Yoshinobu Nishizaki

was a Japanese film producer best known as one of the two co-creators of the anime series Space Battleship Yamato. He was sometimes credited as Yoshinori Nishizaki. He was born in 1934 and graduated from the Nihon University Art Department. He also founded the studio Academy Productions which produced Space Battleship Yamato as well as the 1980 anime series; Space Emperor God Sigma for Toei Company.

Life and work

Nishizaki graduated in 1957 from Nippon University. His first love was music; he owned a jazz club and was also a jazz radio personality. He formed Office Academy in 1963 as a music production company. Nishizaki's entry into the anime world came in 1970 when he joined Osamu Tezuka's animation studio, Mushi Production, as a sales manager; his first job was to sell the studio's anime Marvelous Melmo to a TV broadcaster in Osaka. Nishizaki produced his first anime, Triton of the Sea, in 1972, and followed it up with the ambitious musical comedy Wansa-kun in 1973; both were based on Tezuka manga, but due to an apparent copyright mixup on Nishizaki's part, Tezuka lost the rights to the anime versions of both series, and Mushi Production made both shows without Tezuka's involvement. Both shows were also ratings disappointments.

After Mushi declared bankruptcy, Nishizaki hired Eiichi Yamamoto and his former staff from Mushi, restructured his old company Office Academy. Former Mushi Productions' branch studio was incorporated by Office Academy and rebranded as (and rebranded again as Tokyo Animation in 1980). In 1974, Yoshinobu created the classic Space Battleship Yamato franchise alongside famous mangaka Leiji Matsumoto. At first its ratings were as disappointing as those of Nishizaki's previous ventures; however, the franchise exploded in popularity in 1977 with the release of a hugely successful movie-length edit of the TV series, and "Yamato Fever" continued unabated in Japan for the next six years. Slightly edited versions of the three Yamato TV series were also a cult success in the United States under the title Star Blazers. In 1982, Office Academy's subsidiaries, and , were separated from the parent company and merged to form West Cape Corporation. In the same year, Office Academy ceased operations and transferred all of its intellectual property to the successor company.

Nishizaki's other works produced during and after Yamatos peak of popularity did not come close to matching the explosive popularity of Yamato, and during the 1990s, he began to fall into rough straits financially. His company, , founded in 1984, declared bankruptcy in 1991, and Nishizaki, as well as West Cape Corporation, declared bankruptcy in 1997 amidst his wrangling with co-creator Leiji Matsumoto over the copyrights to Yamato. In 1994, Nishizaki designed a short-lived follow-up series called Yamato 2520, and was later sued by Matsumoto for breach of copyright. The case over Yamato led to halting the production of the video series after only three episodes. The dispute was finally settled in 2003, with Nishizaki winning the use of the name Yamato and the original plot and characters but losing the use of the original conceptual art, ship and character designs to Matsumoto.

Nishizaki's anime film Space Battleship Yamato: Resurrection was released on December 12, 2009. There is also a live action film adaptation of the first TV series produced by Nishizaki which premiered in Japan during December 2010.

Anime produced by Nishizaki's companies Television series and OVAs Year Title Series director Series composition Character designer Music composer of episodes Network 1972 Triton of the Sea Yoshiyuki Tomino Yukiyoshi Hane Hiromasa Suzuki 27 ABC 1974 Space Battleship Yamato Leiji Matsumoto Yoshinobu Nishizaki Nobuhiro Okasako Hiroshi Miyagawa 26 NNS 1978 Space Battleship Yamato II Noboru Ishiguro Leiji Matsumoto Kenzō Koizumi Hiroshi Miyagawa 26 NNS 1979 Space Carrier Blue Noah Kazunori Tanahashi Seiji Matsuoka Yukiyoshi Hane Hiroshi Miyagawa 24 NNS 1980 Maeterlinck's Blue Bird: Tyltyl and Mytyl's Adventurous Journey Hiroshi Sasagawa Maru Tamura Fujikawa Toyoo Ashida& Leiji Matsumoto Hiroshi Miyagawa 26 FNS 1980 Space Emperor God Sigma Takeyuki Kanda Taguchi Katsuhiko Taguchi Kazuhiko Udagawa& Kaoru Shintani Hiroshi Tsutsui 50 TC12 1980 Space Battleship Yamato III Eiichi Yamamoto Kenzō Koizumi Hiroshi Miyagawa 25 NNS 1981 Beast King Golion Katsuhiko Taguchi Susumu Takaku Kazuo Nakamura Masahisa Takeichi 52 TC12 1987 Urotsukidōji Hideki Takayama& Yōsei Morino Gorō Sanyō& Nobuaki Kishima Various Masamichi Amano 13 None(OVA) 1994 Yamato 2520 Takeshi Shirato Yoshinobu Nishizaki Toshiyuki Kubooka David Matthews 3 None(OVA)

Feature films Year Title Director Character designer Music composer Runtime 1977 Space Battleship Yamato Toshio Masuda Yoshinobu Nishizaki Eiichi Yamamoto Nobuhiro Okasako Hiroshi Miyagawa 145 1978 Arrivederci Yamato Toshio Masuda Leiji Matsumoto Keisuke Fujikawa Kenzō Koizumi Hiroshi Miyagawa 151 min 1979 Triton of the Sea Kazunori Tanahashi Osamu Tezuka Seiji Matsuoka Yukiyoshi Hane Hiromasa Suzuki 74 min 1979 Yamato: The New Voyage Yoshinobu Nishizaki Leiji Matsumoto Eiichi Yamamoto Kenzō Koizumi Hiroshi Miyagawa 95 min 1980 Be Forever Yamato Tomoharu Katsumata Leiji Matsumoto Toshio Masuda Kazuhiko Udagawa Hiroshi Miyagawa 148 min 1983 Final Yamato Takeshi Shirato Eiichi Yamamoto Kazuo Kasahara Kazuhiko Udagawa Kentarō Haneda 1985 Odin: Photon Sailer Starlight Toshio Masuda Yoshinobu Nishizaki Eiichi Yamamoto& Kazuo Kasahara Tomonori Kogawa Takahashi Various 139 min

Legal troubles On December 2, 1997, police stopped his car on the Tōmei Expressway in Shizuoka after he was driving suspiciously. He was arrested when police found inside his attache case 50g of stimulants, 7g of morphine, 9g of marijuana. While on bail he went to the Philippines on his English-registered cruiser the Ocean Nine; he returned to smuggle in an M16 with M203 grenade launcher, a Glock 17, and a large amount of ammunition. On January 21, 1999, Nishizaki was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison for the narcotics possession charge.

Later on February 1, 1999, he was arrested after a handgun, 131 bullets and 20 grams of stimulant drugs were seized from his house in Setagaya Ward, Tokyo. Nishizaki, voluntarily submitted two automatic rifles, 1,800 bullets, and 30 howitzer shells kept in a station wagon in his garage, police said. Police said that Nishizaki had hidden an Austrian handgun loaded with three bullets under a zaisu chair in a study. Nishizaki told police that he had bought the handgun in Hong Kong 10 years earlier. On February 20, 2003, he was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison for the possessing firearms charge. He was released from prison on December 9, 2007.

Death

Nishizaki drowned on 7 November 2010 at Chichijima, Ogasawara, when he suffered an apparent heart attack after falling off the research steamboat Yamato.

Filmography 1972: Triton of the Sea – Producer 1973: Little Wansa – Producer 1974: Space Battleship Yamato – Producer, original concept 1978: Arrivederci Yamato – Executive producer 1978: Space Battleship Yamato II – Executive producer 1979: Yamato: The New Voyage – Director, executive producer 1979: Space Carrier Blue Noah – Executive producer 1980: Maeterlinck's Blue Bird: Tyltyl and Mytyl's Adventurous Journey – Executive producer 1980: Space Emperor God Sigma – Executive producer 1980: Be Forever Yamato – Executive producer 1980: Space Battleship Yamato III – Executive producer 1981: Beast King GoLion – Executive producer 1983: Final Yamato – Executive producer 1985: Odin: Photon Sailer Starlight – Original concept, executive producer 1987: Urotsukidōji Series – Executive producer 1994: Yamato 2520 – Screenwriter, producer, episode director 2009: Yamato: Resurrection – Co-director, screenwriter, executive producer