in five episodes from 2004 to 2007. Its first episode was temporarily available for streaming online in 2007. Unable to continue his plans for the Great Yamato project after a copyright shift in March 2002, Leiji Matsumoto radically redesigned the ship and staffed it with a completely new crew starting with modified versions of his Great Yamato characters. The story begins in 3199, when a mighty enemy attacks the Milky Way from a neighbouring galaxy, and defeats the Milky Way Alliance, reducing them to just six fleets. After the Alliance headquarters is destroyed, and when the collapse of the central Milky Way Alliance is imminent, the Great Yamato "Zero" embarks on a mission to assist the Milky Way Alliance in one last great battle. New Space Battleship Yamato (2004, cancelled) In March 2002, a Tokyo court ruled that Yoshinobu Nishizaki legally owned the Yamato copyrights. Nishizaki and Matsumoto eventually settled, and Nishizaki pushed ahead with developing a new Yamato television series. Project proposals for a 26-episode television series were drawn up in early 2004, but no further work was done with Tohoku Shinsha not backing the project. American series expert Tim Eldred was able to secure a complete package of art, mecha designs, and story outline at an auction over Japanese store Mandarake in April 2014. Set 20 years after Final Yamato, the series would have shown Susumu Kodai leading a salvage operation for the remains of the Yamato. The ship is rebuilt as the Earth Defense Force builds a second Space Battleship Yamato to combat the Balbard Empire, an alien race that has erected a massive honeycombed cage called Ru Sak Gar over Earth, in a bid to stop the human race's spacefaring efforts. A feature film to be released after the series ended would have featured the original space battleship fighting the Balbards' attempt to launch a black hole at Earth. Kodai, Yuki, and Sanada are the only original series characters who would have returned in the series. Remakes Live-action film (2010) Released on December 1, 2010, Space Battleship Yamato is the franchise's first live-action film. Directed by Takashi Yamazaki, the movie stars Takuya Kimura as Susumu Kodai and Meisa Kuroki as Yuki. It was revealed originally that the plot would be based on that of the 1974 series. However, an official trailer released during June 2010 on Japanese television has also shown elements from the series' second