Yoshiyuki Tomino has worked on many anime throughout the years, but he’s best known for creating the Mobile Suit Gundam franchise. At a recent academic lecture, the anime legend spoke about his creative process and what went into the venerable mecha brand.
Attending the 2024 Women’s Education Lecture, Tomino answered questions about his personal development process. This included the themes he added to certain anime and the type of world he would like to live in. These narrative elements in question honed in on one series in particular, perhaps inspiring fans to revisit the controversial Gundam anime.
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Gundam Creator’s Life Desires Justify One of the Most Controversial Gundam Anime
Held at Okamoto Memorial Hall, the 2024 Women’s Education Lecture in Japan has been host to many speakers over the years, including iconic anime creator Yoshiyuki Tomino. The lecture featured pre-screened questions, with the event somewhat inspired by research on a “flying car” that a student had done. This sense of futurism was reflected in what the creator brought up about the Gundam anime franchise, particularly in how it differed from what came before.
Starting the “Real Robot” subgenre of mecha anime, Mobile Suit Gundam notably had humans warring with each other using militaristic mobile suits instead of fighting cartoonish aliens with equally ridiculous robots. Talking about how this was viewed as shocking at the time for mainstream anime, Tomino continued by discussing how some ideas have to be implemented, regardless of whether they’re too ahead of their time. When asked about his philosophy concerning life and death, Tomino responded, “Death is within my reach. I think it’s a good thing to be able to face death peacefully. I want to face death head-on. Rather than leaving something tangible behind, I’ve come to think that I want to create something that can be passed on to the next generation. It is said that it is not something that can be passed on now, but the next generation will understand.”
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The example he gave of this was the infamous Gundam Reconguista in G, a 35th anniversary series that’s now over a decade old. Fairly different from previous anime in the series, it was heavily criticized for its muddled storytelling that ultimately failed to attract much of its target audience. Nevertheless, it had an underlying theme of self-actualization that was meant to inspire the next generation of viewers to find their own path. Given this narrative premise, Tomino’s concluding statement — “I hope that the future will be different from the Earth today” — makes perfect sense.
Since its original release, Gundam Reconguista in G (also known by fans as G-Reco) has been somewhat reexamined and more fondly received compared to when it first came out. Thus, Tomino’s intentions for its story may very well have come true. Its self-actualization themes are somewhat comparable to Neon Genesis Evangelion — something of an ironic twist, as the current Gundam anime is being overseen by the Evangelion creator.
Source: Seien
