Daimakan

Daimakan™ Length 230 meters Width 72 meters Cruising speed 300,000 kilometers per second First appearance The War in Space

The Daimakan (大魔艦,   Daimakan, lit. Giant Demon Ship) is an alien battleship which appears in the 1977 Toho tokusatsu film, The War in Space. The personal starship of the Yomi Alien Commander Hell created as a weapon of interplanetary conquest, it was stationed on Venus as a temporary base of operations. The craft is equipped with a vast array of advanced weaponry and houses a fleet of Hell Fighters.

Name

The Daimakan's name literally translates to "giant demon ship" and was likely chosen as a parallel to Commander Hell and the Hell Fighters. The ship's name may be noted fully as the Venus Daimakan (金星大魔艦,   Kinsei Daimakan, lit. Giant Venus Demon Ship), due to its being stationed on Venus. It is also described as a "Roman ship" (ローマ船,   Rōmakan) by characters during the film.

Development

The Daimakan was designed by production designer and storyboardist Yasuyuki Inoue, who also designed the Gohten in the film, and finalized by Minoru Kujirai. The ship's oar-shaped laser cannons were patterned after the oars of a galley boat, inspired by pirate movies that special effects director Teruyoshi Nakano had seen as a child. A 6-shaku miniature of the ship was modeled by Inoue and his company, Alpha Kikaku.

History

Showa era

The War in Space

To be added.

Weapons

Flight

The Daimakan can travel at a cruising speed of 300,000 kilometers per second, and is equipped for warp navigation. It is propelled by four rockets from its underside and two on the back, supported by a total of eight gyrostabilizers on its sides. The Daimakan is also capable of interdimensional travel by using a pair of dimensional conversion devices (次元転換装置,   jigen tenkan sōchi), allowing it to freely pass through space and time.

Space Beam cannons

The Daimakan's primary offensive measure is its Space Beam cannons (スペース・ビーム砲,   Supēsu Bīmu hō). There is one affixed between its array of antennae and nine on the ship's bridge.

Undulating beam cannons

The Daimakan has a total of 36 oar-shaped Undulating beam cannons (波状ビーム砲,   Hajō bīmu hō) on its port and starboard, 18 for each side.

Gravity cannon

The Daimakan can emit highly destructive gravitational waves from a Gravity cannon (重力砲,   Jūryoku hō) housed in the ship's bridge.

Hell Missiles

The Daimakan is armed with 64 Hell Missiles (ヘル・ミサイル,   Heru Misairu), fired from four cannons at the ship's bow.

Crush Bow

At the ship's bow, the Daimakan is equipped with a large golden figurehead of a dragon called the Crush Bow (クラッシュ・ボウ,   Kurasshu Bō). Though unseen, this would have likely been used to ram enemy vessels.

Hell Fighters

The Daimakan is able to store and deploy 75 Hell Fighters from a compartment in the ship's stern.

Energy Absorber Antennae

The Daimakan is equipped with Energy Absorber Antennae (エネルギー・アブソーバー・アンテナ,   Enerugī Abusōbā Antena) which function as both radar antennae and solar panels of sorts, collecting energy from space to provide the power of its weapons.

Defensive capabilities

The Daimakan can generate a near-impregnable force field around itself to block oncoming attacks, though this has the disadvantage of preventing the use of its own weaponry. The ship's force field was lowered after Space Fighters buried it in the rubble.

Gallery

Concept art

The War in Space

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Screenshots

The War in Space

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Trivia

• At speeds of nearly Mach 900,000, the Daimakan is one of the fastest known Toho vehicles, beat only by the TOKYO-3 from Bye-Bye Jupiter.
• The Daimakan is referenced in episode 47 of the 2003-2005 anime series Sonic X entitled "Map of Mayhem," which pays extensive homage to a number of Toho's films and characters. Upon reaching their destination at Latitude Zero, itself a reference to the film of the same name, the protagonists are attacked by Dr. Eggman's battleship Egg Giant-Makan (エッグ大魔艦,   Eggu Daimakan), which references the Daimakan in both name and appearance. In the show's English dub, the craft was renamed to simply "Egg Battleship."

References

This is a list of references for Daimakan. These citations are used to identify the reliable sources on which this article is based. These references appear inside articles in the form of superscript numbers, which look like this: ^[1]

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