Abstract
A talented producer Yoshinobu NISHIZAKI (1934-2010), who is famous for his legendary anime movie Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato (1978), was disgraced as a "scoundrel" in his first biography titled The Man Who Made Space Battleship Yamato: The Madness of Yoshinobu NISHIZAKI (2015). Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato and its TV series Space Battleship Yamato II (1978-79) were recently remade as Star Blazers: Space Battleship Yamato 2202 (2017-19) by Harutoshi FUKUI, novelist known for film versions of his original works such as Lorelei and Gundam Unicorn. Contrary to Yamato fans’ expectations, the new Yamato 2202 turned out to be a sheer failure, or another disgrace to the lamented NISHIZAKI.
In this paper, a close comparison is made between Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato and Space Battleship Yamato 2202, with some reference to NISHIZAKI's other Yamato films and FUKUI's own novels. As a result, their themes are proved to be opposed to each other: NISHIZAKI, belonging to the war generation, evaluated "Tokko" suicide attacks as respectable acts to protect compatriots, while FUKUI, postwar democrat, blindly believes in the "Peace" Constitution of Japan given by the US general Douglass MacArthur, from which protagonist KODAI's unbelievably obsessive, pacifistic deeds originate.
