optional audio track that is mixed in stereo for the entire film.
Cast[]
- Kei Tomiyama as Susumu Kodai
- Yoko Asagami as Yuki Mori
- Shusei Nakamura as Daisuke Shima
- Shinji Nomura as Yoshikazu Aihara
- Kazuo Hayashi as Yasuo Nanbu
- Toru Furuya as Tasuke Tokugawa
- Yoshito Yasuhara as Kenjiro Ota
- Ichiro Nagai as Dr. Sakezo Sado
- Kenichi Ogata as Analyzer
- Takeshi Aono as Shiro Sanada
- Mikio Terashima as Sho Yamazaki
- Akira Kamiya as Shiro Kato
- Osamu Kobayashi as Osamu Yamanami
- Taichiro Hirokawa as Mamoru Kodai
- Masato Ibu as Heikuro Todo
- Keiko Han as Sasha/Mio Sanada
- Miyuki Ueda as Starsha
- Nachi Nozawa as Alphon
- Toru Ohira as Skulldart
- Mugihito as Kazan
- Banjo Ginga as Grotas
- Yumi Nakatani as Sada
- Michio Hazama as Narrator
References[]
- ↑ "Be Forever Yamato". mania.com. http://www.mania.com/forever-yamato_article_75801.html. Retrieved 2009-10-19.
- ↑ Bandai Visual
External links[]
- Be Forever Yamato Official website
- Be Forever Yamato (anime) at Anime News Network's Encyclopedia
- Be Forever Yamato at the Internet Movie Database
- Variety Japan (Japanese)
 | |
|---|---|
| TV series | |
| Original Series: Space Battleship Yamato (Episodes) • Space Battleship Yamato 2 (Episodes) • Space Battleship Yamato III (Episodes) Remakes: Space Battleship Yamato 2199 (Episodes) • Space Battleship Yamato 2202: Warriors of Love (Episodes) Space Battleship Yamato 2205: A New Journey (Episodes) • Be Forever Yamato: REBEL 3199 (Episodes) | |
| Films | |
| Original Series: Space Battleship Yamato • Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato • Space Battleship Yamato 2: Compilation Yamato: The New Voyage • Be Forever Yamato • Space Battleship Yamato III: Catastrophe of the Solar System Final Yamato • Yamato Rebirth Remakes: Space Battleship Yamato 2199: Voyage of Remembrance Space Battleship Yamato 2199: Odyssey of the Celestial Ark • The Era of Space Battleship Yamato: Choice of 2202 | |
| Live action films | |
| Space Battleship Yamato • Star Blazers | |
| OVAs | |
| Yamato 2520 • Great Yamato #0 | |
| Manga | |
| Space Battleship Yamato by Leiji Matsumoto • Space Battleship Yamato by Yuki Hijiri • Space Battleship Yamato by Akira Hio Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato • Space Battleship Yamato: The New Voyage • Be Forever Yamato Space Battleship Yamato III by Takayuki Masuo • Space Battleship Yamato III by Hiroshi Aizawa • Final Yamato •
Space Battleship Great Yamato | |
| Comics | |
| Star Blazers • Star Blazers : The Magazine of Space Battleship Yamato | |
| Novels | |
| Space Battleship Yamato novelizations • Space Battleship Yamato Dawn: Aquarius Algorithm • Space Battleship Yamato Dawn: The Malignant Memory Space Battleship Yamato 2202: Warriors of Love Side Stories • My Heart is Like This | |
| Video games | |
| The Distant Planet Iscandar • Warriors of Love • Reminiscences of Iscandar • Revenge of the Dark Nebula Empire • Collapse of the Double Galaxy Super Robot Wars V • Space Battleship Yamato arcade game • Space Battleship Yamato for PC • Space Battleship Yamato for Game Boy Space Battleship Yamato for WanderSwan Color • Final Yamato • Space Battleship Yamato 2199 BFI Chapter 2: The Romance of the Endless Sea Space Battleship Yamato 2199: Iscandar • Space Battleship Yamato 2199 Cosmo Guardian • Space Battleship Yamato 2199: The Last Hope 365 Space Battleship Yamato 2202: Hero's Record • Space Battleship Yamato 2202: A Long Journey • Space Battleship Yamato: Voyagers of Tomorrow | |
| Radio | |
| Stereo Gekiga Space Battleship Yamato • All Night Nippon Space Battleship Yamato Special • YRA Radio Yamato | |