You are welcome to look at the talkback but please consider that this article is over 11 months old before posting.
Forum - View topicINTEREST: Gundam's Yoshiyuki Tomino Wants Next Work to Reflect Current Wars Such as Ukraine, Israel
|
Goto page 1, 2 Next Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
LinkTSwordmaster
 Posts: 814 Location: PA / USA |
|
|||||||
|
There was that article that popped up a bit ago about Tomino's face appearing on the money in the current Gundam anime that is airing, and I made the comment there that I'd wondered if it was in fact actually intended as a homage.... or them taking a shot at him for the fact that his last big major Gundam project was sort of a giant troll (Reconguista). If you bought any figures or models of mobile suits from Reconguista, congrats, it doubles as a toilet - that sort of goofiness.
I've always gotten the vibe that Char is something of a self-insert in early UC Gundam for him, a character that grows from series to series chasing revenge as a child, then trying to stop war by appealing to reason as a young adult, then losing faith in humanity after aging. Keeping in mind that it's been said the original plan was to kill off Amuro, it's interesting to see him function as a counterpoint to most of Char's arguments throughout the series - even as he ages, he maintains an almost-childlike faith in humanity, in spite of everything that's happened to him. Watching Char and Amuro struggle onscreen, it paints the picture of two halves of an individual fighting with themself internally in order to make sense of living through war's chaos.... and attempting to come out the other side as a fully-realised adult in spite of all of the internal contradictions. In that regard, Full Frontal's presence in Unicorn is very interesting because even if you vote/elect/revolt out the malicious people keeping UC Gundam's problems perpetuating, there's still people out there in the UC era that feel empty during peacetime and only know how to solve problems in combat since childhood (Marida Cruz's presence). Frontal describes himself as an empty vessel, Marida metaphorically is one due to what has been inflicted upon her medically. Unicorn has a bit of a running theme that the villains are chasing the ghost of an idea - of better times, not realising the past isn't better just because the present isn't what they thought they were asking for. It ends on the interesting note, that finding wholeness or peace within one's self, and setting a foundation for dialogue with reparations and trust rather than just out&out victory might be the only true way to sway the hearts of UC Gundam's broken people.
When I see him after all these years saying out loud what I was already reading from him, it really makes me wonder how far off I am to analyse his works. Gundam is a massive multimedia IP at this point and Bandai often seems like they're chasing profit over art. It's hard to say if something new & based on modern conflict would execute well when UC Gundam has its own issues in spots & is a product of its time in a lot of places, but I left Witch From Mercury feeling like there was barely any meat or teeth to its story (and then the companies behind it crapped on its ending). I just don't know that anyone wanting to make money off of Gundam would dare greenlight another "no one survives war" story from Tomino at this point, but I agree very much with him - a new Gundam that functions as a modern take on Grave of the Fireflies with a new Char-like character at the center might be the only sort of Gundam project worth feeling going forward, otherwise the series is just an empty, pop culture shell of its former self that's only good for making money off of plastic. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
Cheap Trick
Posts: 58 |
|
|||||||
|
As long as it's actually about war and not weird nostalgic alternate multiverse stuff.
Just give me a normal Gundam I don't care what it's about. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
EmeraldSaucer
 Posts: 922 |
|
|||||||
Tomino is done with making Gundam; he didn't even want GReco to be called Gundam. If he were to explore these ideas, it'd be elsewhere. Possibly in the show he wants to make about Queen Himiko, since there's plenty of ground to work with concerning issues of land and social identity when it comes to Yamatai and the Yamato people |
||||||||
|
||||||||
Nionel
 Posts: 632 Location: Nebraska |
|
|||||||
I think of everything you wrote, this hit me the hardest because I think it sums up much of the conflict in our modern society. I don't want to get political here, but chasing an idealized past is something people seem to want because they're unhappy with what the world has become, much like what's happened with the UC timeline in Gundam. I guess GQuuuuuuX kinda struck a chord by letting Zeon win the war. Anyway, I agree with your assessment of the state of the franchise as well. It has evolved into a multimedia juggernaut and I think the days of getting grim war stories are in the past. Yes there were some events in GQuuuuuuX that called back to those types of storylines but, as you said, the days of Tomino's style of story telling are over. We're never getting another Zeta. There's a reason that Kamille's ending was retconned when they the release of A New Translation. Sure that ending doesn't have any effect on the stories that have already been told, but the wild tonal shift of ZZ shows us that, even forty years ago, Sunrise and Bandai weren't pleased with the direction the franchise was going. I've been a fan for a long time and I'm curious to see where it goes from here, but I'm expecting to see something akin to Witch From Mercury and less like Iron Blooded Orphans. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
EmeraldSaucer
Posts: 922 |
|
|||||||
The tonal shift of ZZ had nothing to do with any directives from on-high, it was just that they were exhausted after working on Zeta and immediately going into production on ZZ with no break (going from Zeta one week to a preview of ZZ the next), and so they wanted to make something else |
||||||||
|
||||||||
Kicksville
 Posts: 1415 |
|
|||||||
It's very unlikely that was an insult. The episode preview for the finale shows its title, which is the same as (probably not a spoiler, but just in case) spoiler[Tomino's autobiography], so it seems very fawning if anything. G-Reco had a lot to say about the modern world. I think it's too bad if people write it off on a few practical details. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
PandaXs1
 Posts: 32 |
|
|||||||
how is this a bad thing? you know what the alternative is for fighter pilots in real life? there isn't one! if you have to sortie for hours at a time and you gotta use the bathroom your only recourse is to soil yourself. honestly I haven't seen G-reco yet, but everything I've gathered is it's "bad" 'cause it's not like previous Gundam shows. everyone did the exact same thing with Turn A Gundam, and now it's considered one of the greatest shows in the franchise. even ZZ is getting the recognition it deserves these days. and as others have pointed out, the people making GQuuuuuuX have basically been glazing Tomino since day one, so there are no shots being made here. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
tintor2
 Posts: 2689 |
|
|||||||
|
I remember Go Nagai saying that his aim with Devilman was showing a story about war rather than a dark superhero. There are also people like Makoto Yukimura who often speak about this subject even in twitter while critcizing several present events in his X/twiter account.
There are also two Gundam series which were highly affected by war. Gundam SEED was affected by the War on Terror since it came around the same time and thus the amount of casualties were turned down. Fukuda formed the image of the main character of SEED based on the concept of an Islamic soldier fighting in the US military. As a result Kira became a Coordinator living in a neutral country until he was forced to start to fight for the Naturals. Gundam 00 was also the subject of a story being based on real world events. Setsuna being a Kurd was an intentional decision by Sunrise. This was done as critique to Japan's apathy towards religion. Mizushima wanted to give viewers a close approach to the wars in the Middle East, believing the problem would not be solved in a long time. Mizushima aimed to make the viewers understand Setsuna's feelings as a result of living under war conditions. In regards to his personality, Mizushima wanted the series' protagonist that could not be related with the audience. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
Firefly251
Posts: 450 |
|
|||||||
humans when given freedom always give in to desire, envy, and greed which harm others. The only way to stop the behavior is to agree as a whole global mentality of "if a nation/group acts out the rest of them 100% put them down instantly" only by enforcing such strict no negotiation norms would you ever hope to stop humans violence tendencies. I always like the older gundams more than newer ones and I do hope he can make his wanted series before he dies. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
LinkTSwordmaster
Posts: 814 Location: PA / USA |
|
|||||||
Insult would probably be too strong of a word, I had in my mind a jab or a jest of some sort. The toilet thing is very absurd from Reconquista, and a lot of aspects of it seem almost purposely-absurd, so I'm working from that perspective that any joke or retaliation coming off of Reconguista is likely a lighthearted absurdity in its tone - otherwise most Japanese creators would likely just pretend Tomino didn't exist or ignore him if there was some larger beef (see Ono leaving Capcom and how Street Fighter's new team tries not to draw attention to him). I have not started watching GQuuX in full yet (am waiting for everything to be available all at once), but it will be interesting to go into that episode and see what exactly they do with it.
I don't personally think it's a bad thing, and I totally endorse buying a small little model railroad sign that says "Restroom" to sit next to your Reconguista units sitting on your shelf, in effort to keep the joke alive. I personally have trouble enjoying it as a show or a movie (the movies are more recent and potentially a safer entry point?) and its due to how the pacing and character motivations make the story a bit hard to follow if you are specifically sitting down to watch it as traditional Gundam media. Academically on the other hand, the story somewhat-satirises the idea and purpose of war, in that everyone's purpose for fighting is toned as being selfish or arbitrary, but always is somewhat-absurd. Imagine a Gundam series where the pilots are all social media influencers, and any time they're hit with a controversy or someone in their comments calls them out, they switch sides to try and not-lose a ton of followers & revenue. ....It's not a 1:1 representation of what Reconguista is doing, but the spirit of it has this very "how do I take this multimedia franchise in a direction that shows young adults and children that war is pointless?" sort of a tone. It's very interesting from an art perspective and as a fan of UC Gundam, but it also makes it a little difficult to watch.
NHK World ran a small documentary and interview with him about his works recently, and Nagai was diving into this subject quite a bit, I very much like his stuff. Crybaby might be a bit of a difficult watch for some, but it's a pretty solid way to experience the story. With Ryo specifically, Nagai is showing a character that's rather selfishly pursuing his own desires - particularly at the expense of those around him. If everyone in the series only acted like Ryo does, what would there be left of the world? He's a character that functions very similar to Char, and yet is wholly different enough that the results are pleasantly unexpected - Nagai's thought process on how he originally wrote the Ryo character, envisioning him as a living entity that could change or even shock his creator is quite a fun way to approach your writing/storytelling. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
Daidan12
Posts: 170 |
|
|||||||
Has been this way since ZZ, they forced a tight schedule while Tomino was also working on Char's Counterattack. Then you have tragedies like F91 being cut or Victory being a miserable production (Tomino was off the rails, and the suits didn't even watch the show). There are some positives like G Gundam being made just because they could sell more... totally no stereotypic or racist toys lmao.
Sometimes I forget that it's been 15+ years since 00. I wonder what that staff has done since then. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
penguintruth
 Posts: 8627 Location: Penguinopolis |
|
|||||||
|
I love Tomino and Gundam, but given some of the... problematic stuff that almost made it into Zeta Gundam, I'm hesitant to allow him to put real life conflicts in his anime. But then, that was the 1980s, and maybe he's grown.
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
Alphael
Posts: 70 |
|
|||||||
Seeing the words "Tomino" and "Israel" did make me immediately think of his opinions on Jews from Zeta's production notes as well. But since Tomino is still throws up Sieg Zeons at public events and given how much the Gundam fanbase loves Zeon and wears it's flag and insignia with pride I'm going to guess not much has changed. I am kind of curious what he would do though... |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
Dumas1
Posts: 116 |
|
|||||||
|
This conversation reminds me of the ending to War in the Pocket, the divide between Al, who's lost friends to the war, and his classmates who try to cheer him up with the idea of even cooler mobile suits being built in the future.
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
yeehaw
 Posts: 884 |
|
|||||||
|
Good news! More war just dropped!
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group