Kenji Sawada -- Yamato yori Ai wo Komete（ヤマトより愛をこめて）

I think "Kayo Kyoku Plus" readers who are also fellow "Uchuusenkan Yamato"（宇宙戦艦ヤマト...Space Battleship Yamato）fans know of my love for the classic anime series. Of course, I've also been watching the episodes of the redux version that have come out in dribs and drabs over the past few years beginning with "Yamato 2199" and currently with "Yamato 2202".

"Yamato 2202" is the new version of the Comet Empire saga and both my anime buddy and I agreed that with all of the addition of new characters and drama, things have gotten perhaps a bit too melodramatic. However, these may just be the quibbles of an aging anime fan. Still, seeing the old "Star Blazers" (the American dub of the series) video above, all those beloved feelings of nostalgia rushed back in like a flood...everything including the amazing theme song, the smoother animation compared to the rougher stuff from the Iscandar series, and the drama (still remember the moving confrontation between Nova and Desslok over the injured Derek Wildstar).

Of course, at the time in North America, no character in cartoons ever died. So it was quite the shock to see Captain Avatar (still going with the "Star Blazers" character names) actually die on screen. What I didn't realize was how many characters actually died (or almost died) in the Comet Empire saga; the producers behind the American version did some fairly nifty editing to make sure that we fans in the United States and Canada did not see the deaths of some regular crew.

Some years later, I learned about the fact that original Comet Empire series on TV was based on the 2nd (and as had been assumed at the time, the final) movie in the "Uchuusenkan Yamato" franchise that came out in the summer of 1978. The deaths in the TV version were nothing compared to the main officers getting picked off in the movie. If you want to, you can see all the deaths in the video above. I personally can't.

It was obvious that "Saraba Uchuusenkan Yamato ~ Ai no Senshi-tachi"（さらば宇宙戦艦ヤマト 愛の戦士たち...Arrivederci Yamato）was created to be a heroic tragedy for Kodai-kun and the crew of the mighty space battleship. And the pathos was certainly delivered. Back in my university days, I was reading an issue of the journal "Japan Echo" dealing with this very movie, and apparently in at least one theatre, there wasn't a dry eye in the audience and folks even threw bouquets at the screen! Now, that is a sendoff!

The reason I'm writing about all this is that when I was watching "Yamato 2202", the ending credits have been featuring various singers and songs, and with the second batch of episodes that had come out several months ago, it was legendary singer Kenji Sawada（沢田研二）who provided the ending theme, and it turned out that the song was actually the ending theme for the original 1978 Comet Empire movie.

"Yamato yori Ai wo Komete" (From Yamato With Love) was Sawada's 24th single released in August 1978. The mournful feeling fits perfectly with the tone of the movie right from the opening notes of that piano as Sawada gives his musical elegy to the audience and the brave crew of the Yamato. Considering how popular he was at the time, to have him sing this final number for the ship must have increased the chances of water works gushing from everyone's tear ducts.

For the Yamato, nothing but the best. Famed lyricist Yu Aku（阿久悠）wrote "Yamato yori Ai wo Komete" while composer Katsuo Ono（大野克夫）, who has come up with some famous themes of his own, came up with the sad melody. The arrangement was by Hiroshi Miyagawa（宮川泰）, the man behind the famous original theme song. It took 3 weeks after its release to break into the Top 10 by getting as high as No. 4 and ending the year as the 46th-ranked single. The first album it was placed on was Sawada's 11th album "Kondo wa, Karei na Utage ni Douzo"（今度は、華麗な宴にどうぞ。...Next Time, Help Yourself to the Gorgeous Banquet）(although the arrangement is supposedly somewhat different) which was also released in August 1978. It also peaked at No. 4.

Well, after all of the thrown bouquets, flooded theatres and most likely demands for the Yamato crew to survive, I gather that the producers relented and came up with a more hopeful TV version. Then that continued on to "Uchuusenkan Yamato Aratanaru Tabidachi"（宇宙戦艦ヤマト新たなる旅立ち...Yamato The New Voyage） as a Fuji-TV made-for-TV movie in 1979 with some new characters to replace the dearly departed. I actually got to see that version on rental VHS tape from the Sanko Japanese food store in downtown Toronto.