Japanese Mayor and Governor Seen Cosplaying at World Cosplay Summit 2011

In celebration of the World Cosplay Summit 2011 being held in Nagoya City, Aichi this week, Mayor Takashi Kawamura and Aichi Prefectural Governor Hideaki Ohmura cosplayed as Dragon Ball's Piccolo and Space Battleship Yamato's Lord Dessler, both villains in their respective series.

WCS held a red carpet parade through Nagoya's shopping area on Saturday morning. Just as he did last year, Mayor Kawamura opened the parade while cosplaying as the legendary Japanese lord Tokugawa Muneharu. However, Kawamura had cosplayed as Piccolo the day before. Governor Ohmura appeared at the parade as Lord Dessler from the Space Battleship Yamato. Both villains that they cosplayed later became honorable characters in their respective shows.

Other participants in the parade includes: Nagoya's SKE48 and the main voice cast of the Detective Opera Milky Holmes, cosplaying as their respective characters. WCS will continue on Sunday with the Osu Cosplay Parade and the WCS championship competition with voice actor Tohru Furuya, musical group JAM Project, Bushiroad's Takaaki Kidani, cosplayer Tatsumi Inui, and Tokai Walker magazine editor Masaaki Nagase as judges. 17 countries this year took part on the WCS.

Source: Mantan Web, Rocket News 24 (link 2)

Space Battleship Yamato Remake Confirmed

Mechanical designer Makoto Kobayashi (Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ, Giant Robo, Last Exile, Space Battleship Yamato Resurrection) revealed at the closing ceremonies of Anime Expo that he is working on a remake of Space Battleship Yamato which is set to be release next year!

The original Space Battleship Yamato began in 1974 and was created by Yoshinobu Nishizaki and Leiji Matsumoto. The titular spaceship Yamato is built from the remains of the World War II battleship of the same name to protect Earth from extraterrestrial threats. The said series spawned two anime sequels, films and was later dubbed in English as Star Blazers. A live-action movie was also released last year.

Source: Anime News Network

Space Battleship Yamato: #1 in the Box Office!

The movie adaptation  of the classic anime series, Space Battleship YAMATO, exceeded everyone's expectations when the movie debuts on the number one spot in Weekend Box Office Charts!

According to an announcement made by TOHO, Space Battleship YAMATO live action movie earned little less than 950 million Yen (US$11.5 million) during the five days it has been shown in 440 screens, wherein the actual weekend box office revenue for Yamato comes to 530 million Yen (US$6.4 million). The movie was seen over 412,000 times.

There's also a survey conducted by TOHO for the viewers of Space Battleship YAMATO: 52% male and 48% female; 44.4% of all the people are in their forties, 19% in their thirties, 15% in their fifties, and only 12.9% in their twenties! This shows that the majority of those who went to see it first were fans of the original anime back in the day, and more than 50% stated that they only went to see it because they are a fan of the anime and were curious about the live-action adaptation, 15.8% only went because of Kimura Takuya, and a mere 5.3% were simply curious about the hyped special effects.

Trailing behind Space Battleship YAMATO, ranking #2 to #5. are Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, Bleach: Hell Chapter, Bushi no Kakeibo, and SP: The Motion Picture.

Space Battleship YAMATO is a live action adaptation of the classic anime with the same name, starring SMAP member Kimura Takuya and actress Kuroki Meisa which started showing last December 2. A worldwide release has been planned.

Source: TokyoHive and Oricon, Cinema Today via Anime News Network

Space Battleship YAMATO Random Scenes!

In the recent episode of FujiTV's SMAP × SMAP talk show, they showed a preview of the upcoming Space Battleship YAMATO live action movie adaptation's first two minutes. The movie stars SMAP member Kimura Takuya as Susumu Kodai and actress Kuroki Meisa as Yuki Mori.

On this second clip, the world's last hope, YAMATO, ascends from Earth to fire the Wave Motion Gun against an alien invader.

Space Battleship YAMATO took place on the year 2199, when the Earth has been under radioactive siege from the Gamilas Empire for five years. Earth's population has moved underground to escape the bombardment, but the contamination is slowly penetrating to reach them. The crew sets out on a journey to the planet Iscandar to acquire a device that can heal the ravaged Earth before it is too late.

Space Battleship YAMATO will open in Japanese theaters today, December 1, 2010.

Special thanks to August Ragone for the tip!

Space Battleship Yamato Private Screening

Last November 1, a private screening held at the Tokyo International Forum for the upcoming live-action adaptation of Space Battleship Yamato is reportedly received a staggering amount of request according to our source.

According to distribution agency Toho, the film reserved 3,800 seats for the private screening, but the agency received approximately 100,000 applications!

The adaptation of the classic 1974 anime title stars SMAP member Kimura Takuya and actress Kuroki Meisa. Due to the high expectations coming from both retro fans and casual movie-buffs had of the film, the two main leads expressed their anxiety about viewer reactions at the post-screening press conference.

Kimura Takuya said, “I felt a little anxious about seeing your facial expressions after you watched the movie, but now that I see them, I feel full of exaltation.”

Meisa piped in, “I felt pressure and tension in the beginning, because it’s a movie which has been loved by many people, but I tried my best. ” She also admitted with a big smile that this was the first time that she co-starred with Kimura, but she really enjoyed working with him.

Space Battleship Yamato will be released in Japanese theaters this December 1.

Space Battleship Yamato Trailer w/ Theme Song

Here's the theme song of the upcoming live-action anime adaptation of the classic anime, Space Battleship Yamato also known as Star Blazers in the Western audience and some parts of Asia like the Philippines.

Love Lives by Steven Tyler of Aerosmith is playing in the trailer... and it has this same vibe to me with I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing.