News
5-Meter Space Battleship Yamato Model Displayed
posted on by Egan Loo
Not-So-Daily Link of the Day: The Aeon Group's shopping centers in Japan are displaying a five-meter-long (about 16-feet-long) scale model of the title spaceship from the Space Battleship Yamato space opera anime this month. The model promotes the sale of 34 limited-edition Yamato items of clothing, including underpants, jackets, caps, shirts, and socks. The Mainichi Shimbun paper's Mantan website posted an image of the ship model next to a human model holding up the Wave Motion Gun trunks.
At five meters in length, the spaceship model is roughly 1/50-scale compared to the anime design's 263-meter length. The model will be in a traveling exhibit between three different Aeon shopping centers in Saitama Prefecture, Osaka, and Nagoya from December 5 to December 20. (The clothing sale lasts until January 1 at all 300 Aeon centers.) The English-language Starblazers.com website posted images of a smaller two-meter-long (seven-feet-long) cutaway model that first went on display in 1977.
The original 1974 anime recounted the voyages of the World War II battleship Yamato after it is resurrected as a space-faring ship to fend off alien threats to Earth. The new Uchuu Senkan Yamato Fukkatsu-hen (Space Battleship Yamato: Rebirth Chapter) film sequel with computer-animated battle sequences will open on December 12 as the first Yamato theatrical film in 26 years. It follows the original hero Susumu Kodai and his family as they lead a fleet from Earth after the planet is threatened by a black hole.
A separate live-action film remake by director Takashi Yamazaki (Returner, Always: Sunset on Third Street, Ballad) will feature SMAP band member Takuya Kimura (Howl's Moving Castle's Howl) and Meisa Kuroki (Vexille - 2077 Isolation of Japan's Vexille, Crows Zero's Luca) as the main characters Susumu and Yuki, respectively.
Image © 2009 Yoshinobu Nishizaki
this article has been modified since it was originally posted; see change history