Hideaki Anno, Yutaka Izubuchi Co-Direct Yamato √2199 Film at I.G, Khara
A website opened on Tuesday to announce that Hideaki Anno and Yutaka Izubuchi are directing the feature-length anime film Cosmoship Yamato √2199 at Production I.G and Studio Khara. (The film's Japanese title uses the same "Uchū Senkan" prefix previously also translated as "Space Battleship" or "Space Cruiser," and the √ symbol is pronounced "Root.")
The project also credits Anno for planning with Production I.G founder Mitsuhisa Ishikawa, as the production executive producer, and for design works with Izubuchi. "Shin Office Academy" is presenting the project.
The website quotes Anno ("a huge Yamato fan since the second year of junior high school"): "I want to keep making Yamato not only to fulfill a childhood dream, but also to imbue our prayers and wishes for the next generation and our own. It is with that resolve that we produce this."
Anno had announced after the 50th anniversary screening for Yoshinobu Nishizaki and Leiji Matsumoto's Space Battleship Yamato anime in October 2024 that he and his Studio Khara are producing a Yamato project with new anime footage. Anno said that Khara received license approvals from Yamato's rights holders Voyager Holdings and Tohokushinsha Film Corporation to produce new anime footage. Izubuchi, the chief director of the remake projects launched by the Space Battleship Yamato 2199 anime, also appeared at the screening and confirmed his involvement.
Anno, arguably best known for co-creating Neon Genesis Evangelion and working on the Shin Godzilla, Shin Ultraman, and Shin Kamen Rider films, has frequently cited Yamato as inspiring his interest in anime. He previously planned the opening sequence to the Space Battleship Yamato 2199 series. Anno stated in a comment about the 50th anniversary project that he has been a fan of the franchise for 49 years, since his second year in middle school. He added that he did not think he would be the same person he is today without the franchise. He reminisced about how he missed the first episode when it was first broadcast, but how he watched the second through final episode, sacrificing even watching Great Mazinger and running home after cram school to do so.
The original anime follows the voyages of the World War II battleship Yamato after it is resurrected as a space-faring ship to fend off alien threats to Earth. The first television series premiered in October of 1974. The first animated film then opened in 1977 and earned 2.1 billion yen (about US$23 million) at the box office. The anime franchise later garnered a record instantaneous television rating of 50% in 1978.
Yamato yo Towa ni: Rebel 3199 (Be Forever Yamato: Rebel 3199), the current project in the Space Battleship Yamato 2199 remakes, is opening as seven films, beginning with the first film "Kuro no Shinryaku" (Dark Invasion) this past July. The final film will open in Japan on October 30.
Sources: Cosmoship Yamato √2199 anime's website, Comic Natalie
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.