Space Battleship Yamato Themesong! Now with Violin Virtuoso!

If you ever wanted to hear THE anime themesong, except with more Stradivarius… now is your time!

Clips of Hakase Taro playing for the new Yamato soundtrack album.

Shivers… so lovely. The other clips are well worth listening to, for more virtuosi doing their thing.

Btw, the iconic male “choral” version of the theme played for the American dub, Star Blazers?

Yeah, that was actually a totally USA only idea. I don’t know what the producers were thinking – maybe they were copying the likes of Gigantor – but it really was pretty darned cool. (It sounded a lot more like a chorus on our TV than it does in the remastered version, where you can clearly hear that it’s just one guy.)

OTOH, the female crooning on the soundtrack is actually original Japanese stuff. (Handy that it was wordless crooning.) A wonderful example of how to sing high without pushing.

However, there are Japanese lyrics to the themesong. It’s very popular at karaoke places, I understand. Here’s Isao Sasaki, the  singer; the lyrics are subtitled in English. You’ll notice that the overall idea of both the US and Japanese songs are pretty similar, but the Japanese one was trying harder not to be “militaristic.” (For obvious 1970’s reasons – there were some crazy Japanese militarists around, and the show is basically redoing WWII as if this time the Japanese were helping the rest of the world and fighting the bad guys.)

Actual history of the Yamato, with footage of her on the ocean floor. Absolutely no secret refit into a spaceship, we swear. Basically points out the giant waste of the stupid kamikaze mission for the ship, and the horrible loss of life. Interviews with survivors.

Part of the mystique is connected with the name; Yamato was the name of the most ancient kingdom known in Japan, and it’s a poetic way of naming today’s country.

Every other anime TV show is okay… but my true ur-fandom will always be Yamato. Before I came to Star Trek, before Sherlock Holmes, before I came to Madeleine L’Engle even… Yamato. That’s it. Sorry, Gundam fans, but that’s just how it is.

Our Star Blazers.