Kojima saw his first foreign movie at age three, not in a theater but…

“This was the first film I went to see at a movie theater by myself, at the OS Theater in Osaka. I have a lot of memories of this film.”

“I started to go see foreign movies from 5th grade, and always bought the movie pamphlets. I still have all of them.”

The first screening of the Yamato movie in Tokyo fell on August 7, 1977, the day of Kojima’s father’s funeral. While handling related paperwork in Umeda with his mother, Kojima bought a presale movie ticket that included a poster and put up Starsha’s image on his bedroom wall. On the day Yamato opened in Kansai he took the first train, waited for hours in the sun in a very long line, and watched probably the third showing in a packed, fetid auditorium. There, for the first time since his father’s death, he was able to process the loss of the man who loved the Yamato.

“It was during that time that my parents introduced a family tradition: every night we would all watch a film together. I wasn't allowed to go to bed till the film had finished: the opposite of how it is for most children.”

“Well, in Japan, they sell movie pamphlets at the theatre, and I saw that they had shot it in the daytime. They didn't have the technology to film at night back then.”