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tominostuff · 4 years

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Oshii Mamoru x Anno Hideaki Char’s Counterattack Fan Club Book

Published: January 1993

Just the first 3 pages as a teaser lol

Influence

Anno: As a creator, I like CCA because you can hear Mr. Tomino’s very genuine voice in it. But Mr. Oshii, you tend to dislike doing that. You try to sugarcoat your true intentions and hide it deep within. So, it’s unexpected that someone like you enjoyed CCA.

Oshii: Well, isn’t it just that? As you said, Mr. Tomino’s raw voice is all out in the open.

Anno: Yes. It’s very direct. I think sensitive people may even harbor hatred for it.

Oshii: (Kazunori) Itou-kun apparently stopped watching 5 minutes in. When he heard the first “heavenly punishment” line, he couldn’t follow along anymore and stopped (laughs). Since he used to be at Sunrise, he probably sees more.

So [whether or not you like the movie] is probably decided by what kind of reaction you’d have to hearing lines like 修正 “correction” or 粛清 “purge” or 天誅 “heavenly punishment.” Since there’s bound to be many people who have a dislike towards words like that. Especially older people react towards “purge” and “correction.” For the pre-war faction, “correction” meant military lynching and for people after the 70s, “correction” means demonstrator/political radicals or controlled lynching. There’s also the Red Army (JRA) issue as well.

If it were a movie, they may have not been bothered by it but since it’s an animation. There is a gap between the raw human intentions and the drawn world. And that actually makes a bigger impact. So for people who dislike seeing undiluted emotions show up on screen, they just can’t do it.

Anno: I wasn’t bothered by it.

Oshii: I think you and I were making things during the awkward off season of animation. People like Miya-san (Miyazaki Hayao) who were swept along by Toei and made animations for kids versus people who were pursuing movies and ended up in an anime studio...our generation of people is the in-between, so we understand both sides. We are caught between both the part that’s making shows for kids and the part that wants to make movies that we are personally satisfied with. So, depending on where you place the center of balance, you end up making a completely different thing.

On one hand, I felt that this movie could only be accepted by people like that. The older folk just thought it was bad. People in the anime industry especially. And for younger folk, they don’t know how to process an undiluted political world like that one. Despite all of this, the theaters were pretty full. And that’s probably due to the influence of Gundam.

It was around the same time as Patlabor. Even though Mr. Tomino did whatever he wanted in Gundam, and I worked on Patlabor with the same Shochiku, when the high ups at Shochiku came to the press release for the previous Patlabor installment, they just said “I didn’t understand anything” and left. “Nothing made sense.” They were grumbling, “but robot anime originally was like this” as they went home. Which I think was thanks to Gundam (laughs).

Even so, I was impressed that a script like CCA was greenlit. How could they release something like that. Probably because they weren’t watching it very seriously. Everyone is so enchanted by the surface-level space war aspect that there’s very few people who accurately grasp Mr. Tomino’s intentions.

Anno: I didn’t understand it the first time I watched it.

Oshii: The idea itself is not anything exceptional. It doesn’t come up to the surface but… to exaggerate, this is about present day, but as a phenomenon, in Japan maybe after the 70s? Among the political ideas that collapsed in the 60s was a type of retaliation ideology….. There’s a bit of nihilism in it, but basically there existed a political thought that placed its basis on the idea that “humans are no good.” However, that never made its way into the mainstream and much less in a world like animation, the center of popular culture, the fact that it showed up so suddenly was a surprise. It was almost pure literature.

To want to retaliate against humanity or to want to correct humanity… truth be told, I also had similar thoughts. For example, the upcoming Patlabor has a bit of that in it. There’s a desire to seek revenge against a kind of deceptive inquisitiveness of this generation. However, I’m hesitant about being too direct about it (laughs)... more like I personally, am not a fan of being so direct…. And to go so far as to start saying the intellectuals that, the masses this. That part of the dialogue was probably an exact reflection of Mr. Tomino’s beliefs. As a method of expression, I would never do something like declaring my true beliefs during the movie.

Just, the one thing I don’t get is why he suddenly did something like that. I actually haven’t watched the Gundam series too seriously so when I saw that, it seemed out of the blue. Perhaps he had laid the foundations for it earlier but I actually haven’t watched anything since Zeta Gundam. Watched the first Gundam and then suddenly CCA. So I don’t know what happened in this gap but it probably wasn’t anything sudden, it was probably always present.

Anno: Yes. I think he spit out everything he had accumulated, or more like, he put an end to things.

Ideologies

Oshii: When you’re working on anime, you’re required to be different from an ordinary movie director. Even though it may look like we’re doing whatever we please, there are some things that we just can’t do. In a live action, even if it’s a bit explicit it may not be a huge problem… but with anime, there’s the first psychological barrier of the people who have to draw it. And when you think about it, the first person who did those things was Mr. Tomino. Like the child who fires in front of his mother. Or the boy or girl, I forget, that got their head blown off along with their helmet.

When I saw Ideon, I believe it was when I was working on The Wonderful Adventures of Nils at Pierrot, it gave me such a shock. And it became the topic of discussion among directors at the studio. We wondered if it was okay to make something like that. My mentor, Mr. Tori (Hisayuki Toriumi), was someone who would do rather sadistic things. Like, Gatchaman was horrible. People would get hung with chains and beaten with a whip or Joe the Condor would get his face stepped on and messed up. He’s done pretty controversial things over the years. However, he never was as raw. After all, we had passed the era where such direct expression is allowed.

There were a few taboos that were said to exist in anime, the destruction of bodies being one of them, but the bigger one that existed was probably, “politics.” To express your own political beliefs in the anime you were creating. I don’t mean things like post-war democracy or Tezuka Osamu’s humanism, etc, but radical revolutionary ideas, betrayed ressentiment (concept of resentment or hostility related to 19th century thinkers like Friedrich Neitzche), feelings of grudge, etc. have no place in anime. No one explicitly says it but as you spend time at the studio, you naturally begin to realize that’s the limit. If you want to do it, you have to change its shape. So like in Urusei Yatsura or Patlabor, I had to disguise it as a type of metaphor or a running joke. So even if you’re allowed to have a miniature battle for authority in a school setting… well, originally, even that was going too far, I was told many things by different people… it wasn’t like anyone said anything openly but no one thought to do it in the first place. The reason why is because everyone thought animation was the wrong place to be testing such ideas, who’s going to want to watch something like that.

Back when Toei made Future War 198x, circulation boards went around and the Toei Animation Company labor union went on strike and all that, but inside, there were a lot of debates happening. Especially among directors wondering how they should take it all. Regardless of the fact that the age of the average anime watcher was increasing due to the anime boom, where exactly do we place the limit? Is it okay for us to try things that an ordinary live action director might do? For the generation of directors above us, these questions existed in a more tangible form. Whenever there was destruction of bodies or kiss scenes, like Mr. Tori did once in Gatchaman, every time something like that would happen on screen, production companies would file complaints or the TV stations would complain, and there would be this back and forth. Even so, there were people who wanted to depict these things. But in other words, that was it. The complaints were only on the artistic level. What that person did in CCA is leagues beyond that.

The philosophies or policies or themes, those things aren’t in there because the movie needs it, no, the ideology is first and foremost (laughs). It’s probably forgiven because it’s underneath the umbrella of Gundam but even so, I was surprised that they could go that far.

And, I was surprised a second time when there was no reaction to it. I spoke about this with Anno over the phone but, there’s no talk about it, good or bad. Why is there no reaction to such a radical outburst? There were probably a few entries to some anime magazines, I’ve seen a few of them myself, but in the end they were just the usual debates about war in Gundam.

In that way, it was as I expected. By “as expected” I mean, even if one speaks of such ideals in animation, who is going to see it, and how? This is a problem that I’m always facing myself because the stories that I want to create aren’t reaching the audience that I desire. And that’s probably because it’s anime. If it were live action, you could just leave it alone and a bunch of critics would come along and say what they want. Even if it’s just some boring police drama, they’d dig up all this nonsense to write. Conversely, [CCA] didn’t receive attention because it was anime. Because it was anime, the ideas presented in it were overlooked. To Mr. Tomino, that was probably extremely regrettable. Because I am always experiencing similar things. The anime isn’t reaching the people who are supposed to see it. That is what I felt from it.

Anno: Anime as a method of expression is very infantile. Especially facial expressions, angry faces have raised eyebrows, crying faces have tears in their eyes, blurry pupils means they are crying; if a foreigner saw this, I don’t think they’d understand. Japanese people are trained to understand to some extent so they know “oh they’re crying right now.”

However, whether the character is crying because they are happy or because they are sad, cannot be understood through just the art, without dialogue and the whole package. So, whether hands go flying or blood is shed, at the end of day, they’re all cell humans. Even if they speak, it's just 3 frames of mouths going open and close. I think the sincere attitude of trying to go so far through such childish means of expression and in the even more remote region of robot anime is amazing. I don’t think there were any directors like this until now.

Oshii: Yeah, there weren’t. I didn’t think he would take it that far. Although, I had sensed that vibe from Gundam itself. The structure of war depicted in it probably made that kind of thing possible. I don’t know how much he had pre-planned while he was creating the initial settings for the show but… it’s probably something similar to Patlabor where you start realizing “oh this is possible too” as you go. But, I kind of understand why it came out of a robot anime. With gag anime or home drama, school stories, these things would definitely be caught in a check at some stage. It’s probably due to the very combative world of robot anime, which depicts war, that kind of thing was passed (laughs).

Anno: That’s right. It was probably only possible because it had its beginnings as “just an ad for robot toys.”

Resignation

Oshii: Back when Urusei just finished airing, I met Mr. Yasuhiko at a magazine interview. It was right when the manga, Todonotsumari, was serializing in Animage. The first thing that person said was, “Animators like the ones depicted in [that manga] don’t exist. The anime studio environment that you are creating there is the furthest from an anime studio in reality. It’s what doesn’t exist the most. Why do you do this?” That’s when I sensed a bit of the resignation or frustration that generation of uncles hold towards animation. To put it bluntly, it's a type of inferiority complex.

I, too, was told that when I entered Tatsunoko. “In the end it’s just an ad for toys. So don’t put too much effort into it. If you don’t keep it at a minimum, you’ll only feel disappointed at the end. If you become too serious about making a masterpiece or making a film, you won’t make it in this industry.” I got a lot of that. Whether they were sakuga directors, animators, producers, bosses. From different people, in different ways, I was told many things. To summarize, that’s pretty much what they’d tell me. “The anime job is not a place for that.”

I’m generalizing but the generation above us started from a place of resignation. Like the background artist who couldn’t feed themselves off of oil paintings or the animator who couldn’t become a mangaka, it’s not nice to say but the industry was full of people who drifted into it. It was that kind of world. But there were good sides to it being that kind of world. No one would comment on what other people were doing.

Like, I was told at the beginning, “Don’t criticize other people’s work.” And not only did this apply to people in my own studio but I also wasn’t allowed to say this and that about what Toei was doing. From the start I was still in the mindset of a film bro so I’d complain “what is that?” but I was told off not only by older directors but also by directors my own age. Was it Mashimo Koichi? (laughs). “It’s easy to spot as many faults as you’d like in other people’s work. So there’s an infinite number of criticisms you can make. The only thing that matters is what you yourself creates.” To that I said, “I don’t think so. I have the ability to state why boring things are boring with logic to back it up so I should be allowed to. If we don’t say these things out loud, nothing will change. In exchange, I don’t care how badly my work gets criticized.” That’s a very normal thing. Bar fights are constant in the movie industry. “Why doesn’t it work in the same way in the anime industry?” is how I felt.

So, until I met Miya-san I was always frustrated. Meeting Miya-san was the first time…. cause that person is the same way. He says whatever he wants about other people’s work…just as I thought, this kind of person does exist. Even as we argue, even as we lovingly tear each other’s work apart, we are still together. I think that’s a very important skill as a director and even beyond that, I was perplexed as to why this wasn’t allowed in the anime industry.

The one thought I always held within all of this was that, before the sponsors or stations or whatever, the anime industry carved out territory for itself and didn’t try to leave it. So when the industry was forced to the forefront with the anime boom, the previously anonymous animators and directors suddenly found themselves in the limelight. And with that, all of the inferiority complexes came flooding out in a warped way.

For example, Mr. Yasuhiko’s Crusher Joe is unnecessarily cruel. Like small animals getting turned into meat clumps with a machine gun. Or patricide or siblings killing each other. Everything that had been suppressed until now came flooding out in a very warped way. Endlessly mass producing worthless children’s media that's neither good or bad would turn one’s literary consciousness inwards. So when you’re finally able to put work out there under your own name, all of that came out. Basically what I’m saying is that the balance is off. How far can you take things, from where should you start dialing back; everyone has their own parameters based on their unique method of expression. But they let everything out, completely ignoring these parameters.

When I saw this, I was full of complicated feelings. “Why do you guys have to have such a complex towards making animation?” I hated it so much because the generation below me doesn’t really have these taboos or warped perceptions.

Anno: They really don’t.

Crime of Conscience

Oshii: On the other hand, there are many things that you can do in anime that wouldn’t be allowed in Japanese movies. Ideas that would be stamped into the rejection pile for a Japanese movie can be expressed to a certain degree in anime….is what people discovered. One way to put it is, if you take “the way anime is viewed” in a societal sense and work within those means, then anything is possible…..or at least I felt (laughs). It’s only useful up to a certain point of course. Using a tactic of pushing and retreating to mix things up while creating a proper product on the other end was how I was doing my job. At the time. Even now I feel I work in a similar way but it’s different. We become wary and don’t do it like that. We’d try to cheat things by having it take place in an alternate universe. Or if you’re trying to depict a rebellion, don’t draw it from the rebel side but from the police side instead (laughs).

Even today, although it takes a different form, the idea that animation is for kids still persists. Showing nude bodies, and not cute things like shower scenes or skirt flipping, but in the context of lovers or affairs, passionate love or a world where politics are spoken about so clearly, is going to be rejected. But if you add “somewhere out in outer space,” sometimes it slips past the radar and gets greenlit.

However, I think Mr. Tomino knew what he was doing.

Anno: I think so too.

Oshii: When I saw it, I thought “he did this on purpose.” There’s probably parts that I understand because I am also a creator. It was well balanced. There was none of the off-balanceness of Mr. Yasuhiko. Of course, what lies underneath is the same. At the foundation is this inner warped hatred towards animation movies. On the other hand, he understands that he’s just an anime person and can't express things well when he’s separate from anime. That kind of thing, however, was pretty well controlled when it came to Char’s Counterattack. Therefore, there is no doubt that it was a crime of conscience.

However, even if it was on purpose, I still think the film was too blunt. I thought it would be better to disguise it a little more, dress it up a little more, camouflage it, and wear a covering, something.

Anno: On the contrary, I thought that’s what made it so masculine or cool.

Oshii: It’s dangerous. Danger is not about being socially sanctioned, criticized, or denounced, but rather straightforward words suggesting revolution, intellectuals this and that, and correcting or imposing sanctions on humankind… if you are not careful about it, the intentions may be flipped on you. In other words, you run the risk of becoming a gag. Political language is rather delicate, isn’t it? If you do it too much, like those violent student protesters who often appear in TV dramas, it becomes a comedy act that’s so ugly you can’t even call it a parody. That’s why, in Urusei Yatsura, Megane, the plot device guy, was doing everything exaggeratedly as a running joke. That's because I thought that if I didn't do it that way, it wouldn't pass, and I, personally, wanted to see it. There was a part of me that felt detached. And that was funny in itself. The fact remains that even to me, that era, while there were some painful parts, I also felt that it was humorous. Some parts are nostalgic, and some parts make me feel even disgusted. I found some salvation in letting everything out through a plot device character like Megane. That kind of thing, if you do it seriously, it's just painful.

In short, political language is pretty delicate…. Going back to the phrase “heavenly punishment.” I’m positive that there’s people who laughed at that phrase. Because we’re talking “heavenly punishment” in a space environment. What he’s doing is describing the “February 26 Incident” verbatim but the world he’s created is a future battlefield in outer space. There’s an immense gap. The younger generation may not care about it, though. I've always felt that kind of thing from Sunrise. There is something off about them. It seems that there are people who strangely want to enumerate dead languages.

My scariest thought is that there’s probably people who laughed at CCA. That they found it comical. The fact these imperial loyalist type characters are living out the “one person one kill” kind of world in outer space. I avoided writing these kinds of stories for this exact reason. ‘Cause at some point, someone is going to laugh. Like the drama, “Hyokin Tribe” from back in the day. You write the drama very seriously and in the end, it all flips on its head. It’s the generation where (serious) things are seen in a cynical manner. I am conscious of the enemy waiting, ready to turn everything into laughs. Especially when it comes to anime, anything is possible so you take it very seriously until the very end where it’s all comedy. The moment that becomes obvious, everything you’ve accumulated becomes invalid. So I prefer it the other way around, to create the mood, “this is a lie, it’s all jokes,” and then reveal that it was actually my true intention all along. I feel that it’s more effective to build up the jokes and then bring it into the real world at the end. In short, you can’t be seen through this way. If you ask me, the modern movie goer is rather twisted. A naive audience doesn’t exist. Within that, however, many anime viewers are among the exceptionally naive. They get impressed right away. As if they’re prepared to be impressed. Compared to the average viewer, anime watchers are easy to deceive, to the point where I go, “why are you so naive?” They easily go along with your tricks. They are waiting, ready to go along with anything you offer them. It’s the same mentality as the people who come to anime events and go, “since I’m already here, I am prepared to get my money’s worth by laughing at everything, even the parts that aren’t funny, and have a good time with everyone.” From a customer’s point of view, it’s such a naive mindset….maybe even going past naive into sly territory. Speaking broadly about movies in general, half-baked drama, half-baked crying or overly sentimental things doesn’t work on audiences nowadays. Rather, they are looking for ways to laugh at it.

Ever since that TV drama, "Stewardess Monogatari", I've been endlessly wary of such things. The goal is to make people laugh, not be laughed at. The movie is useless unless we (the creators) hold on to the hegemony.

Oshii: So when I saw CCA, I thought, there are definitely people out there who got together to drink and laugh out loud while watching this movie. And those who didn’t, said they couldn’t bear to watch it and stopped watching. Since they immediately develop a dislike for it. And the people who watched it seriously are hardcore robot fans, or Gundam fans…… they probably watched it very passionately (laughs). When you remove all of that, the message is clear. It’s completely anachronistic….. well, rather than anachronistic, I think what he’s doing is to a certain extent effective. It’s similar to what I was doing last year (Patlabor 2?).....he's speaking very sincerely, but depending on what kind of world and audiences see this movie, it will become a very unfortunate movie.

Anno: I think that movie is so one-sided though. I can’t imagine he had the audience in mind while he was making it.

Oshii: Well there was a sense of agitation, “there’s no way you’ll understand!”

Anno: I get that sense from the fighting spirit of the film.

Oshii: Because humans are somewhat beyond saving, even if you look at history, we haven’t done anything good. Probably even in the next century, whether humans go out into space, humans will repeat the same stupidity, getting everything and everyone involved and ruining it. That’s why he said, if God isn’t going to do it, I will.

Tsuge (Patlabor) and Char were thinking the same thing, basically wanting to impose punishment. It’s the story of a terrorist who, even if they don’t manage to impose that punishment, can reveal the naked truth just for a moment. It's the world that Miya-san hates most (laughs).

Miyazaki Hayao

Anno: But there’s probably a part of Miya-san that actually wants to write that kind of story.

Oshii: Somewhere yes. Take Nausicaa for example, within that world called “Nausicaa” there are characters with that sort of “scent.” Even that person (Miyazaki) has his own variations of this. It’s just that he has internalized that making it a reality would be a bad thing.

Anno: But his true feelings are Lepka (Future Boy Conan) or somewhere around there.

Oshii: Yes his real thoughts are somewhere different. That’s because that person is very strategic about what he puts out into the world and how. And it’s not necessary for the work to align with his truth.

Anno: Speaking of revealing one’s truth, I had expectations for Porco Rosso but what part of that was true, damn it (laughs).

Oshii: His truth was in there. But not of observations on humanity or the world, his truths about his personal life was the only thing in it. Especially surrounding troubles with women (laughs). And of course, only people who know him personally would understand such a thing. In that sense, it goes far beyond the craftiness of Patlabor; Porco Rosso is way more sly. He let everything out in that film and even left excuses for himself.

When you take off the pig mask, Miya-san is underneath. If he truly wanted to create a world that’s so unheard of and positive like that, why did the pig need to wear a trenchcoat and smoke? They just need to be going oink oink. It would’ve been a much more fun anime that way. If he wanted to make an anime that’ll make the kids happy, then there’s no need to make it so hard boiled, they should’ve just been oinking….cause pigs don’t need to speak. The pig goes oink oink, and is for some reason is good at piloting a plane. Then it would’ve been so much fun. But it’s not like that. And the reason it's not is because he wanted to show his truth….more like, he wanted to dispel his own sorrows through making this film. The audiences had it okay but his staff who had to go along with this are so pitiful. That’s the true pig curse. I bet they couldn’t stand it. Because they’re Miya-san’s excuse.

#cca doujin #hideaki anno #mamoru oshii #finish someday #translations #interview

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jacereviews · 6 years

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Review: Mobile Suit Gundam

Television (Anime) Consumed in: English Sub Also known as: Gundam 0079. OG Gundam. Gundam TV

Note: This review covers only the first television series. This is not the franchise as a whole or the 0079 movie trilogy. Those will come along eventually.

Airing from April 1979 to January 1980, animated at Studio Sunrise and directed by Yoshiyuki Tomino, I’m sure most if not all of you know what “Gundam” is even if you might not have watched or read any of it. I have watched the debut of this long-running series over the last few weeks and had the lovely experience of seeing the birth of Real Robot Mecha and many other pieces that would become part of Anime Culture. Though the question tends to come up with genre fathers, does it still hold up? Or did this simply work in an era of lower standards? This review will not contain any major spoilers, though for the sake of analysis I will have to discuss how the series handles its plot and characters even if I avoid going into major detail. Alright, let’s rock.

PLOT: So while Mobile Suit Gundam *is* the story of the One-Year War, it is also not. The year is Universal Century 0079. The Earth Federation now covers more than just Earth, with lunar colonies and artificial satellite space colonies known as “Sides”. However Side 3 has risen up in rebellion, calling itself the Principality of Zeon, and has in a swift move of advanced technology and facist war culture fought a destructive war against the Earth Federation, taking out many Sides and even conquering parts of Earth. By the time the show has started, this war has cost a toll of half of the human population. However this show isn’t about the war as a whole, more so it’s the story of one ship, the White Base. Classified military vehicle White Base docks at Side 7, carrying with it prototypes of the Earth Federation’s Mobile Suits. However Zeon gets a jump on the federation, launching an invasion on Side 7. The White Base makes its escape with the civilian population of Side 7 on board. The rest of the series follows the voyage of the White Base, from its escape to Earth, to its fights in the operation to end the One Year War. Rather than a large scale lens the plot is told through mostly the experiences of the White Base and its crew, we actually see more from the perspective of Zeon than we do from other Federation forces, and every instance of other Federation views are directly on the White Base. While this focus can lead us to becoming intimately familiar with a size-able cast, it means that any large scale operations the White Base partakes in feel similar to the independent skirmishes it partakes in, as we see only the perspective of the White Base crew and the opposing general, mostly hearing about other fronts through radio reports and discussions. However this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but those looking for a bigger war story might be a tad disappointed. In general I found the plot to be rather engaging. It mostly moved at a pretty fast speed and kept shaking things up enough that the constant battles didn’t get very old. As the stories are told in a more episodic manner most conflicts tend to get resolved in a timely manner and we move on. However the downside of the episodic nature is occasionally you just get uninteresting episodes (such as Episode 7) where the whole thing feels pointless and feels like it needs to move on with the overarching plot. Aside from the arc on Earth dragging on occasion most individual episodes tend to make noticeable progress and push along the course of the narrative. Occasionally it even feels like the story is moving too fast, some enemies get steamrolled, some interactions turn a significant result after only a few minutes, but it never felt like the story overall moved too fast, and a lot of these happened towards the end of the series, where anyone familiar with the production of Gundam might be able to estimate why. Though mostly grounded, towards the end the plot takes some strange turns with the introduction of the concept of Newtypes, which could make the show more or less interesting depending on the viewer. To briefly touch on the ending, I thought it was pretty good. It’s definitely not the most climactic of endings (as one wouldn’t except a war story to climax with a final episode called “Escape”) but it was satisfying none the less. It was messy and chaotic only insofar as war itself is messy and chaotic, and it put a good bow on the stories of our characters, though some epilogue would’ve been nice (like perhaps a “Where are they now?”).

For this section I’d give a 7.5/10, it’s good but nothing amazing.

CHARACTERS: It might seem odd that I didn’t mention any characters in the plot section, but that’s because the crew of the White Base act together as a unit, though definitely not to discredit their individual characters. Let’s start with the main character Amuro Ray. Amuro is the 15 year-old son of the Federation engineer Dr. Tem Ray, he moved out with his father to Side 7 so his father could work on developing Mobile Suits. Amuro himself is pretty technology-savvy (having built the series mascot Haro). Through a large part being forced and a small part choosing himself, he ends up piloting the prototype mobile suit, Gundam, after the invasion of Side 7. As a natural pilot and engineer, he becomes the leading man of the White Base’s combat forces, being the main pilot of the Gundam and doing some rodeos in the other Mobile Suits. Over the course of the series we see him develop from a semi-anti-social teen who’s hesitant to shoot another human to an ace soldier. His arc develops slowly with plenty of bumps caused by his immaturity, but he does naturally grow and develop over time and by the end he’s quite the force to be reckoned with. While not a particularly unique or shockingly nuanced character, he’s more than serviceable and in a lot of ways represents different aspects of the world of Gundam. Being both the civilian dragged into the catastrophic war and eventually being our lead into the secret of the Newtypes. Other people of note on the White Base include Bright Noa, the military officer pressed into active command of the White Base after its captain becomes incapacitated. He starts off as a rather unsympathetic hard-ass, who’s stiff nature both causes him to be effective in crisis but also to break hard rather than bend. He learns to warm up and adapt, over time becoming the heart of the White Base and its leader. By the end of the show he was one of my favorite characters. Sayla Mass is also a character of note, initially working as a coms officer and eventually becoming a pilot. She’s the only female pilot and despite taking a long time to become decent, she becomes one of Amuro’s most reliable comrades by the end. Her past also slowly becomes revealed as it holds some of the secrets to the origin of the One Year War. Last character of the White Base I want to give special mention to is Kai Shinden. Kai starts out as the cynical voice of the cast, showing a desire for self-preservation and satisfaction, being generally unsympathetic to the “we’re all soldiers now” narrative everyone else plays. However for a few episodes in the late 20s his character arc becomes the main focus, it’s one of the stronger parts of the show in my opinion, and seeing him go from unlikeable douche to a character with his own baggage and reason to fight was nice, even if the arc itself was tragic. However the characters I mentioned early are stand out rather than the whole cast. I mean no disservice to Hayato, Ryu, Mirai, and Fraw Bow, who have some pretty good development of their own, just more interweaven into the overarching story rather than taking a front seat. They’re good characters in their own right, but they aren’t the shining stars you’ll never forget. As I mentioned earlier in the plot discussion, we also see the perspective of Zeon quite a bit and as such they have some pretty strong characters themselves. First and foremost is the show-stealer Char Aznable. The Red Comet, Char is a Lieutenant Commander of the Zeon military, and the one leading the chase of the White Base. Char is a very strong character both in combat and presence, he stands out for his masterful Mobile Suit control (notably his Mobile Suit is painted red) and his quick thinking and strong tactics. Even in a losing battle Char is known to keep his Mobile Suit intact and is already preparing for the next battle ahead. As much as Char spends his time hunting the White Base, he has grander ambitions within the Zeon Military. His wit is not only in combat strategy, but in politics and people, making him a joy to watch. He too has a hidden past, covered up like his face, which he always hides with a mask. Some other notable Zeons are Garma Zabi, the son of Zeon ruler Degwin Zabi, who alongside his siblings play major roles as opponents and leaders in the Zeon military. And Ramba Ral, a lieutenant in the Zeon military and an old fashioned soldier through and through. He’s rather likable with his noble patriotism and respect for his opponents, treating them as equals rather than lessers. He’s a good man who just happens to be on the opposing side, he inspires admiration and respect from both his soldiers and the viewers. All in all Gundam does a good job of developing and both likeable and large cast. Char himself is worth a bonus point.

8/10, loveable cast but only Char reaches anything above good.

VISUALS: Keep in mind this series was made in 1979. It’s old, no way around that, but not necessarily bad. The designs are pretty good even if there’s not a lot of stand out. The Mobile Suits and technology generally look pretty good, but I felt some of Zeon’s newer weapons introduced in the later half were a bit much on the design aspect. The Gundam itself is iconic, but I wouldn’t call it amazing. If anything my favorite mecha design was actually the Guncannon. The backgrounds never really stood out to me as anything too amazing, and I wonder if it’s intentional that the series mostly avoided showing futuristic big cities. The animation itself is hit and miss. There’s a lot of cool direction and interesting ideas. Due to the nature of mecha anime in the 70s, a large amount of the violence had to be separated from humans. For a war story there’s very little blood as most battles are fought with machines and explosions. A good amount of times some interesting presentation tricks were taken to show death or extreme violence. Covering up blood and death in the chaos of war is hard to do believably but Gundam pulls it off. Towards the end though the gloves come off and we occasionally see some people get straight murdered. However to balance out all the unique tricks and ideas are loads of animation errors and inconsistencies. Weapons and gear changing between scenes, pieces of machines vanishing for a bit, derp faces, you name it. The series has lots of them but they’re never really distracting but aren’t fun (or are fun depending on who you are) to notice. The only real egregious one is a derp face Ryu makes once that keeps showing up in the episode opening recaps (which aren’t themselves bad) for a bit. Other than that they mostly go over with no problem and don’t much damage the experience. Though there are interesting ideas in direction, I never really found any point where the animation was particularly impressive. It’s a 70′s TV anime though, so we just have to accept that. Not everything can be Akira. After the introduction of Newtypes we occasionally get some unique and trippy visuals but they themselves aren’t much to write home about even if they’re nice to watch.

5.5/10, It’s mostly passable, the good and the bad balance out a lot. Though the mecha designs are iconic for a reason.

AUDIO: Starting with voice acting it’s a pretty flat even. Char’s got a good Seiyuu, so does Garma. Nothing too amazing, no Mamoru Miyanos here. No real negatives either, the kids can be annoying but they’re little kids, little kids are annoying. The narrator is pretty good and Haro’s got a nifty sound. Everyone is nicely distinct though. It’s average and that’s fine. The music is more notable though. There’s some good bops in there, the few times the show puts a full insert song make for a good time, though the regular OST does it’s job quite well. Some of the combat themes have some nice kick to em, and Lalah’s theme is pretty memorable. Large part though the soundtrack isn’t that memorable. Nothing outside of action scenes really stuck with me. There were a few times the soundtrack sounded confused, cutting from piece to piece uncomfortably and on a few rare moments it felt like they were using the wrong track for certain scenes. Nothing particularly noticeable unless you’re trying to pay attention to the OST though. The OP’s pretty good, definitely grew on me over time, by the late 20s I found myself singing along to it on occasion (and once in public). The ED’s pretty nice and quiet and pretty alright, didn’t do much for me personally.

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Overall 6/10, it’s decent but not much more. Few really good moments, few missteps.

FINAL SCORE: 7/10

While the show is by no means perfect, it was still a damn good time that even made me cry once. It has aged but many things have aged worse than it. It shines a lot in it’s ideas and characters, but has noticeable hickups along the way. Not only is it important in the history of mecha and the Japanese media industry, it’s also just a genuinely good show with a lot of heart. I’d still give it a recommendation to fans of mecha and classic anime, though the movie trilogy or Origin manga might be a better telling of the story (I’ll go through both eventually). It’s a good show on is own, but as the first step into a mega-series I’m excited to see where we go from here. All in all, Doan Cucruz didn’t deserve to be cute from the dub and DVD, his episode was good, Tomino.

#mobile suit gundam #gundam 0079 #OG gundam #Gundam #0079 #Anime #Anime Review #mecha #classics #classic anime #blackwinged

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