Space Battleship Yamato OST played by Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force Band. Yamato was the heaviest and most powerfully armed battleships ever constructed and armed with nine 46 cm (18.1 in) main guns, built for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN). Decades after the war, Yamato was memorialised in various forms by the Japanese. In October 1974, Leiji Matsumoto created a new tv series, Space Battleship Yamato, about rebuilding the battleship as a starship and its interstellar quest to save Earth.