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Evangelion creator Hideaki Anno returning to anime with new project for 50-year-old franchise

Casey Baseel Oct 7, 2024
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After a three-year absence from animation, Hideaki Anno is coming back to help a new project for one of Japan’s most beloved science fiction series.

There aren’t many anime directors more famous than Evangelion creator Hideaki Anno, but it’s been a while now since Anno made any anime. His most recent anime work is 2021’s Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time, which completed the Rebuild of Evangelion movie series and, as of this point in time, the Eva anime franchise. Following Thrice Upon a Time’s release, Anno wrote and produced 2022’s Shin Ultraman and wrote and directed 2023’s Shin Kamen Rider, which, along with the Anno-written-and-directed Shin Godzilla, round out his modern re-imaginings of Japan’s holy triumvirate of live-action tokusatsu special effects series.

But Anno is finally ready to come back to the anime world, with a project that’s still in keeping with his enduring love for iconic franchises from his childhood, as he’s announced that he’s making a new Space Battleship Yamato anime.

Anno himself broke the news on Sunday at a special screening in Tokyo of the first episode of the original Space Battleship Yamato, which Anno himself personally planned and presented on the exact date and time of the 50th anniversary of its original airing at 7:30 p.m. on October 6, 1974. “I would like to take this opportunity to say that Khara [Anno’s anime studio] has been granted the rights to produce a new anime based on Space Battleship Yamato by Voyager Holdings and its representative director Shoji Nishizaki,” said Anno. “At the same time, we have also been granted permission to use the Space Battleship Yamato copyright by Tohoku Shinsha.” Realizing that might be a little too much legal-ise, Anno went on to summarize, “To put it more directly, I can now make new Space Battleship Yamato works.”

▼ A special 50th anniversary retrospective video for Space Battleship Yamato

Space Battleship Yamato is one of the most influential anime of all time, preceding not only Evangelion but other landmark science fiction anime series such as Macross, Gundam, and Galaxy Express 999. A pathos-packed tale of the World War II battleship Yamato being converted into a spaceship and sent on a perilous voyage to obtain ways for humanity to fight off alien invaders and cleanse the radiation the attackers’ weapons have contaminated the earth with, Space Battleship Yamato was Japan’s first space opera to become a major hit, and came at a time when it could leave a deep impression on many young viewers who’d go on to make anime of their own, such as Anno. It also played a key role in helping anime as a medium establish a fan base in the U.S., where a heavily localized version, titled Star Blazers, was among the first anime to air on American TV.

The Studio Khara official website has confirmed that the project will be a theatrical anime, and that it will be a different continuity than 2012’s Space Battleship Yamato 2199 remake of Space Battleship Yamato and its subsequent sequels, including Be Forever Yamato: REBEL 3199. However, Anno revealed that Space Battleship Yamato 2199’s director Yutaka Izubuchi (who’s also a renowned mecha designer with creations such as Patlabor’s Ingram on his resume) will be involved in Khara’s Yamato project, which is scheduled to enter production in 2025.

▼ Anno making the announcement in his customary soft-spoken way

“If I’d never watched across Space Battleship Yamato, I wouldn’t have the life I have today,” says Anno in Khara’s statement, and considering how much respect and passion he put into Shin Godzilla, Shin Ultraman, and Shin Kamen Rider, we can probably expect him to do the same with yet another beloved landmark series from this youth.

Source: Oricon News, Studio Khara
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