Editing Space Battleship Yamato (section)

==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 {{nihongo|''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 (1972 film)|The Poseidon Adventure]]'' and ''[[Japan Sinks (1973)|Japan Sinks]]'' were enjoying considerable success. [[Eiichi Yamamoto]] believed this was because of the way in which they depicted people being able to survive in extreme circumstances, and this influenced the creation of ''Yamato''. Additionally, he believed that, overall, [[industrialisation]] caused people to become more miserable, and ''Yamato'' was designed to show a triumph of humanity and love.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Yamato Origins, Part 5|url=https://ourstarblazers.com/vault/459/|website=Cosmo DNA|date=3 July 2013 |access-date=2020-10-26|archive-date=2020-10-31|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201031143115/https://ourstarblazers.com/vault/459/|url-status=live}}</ref>

Originally intended to be an outer-space variation on ''[[Lord of the Flies]]'', the project at first was titled "Asteroid Ship [[Icarus (mythology)|Icarus]]" and had a crew from all over the world journeying through space in a hollowed-out asteroid in search of the planet Iscandar. There was to be much discord among the crew with many of them acting purely out of self-interest and for personal gain. The enemy aliens were originally called Rajendora.<ref>{{cite news|title=1973-1976 Timeline|work=StarBlazers.com|url=http://www.starblazers.com/html.php?page_id=136|access-date=6 September 2008|url-status=unfit|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120315040038/http://www.starblazers.com/html.php?page_id=136|archive-date=15 March 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=Leiji Matsumoto 1976 Interview|work=StarBlazers.com|url=http://www.starblazers.com/html.php?page_id=303|access-date=1 September 2009|url-status=unfit|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120314195345/http://www.starblazers.com/html.php?page_id=303|archive-date=14 March 2012}}</ref> The Rajendorians were [[robot]]s whose exact form was unknown, and it was to be revealed towards the end of the story that the Rajendorians, along with the rest of the life on their home planet, had died over a hundred years ago.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Yamato Origins, Part 4: Asteroid Ship Icarus|url=https://ourstarblazers.com/vault/458/|website=Cosmo DNA|date=3 July 2013 |access-date=2020-10-26|archive-date=2020-10-28|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201028211146/https://ourstarblazers.com/vault/458/|url-status=live}}</ref>

The first rough draft of ''Yamato'' came towards the end of summer 1973, where the Yamato (named as such by Nishizaki) was a regular spaceship, that used a large rock as a shell, and the story was notably darker. Heavier emphasis was placed on the character's flaws, who were overall more misanthropic, and only one of them would survive until the end of the series.

The production of ''Yamato'' in its conceptual stage was overseen by [[Eiichi Yamamoto]], until 1974, when he had to leave to work on a documentary film. As a replacement, [[Toshio Masuda (director)|Toshio Masuda]], who had worked on ''[[Tora! Tora! Tora!]]'', was considered, but had to decline as he had other projects of his own to focus on, though he would become involved in the production of [[Space Battleship Yamato (1977 film)|the 1977 film]]. The role was given to [[Leiji Matsumoto]], who had at an earlier stage declined an offer, due to his desire to have complete creative control.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Yamato Origins, Part 1: The Big Picture|url=https://ourstarblazers.com/vault/455/|website=Cosmo DNA|date=3 July 2013 |access-date=2020-10-26|archive-date=2020-10-28|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201028205843/https://ourstarblazers.com/vault/455/|url-status=live}}</ref> Matsumoto overhauled the story, designing the titular ship after the [[Japanese battleship Yamato|IJN ''Yamato'']], its crew, and the Wave Motion Gun, which came from ''Sexaroid'', an erotic comedy manga written by Matsumoto in 1968.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Yamato Origins, Part 6 Story Outline by Leiji Matsumoto|url=https://ourstarblazers.com/vault/302/|website=Cosmo DNA|date=3 July 2013 |access-date=2020-10-26|archive-date=2020-10-29|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201029214856/https://ourstarblazers.com/vault/302/|url-status=live}}</ref>

In the earliest stages of production, ''Space Battleship Yamato'' was planned to be 52 episodes in length, before reducing this to 39, and ultimately, 26. The bulk of the cut content centered around Gamilas, who had more characters, and more complex motivations and goals. Additionally, in this earlier stage, the ''Yamato''{{'}}s battles were more closely tied to events in [[World War II]] – for example, the battle near [[Neptune]] in the first episode represented [[Battle of France|Germany circumventing]] the [[Maginot Line]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=Yamato Origins, Part 8: The 39-Episode Outline|url=https://ourstarblazers.com/vault/462/|website=Cosmo DNA|date=3 July 2013 }}</ref>

The first draft for ''Space Battleship Yamato'' was completed on May 21, 1974. In August, a ten minute [[Television pilot|pilot episode]] was created, with at least nine copies being sent to the relevant organisations,<ref>{{Cite web|title=Yamato Origins, Part 9 The Pilot Film and the Homestretch|url=https://ourstarblazers.com/vault/463/|website=Cosmo DNA|date=3 July 2013 |access-date=2020-10-26|archive-date=2020-10-30|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201030000123/https://ourstarblazers.com/vault/463/|url-status=live}}</ref> and, after the pilot's success, pre-production of [[List of Space Battleship Yamato episodes|the anime]] began, with the first episode airing in October that year. The original series contained 26 episodes, following the ''Yamato''{{'}}s voyage out of the Milky Way and back again. A continuing story, it featured the declining health of ''Yamato''{{'}}s Captain Okita (Avatar in the ''Star Blazers'' dub), and the transformation of the brash young orphan Susumu Kodai (Derek Wildstar) into a mature officer, as well as his budding romance with female crewmember Yuki Mori (Nova Forrester). The foreign edits tend to play up the individual characters, while the Japanese original is often more focused on the ship itself.<ref name="Make way for StarBlazers"/> In a speech at the 1995 Anime Expo, series episode director [[Noboru Ishiguro]] said low ratings and high production expenses forced producer Yoshinobu Nishizaki to trim down the episode count from the original 39 episodes to only 26. The cut episodes would have introduced [[Captain Harlock]] as a new series character.<ref>Fenelon, Robert. ''Yamato Forever'', ''[[Animerica]]'', Vol 3 No 8, August 1995.</ref>