The opening day stage greeting for the fifth chapter, "The Incandescent Galactic War," of "Yamato Forever REBEL 3199," the latest installment in the remake series of the popular anime "Space Battleship Yamato," was held on February 20th at Shinjuku Piccadilly (Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo). One of the highlights of the fifth chapter is the all-out battle between Yamato and the combined fleet of Garmillan and Garmillan against the intermediate supply base, Digabras. Screenwriter Oka Hideki revealed his thoughts, saying, "Chapter 5 is my 'reply song.' I have to do the intermediate supply base battle from 'Yamato Forever.' It's a 'reply song' that says, 'This is our biggest shot right now.'"
Oka said, "We couldn't compromise on anything. When we were young, we watched Rainbow Star Cluster and The Battle of Saturn. We started out with the idea of somehow creating something that could rival the greatness of those films. We couldn't compromise on anything. We've come this far thanks to the combined wisdom and skills of many people." He gave it his all.
General director Harutoshi Fukui and director Naomichi Yamato also appeared on stage to greet the audience, and Nakamura Eriko, who plays Mikage Kiryu, was in charge of hosting the event.
Yamato said that the stunning visual beauty of the all-out battle in Chapter 5 was achieved through the "amount of material," saying, "We did several times more than what we would have been told, 'We can't make it like this.' It's a lot of material. There's a lot of modeling, even for a full 3D work."
Fukui explained, "The beam cannon at the intermediate supply base only appears in one shot, so I drew it myself. I didn't even create a setting for it. I drew it while watching the original DVD."
"Yamato 3199" is a re-imagining of the original works "Yamato Forever" and "Space Battleship Yamato III," with a new interpretation added. There are seven chapters in total, with the sixth chapter, "Blue Labyrinth," set to premiere on June 26th.
