1.Prologue
In my previous article in this series on internationally renowned Japanese animation filmmakers, I wrote about Mobile Suit Gundam creator Tomino Yoshiyuki, and Neon Genesis Evangelion creator Anno Hideaki. Tomino especially is one of the visionaries who helped popularize sci-fi robot anime in the 70s.
The sci-fi epic that came out of the U.S. during this era is George Lucas’s Star Wars series. The first film A New Hope was released in 1977. Star Wars was greatly influenced by Japanese culture and Japanese cinema.
Star Wars is an epic adventure set in space—in “a galaxy far, far away—but the movie begins with two seemingly unremarkable droids, R2-D2 and C-3PO. These two droids end up joining the resistance and helping the movie’s heroes “rescue" a strong-willed princess and defeat the Galactic Empire. The story borrows heavily from Kurosawa Akira’s 1954 film The Hidden Fortress. What’s more, many of the film’s ideas show a clear Japanese influence: the Jedi follow their own strict form of bushido—or kishido, if you prefer, and Darth Vader’s helmet was inspired by Date Masamune’s kabuto.
That’s not all. Star Wars is widely regarded as the definitive example of the space opera, but the subgenre was actually pioneered by Matsumoto Leiji’s Space Battleship Yamato (a.k.a. Star Blazers). Leiji’s seminal work established sci-fi as a proper genre in Japanese anime at a time when the aesthetic was still not widely known, and influenced generations of Western action movies and TV shows set in space. (While the American TV series Star Trek hit the air in the 60s, it’s more philosophical than action-oriented; more about ethics and morality than it is a straightforward space adventure.)
In this article I will cover Matsumoto Leiji and his most popular anime works, Space Battleship Yamato and Galaxy Express 999.
2.How Matsumoto Leiji Was Made
Matsumoto Leiji was born in Fukuoka Prefecture in 1938. His father rose up the ranks in the Imperial Japanese Army from a non-commissioned officer all the way to major. He also served as a test pilot for the Air Force, and starting around 1942 the young Matsumoto spent a couple years of his childhood living with his family in Hyogo Prefecture, in company housing provided by Kawasaki Aerospace Company. Later the family evacuated to Ehime, where is mother was from. There, Matsumoto saw American fighter planes and B-29’s fly by overhead, an experience that would strongly influence his work.
In the second half of the war Matsumoto’s father became a flight instructor who trained many pilots for the tokkotai—Japanese Special Attack Units. The young Matsumoto thought of his father as a “true samurai” and used him as the basis for the captains that appear in his sci-fi works.
Matsumoto first became interested in anime around the age of five when his father showed him a Mickey Mouse film on his projector. Enchanted, he learned to operate the projector himself and became obsessed with Disney films. In grade school, he became enamored with manga, especially the works of Tezuka Osamu, which he borrowed from the class library. He was inspired to begin drawing his own manga and was first published during his first year in high school with a submission he made to Manga Shonen magazine. After graduating, he began publishing series in Shojo magazine—a manga anthology for teen girls.
Matsumoto was also a lover of science fiction from a young age, reading works by such authors as Unno Juzo and H. G. Wells. Much of his manga work skewed toward sci-fi, but the genre had yet to attain widespread popularity, and many of his early series were canceled prematurely. He finally made his breakthrough in 1971 with Otoko Oidon, a series he published in Shukan Shonen Magazine. The series is based on Matsumoto’s own experiences living in a boarding house after first moving to Tokyo.
In 1974, he joined Space Battleship Yamato during the pre-production phase as a mechanical designer, but his enthusiasm for anime would lead to him being involved in the show in a larger capacity. While the initial run of the show was not a ratings success, it became popular with reruns, and by the time the first feature-length movie hit the theaters in 1977, it was a full blown phenomenon. Its success would allow Matsumoto to turn his own manga projects into anime, the most notable of which is Galaxy Express 999, which aired between 1978 and 1981. The show would spark a Matsumoto Leiji craze.
In the latter half of the 80s the Matsumoto Leiji craze would fade away, but he would continue to be active drawing manga and even serving as an advisor to the National Space Development Agency of Japan. Starting the late 90s he began to produce a series of Galaxy Express 999 spinoffs (Galaxy Express 999 launched a franchise of multiple TV anime shows, animated movies, live-action movies, toys, and more.), which even led to a series of trains bearing Matsumoto’s character designs on their exteriors. He also designed the Himiko and the Hotaluna, two boats that take passengers on short cruises around Tokyo Bay.
Side note, Matsumoto is married to fellow manga artist Maki Miyako, who is best known for drawing the initial promotional illustrations for the popular Licca-chan dolls developed by the toy maker Takara.
●Matsumoto Leiji Picks
3.War and Samurai and Matsumoto Leiji
In addition to his work in the sci-fi genre, Matsumoto is also known for his Senjo Manga series—short manga stories set during World War II that he has produced over the past 50 years. A few of the most highly rated of those stories were compiled and turned into the OVA (original video animation, that is, anime made specifically for home video release) The Cockpit. The stories generally depict the tragedy of youth being cut short by war.
The stories are partly inspired by Matsumoto’s own experiences during the war and the postwar period, as well as the stories he heard from his father, who served as a pilot in the war. The series is notable for the fact that Matsumoto depicts both young Japanese soldiers and young American soldiers as sympathetic figures. His focus is on the folly of war and the sanctity of life.
In that regard, Space Battleship Yamato is a curious case. It is the story of the sunken Japanese battleship Yamato—the pride of the Japanese Imperial Navy—being rebuilt, fitted with futuristic technology, and sent into space; while the Japanese lost World War II, they are the ones that save humanity in the future. Yet there is an air of tragedy that hangs in the air, with the ship’s crew of brave young Japanese men—the ship has only one significant female crew member—heading out into space for what seems like a lost cause. At the same time, while the Gamilas may have blue skin, they are otherwise essentially identical to humans. Again, Matsumoto’s message is that the true enemy is not Japan or America, but war itself.
Despite his ambivalence regarding the war, Matsumoto was more than eager to engage in his share of legal battles. While Space Battleship Yamato is most often associated with Matsumoto, he joined the project when pre-production was already underway. The genesis of the project was actually producer Nishizaki Yoshinobu. Due to the fact that Matsumoto was responsible for much of the story ideas and design elements, the two of them are generally regarded as co-creators of the franchise. However, Matsumoto increasingly began to take credit in the late 90s after Nishizaki filed for bankruptcy in 1997 and was arrested multiple times for the possession of illegal drugs starting 1999. After Nishizaki was sentenced to five years and six months of prison time, Matsumoto began to claim that Yamato was actually based on original work that he had produced, and that he was the true owner of the rights to the franchise. In the end, Matsumoto and Nishizaki took their case to court, and the Tokyo District Court ruled in Nishizaki’s favor.
Matsumoto also got into some legal trouble with Galaxy Express 999. After the vocal duo Chemistry released a song penned by singer-songwriter Makihara Noriyuki with lyrics that were similar to dialogue from Matsumoto’s new 999 spinoff, he publically criticized Makihara in an article published in the weekly tabloid Josei Seven and the primetime TV variety show Sukkiri. Makihara then filed a suit with the Tokyo District Court demanding a declaratory judgment confirming that no copyright infringement had taken place. Matsumoto refused to back down, declaring, “Sometimes, a man must fight even when he knows he will lose." In the end, the Tokyo District Court found that the two works were not demonstrably similar, and ruled that Matsumoto had to pay Makihara 2.2 million yen in libel damages. Both parties appealed the decision and ultimately settled out of court.
4.Epilogue
Works like Space Battleship Yamato and Galaxy Express 999 sparked a sci-fi anime craze in the mid 70s and 80s, and established the sci-fi genre as a pillar of Japanese pop culture. Without Matsumoto Leiji, there would have never been a Mobile Suit Gundam series. As I wrote about in my previous article in this series, Tomino Yoshiyuki was actually hired by Nishizaki to draw some storyboards for Space Battleship Yamato. But Tomino, frustrated with the story, decided he would make some changes without consulting his boss. Nishizaki was furious, and would never hire Tomino again. With Gundam, Tomino hoped to blow the Yamato out of the air and show up his former boss.
Matsumoto is also important for mixing elements from different eras and styles—turning a World War II battleship into a spaceship in Yamato and sending a steam locomotive into space in 999. This approach to the space opera genre would influence works for generations to come, such as the popular Cowboy Bebop series, which is essentially a western set in space.
Matsumoto’s space operas would also influence Hollywood movies and American TV. The sci-fi TV drama Battlestar Galactica combines the adventure of Yamato with the philosophizing of 999; the Kobayashi Maru training exercise in Star Trek sounds like the name that could have been given to a Japanese warship during World War II.
Then there is France’s undying love for anime and for Matsumoto. In 2001, dance music duo Daft Punk approached Matsumoto about collaborating on the music videos for its new album Discovery. Those videos would later be released as a kind of animated opera called Interstella 5555. In 2012, Matsumoto was knighted by the French government.
In November 2019, Matsumoto collapsed and had to be hospitalized while in Turin, Italy. Just the other day, he auctioned off an illustration he had made of Space Pirate Captain Harlock for 810,000 yen, and donated the funds to the hospital that had taken care of him in Italy.
*Matsumoto Leiji passed away on February 12, 2023. May he rest in peace.
