Yamatour 2017 - Tokyo, Japan (2017)
When superfan Tim Eldred announced Yamatour 2017 on the Facebook group I jumped at the chance, as his detailed coverage of previous editions had been so enticing. The plan that eventually evolved wasn't so much a group tour as a set of individual tourists who coalesced at certain key points, most notably the movie's premiere on Saturday, 25 February 2017 -- a date with the minor drawback that it's hardly the best season to see Tokyo, and indeed, the weather was usually cold, overcast, windy and drizzling.
This would be my fourth trip to Japan (August 2007 Worldcon, September 2014 Hal-Con, October 2015 in a four-country trip) and Tim's tenth. Tim's priority has been to build a complete set of Yamato artifacts, but I'm more of an experiential traveler. When planning a vacation, I will whenever practical pick a new airline and new layover airports; on the ground, I seek out museums but am always ready for serendipity to be my guide, and my shopping goals are picture postcards, Christmas gifts and samples of modular building toys. To misquote the second Doctor, "I am not a fan of Space Battleship Yamato. I am a fan of a much wider academy, of which Yamato is only a part."
(Background: The anime TV series Uchuu Senkan Yamato (1974) and its sequels are largely responsible for inspiring anime fandom in Japan, and its U.S. adaptation Star Blazers (1980) similarly excited American fans. In 2012 it was rebooted as Space Battleship Yamato 2199, and it's now getting a second season, Space Battleship Yamato 2202: Soldiers of Love. Tim Eldred, comic book artist and now a director at Disney Television Animation, has for the past decade authored a fan site, Cosmo DNA, and moderated an associated Facebook group.)
The following account is written in present tense for simplicity and immediacy. There are 15 images, which you may click to open at a larger size. I include daily cross-references to Tim's accounts on Cosmo DNA.
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This would be my fourth trip to Japan (August 2007 Worldcon, September 2014 Hal-Con, October 2015 in a four-country trip) and Tim's tenth. Tim's priority has been to build a complete set of Yamato artifacts, but I'm more of an experiential traveler. When planning a vacation, I will whenever practical pick a new airline and new layover airports; on the ground, I seek out museums but am always ready for serendipity to be my guide, and my shopping goals are picture postcards, Christmas gifts and samples of modular building toys. To misquote the second Doctor, "I am not a fan of Space Battleship Yamato. I am a fan of a much wider academy, of which Yamato is only a part."
(Background: The anime TV series Uchuu Senkan Yamato (1974) and its sequels are largely responsible for inspiring anime fandom in Japan, and its U.S. adaptation Star Blazers (1980) similarly excited American fans. In 2012 it was rebooted as Space Battleship Yamato 2199, and it's now getting a second season, Space Battleship Yamato 2202: Soldiers of Love. Tim Eldred, comic book artist and now a director at Disney Television Animation, has for the past decade authored a fan site, Cosmo DNA, and moderated an associated Facebook group.)
The following account is written in present tense for simplicity and immediacy. There are 15 images, which you may click to open at a larger size. I include daily cross-references to Tim's accounts on Cosmo DNA.
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