Space Battleship Yamato Live-Action Trailer

Anime fans rejoice!  Known as Starblazers in the U.S., Space Battleship Yamato is considered by many to be the “Japanese Star Trek”. You Tube has the first teaser trailer and it’s looking nice. Release date for Japan is December 2010.

Based on a Japanese Science fiction manga created by Leiji Matsumoto (Space Pirate Captain Harlock, Galaxy Express 999), the Anime series began airing in 1974. The set for the beginning of the saga is the year 2199, Earth is now uninhabitable due to non-stop barrage of radioactive bombs by an alien race called the Gamilons.

Surviving humans who lives deep underground are now on the verge being infected too, just in time they have discovered an engine capable of moving faster than light and converted a battleship known as Yamato (renamed Argo in the U.S.) into a spaceship. Hope began to emerge as a message from another planet Iscandar states that they have a device to wipe out radioactive damages.

The series became popular in Japan and it spawned to 2 more seasons called Space Battleship Yamato II (The Comet Empire) and Space Battleship Yamato III (The Bolar War) as were broadcast in the U.S., Australia, Brazil and Italy.(under the name Space Cruiser Yamato or Star Blazers). Anime movies based on the series were also release such as Farewell to Space Battle Yamato In The Name of Love, Yamato The New Voyage, Be Forever Yamato and Final Yamato. all available on DVD in the U.S. A Next Generation-like series titled Yamato 2520 was produced in 1994. And finally, a new anime movie, titled Space Battleship Yamato Rebirth Chapter (see poster above) premiered in Japan last month to a poor box office response.

Takashi Yamazaki, the director best known for Returner, Always: Sunset on Third Street, and this year’s Ballad, helm the project for a December 2010 release.