CREATED BY: Japanese engineers in WW2, later rebuilt by engineers in the 22nd century.
1ST APPEARANCE: STAR BLAZERS EPISODE 1
(DESTROYED)
The YAMATO was the most powerful battleship in the Japanese navy during World War 2. It remained unbeatable until 1945, when it was sunk attempting a suicide mission aimed at demolishing the American Pacific fleet.
The YAMATO remained at the bottom of the ocean until the Earth went to war with the Gamillons. As the oceans dried up due to meteor bombardment, the rusted out hulk of the YAMATO was exposed again to the light of day. Earth's goverment began a secret project to repair the battleship and transform it into the most powership space battleship in the Earth fleet. It was equiped with all the lastest hardware and retrofitted for space travel. It was also outfitted with a Wave Motion Gun, which could fire a powerful blast of energy. The YAMATO was put rechristened ARGO and put under the command of CAPTAIN AVATAR. It's first mission was to undertake the yearlong mission to ISCANDAR to retrieve the COSMO DNA. It succeeded although AVATAR apparently died of radiation poisoning just as the ship reached Earth.
The ARGO was put under the command of its first officer DEREK WILDSTAR. WILDSTAR led the ship and her crew against the Comet Empire. The ARGO emerged victorious although it was heavily damaged and suffered massive casulties. (Note: In the movie version of these events, the ship is destroyed and more than half the crew don't make out alive.)
After a period of recovery, the ship was sent to defeat the Bolar Confederation. During this adventure, her crew ended up allying themselves with DESSLOCK, the reformed former leader of the Gamillons. After this adventure, the ARGO was renamed YAMATO.
The ship endured many more adventures. Its last one found CAPTAIN AVATAR alive and well. He took the ship to the waterworld of Aquarius, where it tried to stop the inhabitants from flooding the neighboring planet Denguil. In order to save the day, AVATAR piloted the ship into Aquarius and used the Wave Motion gun to create a hydrogen bomb. The planet was destroyed but the YAMATO went with it. It ended up in yet another watery grave.
The ship mysteriously appeared in the time of the Earth's rule under MISTRESS PHOTON. It was seen alongside the ship ARCADIA. The story behind the appearance of both vessels has yet to be revealed.
(Note: the ship makes cameo appearances in several of Leiji Matsumoto's mangas, the most recent one being the GE999 manga. It also makes a cameo appearance in the movie ETERNAL FANTASY. The ship was also expected to return from the dead in an OAV series entitled YAMATO 2520. Unfortunately, the project was scraped.)
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