Ask John: What’s the Significance of the Name “Yamato?”

Question:
What is the Yamato and why do many anime movies have a ship or something named after it?

Answer:
Yamato is the traditional name of Japan, used before the introduction of the more recent names “Nippon” and “Japan.” The name “Yamato,” is said to originate from the Yamato Plains on the island of Honshu where some of the earliest events in recorded Japanese history occurred. In more recent history, the battleship Yamato was the pride of the Japanese navy during the war years of 1941 through 1945. The 65,000 ton Yamato and its sister ship the Musashi remain the largest naval battleships to ever sail. The Yamato first set sail on August 8, 1940, and was commissioned as an official battleship of the Japanese navy on December 16, 1941. The Yamato officially entered WWII as a battleship on February 12, 1942. The Yamato served as the flagship of the battle of Midway and participated in the Battle of the Philippine Islands and the Battle of Samar Gulf, among other skirmishes. On April 7, 1945, the Yamato came under massive attack by American forces and was sunk by no less than 12 torpedo hits and 10 bomb hits. The remains of the battleship were located roughly 200 miles off the shore of Okinawa in the 1970s and became the subject of scientific research examinations in 1985 and 1999.

Although the Yamato never decisively won any major victories during its years of activity, the fact that the Yamato survived the October 24, 1944 battle at Samar Gulf in the Philippines virtually unscathed when the battle resulted in 4 sunken US ships and heavy damage to all other Japanese ships involved, including the Musashi, has secured the Yamato’s place in history as a cultural icon of Japan’s military might and unshakable valor. Leiji Matsumoto fictitiously raised and repaired the Yamato from the bottom of the ocean and turned it into a space ship in his famous anime space opera Uchu Senkan Yamato (Space Battleship Yamato).